Iowa's Governor Terry Branstad Thinks He Doesn't Use E-mail

Earthquake Retrofit writes The Washington Post reports the governor of Iowa denying he uses e-mail, but court documents expose his confusion. From the article: "Branstad's apparent confusion over smartphones, apps and e-mail is ironic because he has tried to portray himself as technologically savvy. His Instagram account has pictures of him taking selfies and using Skype... 2010 campaign ads show him tapping away on an iPad. 'Want a brighter future? We've got an app for that.' Earlier this month, the governor's office announced that it had even opened an account on Meerkat, the live video streaming app." Perhaps he's distancing himself from e-mail because it's a Hillary thing.

Comments

*sigh*

[gstoddart]

Why must we keep electing people who are so fucking stupid?

Re:*sigh*

[aardvarkjoe]

Because smart people don't seem to want the job.

Re:*sigh*

[Anonymous Coward]

Those who are too smart to get involved in politics end up being ruled by idiots.

Re:*sigh*

[beelsebob]

Right, smart people realise that the real way to get power is to pull the strings on the dumb people

Re:*sigh*

[Joe_Dragon]

They buy the vote and the big player like comcrap like the dumb ones that they can BS them on the golf course.

Re:*sigh*

[ganjadude]

My question is this

So because hillary is found to be lying... i mean in the dark about her email, why are we all of a sudden asking everyone about theirs??

Is it to try and shift the topic?

Is it to actually try and get electronic document reform?

is it for nothing but gotya moments on old guys who dont understand tech?

Re:*sigh*

[ArhcAngel]

Easy...there need to be enough smart people voting to cancel out the less intelligent folk, which outnumber the smart folk by a wide margin. Dismiss Idiocracy all you want. The future is now and it craves electrolytes!

Re:*sigh*

[gstoddart]

So because hillary is found to be lying... i mean in the dark about her email, why are we all of a sudden asking everyone about theirs??

My hope is that people have figured out that all politicians are lying assholes who think the rules don't apply to them.

My fear is this is just a brief trend and reporters will go back to ignoring the fact that politicians are lying assholes who think the rules don't apply to them.

Re:*sigh*

[ScentCone]

Why must we keep electing people who are so fucking stupid?

Well, we're about to elect Hillary Clinton. She's not stupid. She thinks everyone else is stupid, and she's got enough supporters who don't care whether or why she's being feloniously coy about things like her email use (her lawyer just this evening explained that Clinton has destroyed all of her email that wasn't printed out to lamely respond to demands for her records from her tenure at State).

When she's president, don't ask why we elected a stupid person. As why we stupidly elected her. We'll have eight years to think it through. Yay.

Re:*sigh*

[Anonymous Coward]

It's time to reinstitute the draft -- and draft'em into politics.

Oh, wait the "best and the brightest" ivy league college graduates got us into Vietnam ...

Re:*sigh*

[Bite The Pillow]

In spite of all this, Centers continues to insist that Branstad does not use e-mail. But checking your e-mail on your phone counts as using e-mail. Receiving e-mails from your staff counts as using e-mail. Sending accidental e-mails with your Blackberry counts as using e-mail.

Checking a group distribution list because that's how you get news is not really "using" e-mail.

Checking a group mail is not checking "your" e-mail.

Sending e-mails which demonstrate that you have no idea what you are doing does certainly not count as "using" "e-mail".

Obviously, this craptastically ignorant fuckstain is not tech savvy. Just as obviously, he is in no way "using" e-mail. Certainly not the way anyone, including 70+ year old relatives and everyone else in the world that I know, literally every single person, in the world, that I have ever met, uses e-mail. He is not doing that.

Because he is not using e-mail. And he is a complete fucktard. Not an incomplete one. A complete fucktard. An ignorant one. And that's worse.

Why do we elect such stupid people? Because using e-mail doesn't seem to be on any platform, nor any sort of anything ever. Is he stupid? Sure, but ignorance of technology isn't really part of it.

Plus, old people vote, and young people don't. So maybe if I had a plank involving telegraphs and being against tomatoes, I'd win all the votes.

Now, go tell young people to vote. And don't screw any of them in the process. Just stick to voting related conversation.

Re:*sigh*

[Billly Gates]

Problem with that is you need stupid people, special interests, and fringe nutcase to extreme of your party in the primaries. Rational smart folks need not apply.

You need to be either a radical socialist or extreme tea party who wants to abolish most of the government who make special rules for corporations and monopolies and very sharp TV commercials with a team of as trot urging posters to troll Facebook to fire up the low information voters with promises of no compromise.

Sorry slashdotters. That is no one here

Re:*sigh*

[Anonymous Coward]

So because hillary is found to be lying... i mean in the dark about her email, why are we all of a sudden asking everyone about theirs??

My hope is that people have figured out that all politicians are lying assholes who think the rules don't apply to them.

My fear is this is just a brief trend and reporters will go back to ignoring the fact that politicians are lying assholes who think the rules don't apply to them.

Well, would you rather it be a use of email for personal use, which one could argue, hurts no one and is much ado about nothing, or would you rather the types who would grind the economy and the congress and the country to a screeching halt because they don't like the president? The president can either get a blow job from an intern, or he can be idiotic to start 2 wars on two fronts without clear objectives and exit strategies.. If Americans are one to learn from their mistakes, They really should be a lot less forgiving of the Republican variety of this form of BS, because it has historically hurt the American citizen more than the things Democrats are regularly criticized for. I can suppose you can deceive yourself if you drink the Republican coolaid.

Re:*sigh*

[whoever57]

Are they really stupid, or smart people playing stupid?

Perhaps it doesn't matter. All that matters is how they act and if they act stupid ...

Re:*sigh*

[nwf]

He's still smarter than the average voter from what I see.

Generally, I think that anyone who can get elected isn't really qualified for the job. The qualified people can't get elected because people vote on stupid things almost entirely, despite what they say.

Re:*sigh*

[whoever57]

If I were a betting man I would think Ted Cruz will be our next president.

I think that Ted Cruz is only the stalking horse. It's easy for him now while he is appealing to his base, but if he wins the primary, he will be easy to portray as a right-wing nut.

Re:*sigh*

[Theaetetus]

No way in hell!

She is part of the problem. Old, corrupt, polarizing, etc.

Literally every president - and candidate - since Reagan has been called "polarizing". Look at Romney with his whole "47% of the country will never vote for me, so we need to focus on the remaining 53% to win" thing. Why is it an issue now?

Re:*sigh*

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, smart people realise that the real way to get power is to pull the strings on the dumb people

That only covers a particular subgroup (manipulators). A more general answer is the Dunning-Kruger effect.

Smart people are smart enough to know they are underqualified to make rules affecting millions of other people in both subtle and obvious ways. Dumb people are bereft of self-doubt and will happily charge off the edge of a cliff because, hey, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Re:*sigh*

[jader3rd]

Because smart people don't seem to want the job.

It's not that smart people don't want the job, smart people aren't electable. During an election they'll inevitably make a comment that hurts a special interest group and get whisked out of the public spot light before the next sun rise.

Re:*sigh*

[rahvin112]

All politicians are emissaries of Satan but Hillary Clinton is only a 1st level Imp while all of the Republican candidates are first level commanders right below the Great Satan himself with a direct link to the orders of the dark lord.

I'd rather have GW Bush back in office again for 8 years rather than ANY of the republicans running for office these days.

But if a Clinton get's elected again, I know at least one thing for sure, that is that she won't start approving tax cuts while boosting spending (gotta boost that Military industrial complex or they might not get their checks at election time) like the Republicans want. You know Tax-cut and spend, the new Republican Motto since the NeoCons took over the party. I'll take a tax and spend Democrat over a tax-cut and spend Republican any day of the week.

This is a party that has made "no new spending without offsetting reductions elsewhere" their party platform under Obama but they get control of both houses and the first thing they do is write a bill to boost Defense spending 200 billion and don't pay for it. You also have the duplicity of groups like the Koch brothers that scream and yell about competition and free market but the first chance they get they get a law passed in Florida barring people from using any power that they didn't buy from the power company (because ideals don't count if it hurts the bottom line).

Re:*sigh*

[chipschap]

There is no law regarding sending classified materials to a nongovernment email server.

Huh? You can just forward classified material to non-secure servers outside of a classified network? I think not!

Besides, the classified materials she had access to are not that important anyway.

As Secretary of State she would have access to incredibly sensitive material.

Re:*sigh*

[The Evil Atheist]

Wrong way around. People don't want smart people in the job.

People want easy slogans and pipe dreams. They don't like people better than them in positions better than them. That's why "elitist" is an insult in politics today.

People should stop over estimating their intelligence and their need to have their stupid opinions dignified.

Re:*sigh*

[rahvin112]

Portray as a nut? He IS a nut.

He had the gall to question Obama's citizenship (born in Hawaii to an American woman and Kenyan father), when Cruz was born in Canada (to an American woman) and has a Cuban father.

But now it's crazy to question his ability to run for the presidency because his mother was American, ya know just like Obama which he claimed meant Obama didn't meet the requirements because the birth certificate is a forgery and he was actually born in Indonesia, a foreign country, just like Canada. But most of the birthers will leave him alone because he's not Black. Though I can't wait to see how he defends all the crazy shit his Dad has said over the years. His Dad would fit in with the west-borough baptist church with some of the shit he's spewed.

Re:*sigh*

[hitmark]

Not sure if they are dumb or just act dumb to try to excuse their decision making...

Re: *sigh*

[Anonymous Coward]

"Elitist" should be an insult. Unfortunately, though, people also think "elite" is one as well...

Re:*sigh*

[TheReaperD]

The other ones that want the job are people who want power... at any cost. Not usually the type of people you want to have power but, since anybody else would run from the job, that's what we get.

Re:*sigh*

[readin]

In spite of all this, Centers continues to insist that Branstad does not use e-mail. But checking your e-mail on your phone counts as using e-mail. Receiving e-mails from your staff counts as using e-mail. Sending accidental e-mails with your Blackberry counts as using e-mail.

Checking a group distribution list because that's how you get news is not really "using" e-mail.

Checking a group mail is not checking "your" e-mail.

Sending e-mails which demonstrate that you have no idea what you are doing does certainly not count as "using" "e-mail".

Obviously, this craptastically ignorant fuckstain is not tech savvy.

I was with you until you said he "obviously" is not "tech savvy". So we know from reading the article that he recognizes that his Blackberry is "old-fashioned". And he apparently doesn't waste a lot of time digging into how the company that makes Blackberry markets them (they call them "smart phones" but there are much smarter phones our there these days).

As for the email? He had his staff set something up and he checked in on a regular bases using an app that probably hid details from him. Did he need to care what those details were? I'm pretty tech savvy in some areas. i can build a large scale web app. I can tell you about a lot of different frameworks for building sites. I can tell you about strengths and weaknesses of those frameworks, strengths and weaknesses of the various languages for writing code, what common architectures, web servers, and application servers are. Yet here I sit using Slashdot and I haven't the faintest idea what language it is written in, what web server is serving the content, what frameworks are involved. If I viewed the source on the page to see the javascript I might get some clues, but I honestly just don't care. This governor may have viewed it the same way. It was an app set up by someone else for him and he didn't care to find out how it was implemented even if he could tell you details about various computer communication protocols.. He has other things to spend his time on.

Re:*sigh*

[frank_adrian314159]

If I were a betting man I would think Ted Cruz will be our next president.

Yeah. Good thing you're not a betting man. If R's run Cruz, Hillary won't need to bring out her base - fear will do that for her.

As someone to the left of the D's, I love it when the wingnuts get their man in - it means I don't have to waste my vote on some retarded D and can cast my vote with a clear conscience for the Socialist or WFP candidate.

Re:*sigh*

[wickedsteve]

George Carlin had some insight: "Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don't fall out of the sky. They don't pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses and American universities, and they are elected by American citizens. This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It's what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out."

Re:*sigh*

[RightwingNutjob]

no. people know politicians are evil. so which do you want: evil and stupid or evil and competent?

Re:*sigh*

[sumdumass]

He had the gall to question Obama's citizenship (born in Hawaii to an American woman and Kenyan father), when Cruz was born in Canada (to an American woman) and has a Cuban father.

You got a cite for that? I can't see anything but a few far left mud slingers making that accusation. surely if Cruze did question Obama's eligibility, it would be documented somewhere before he started eyeballing the run himself.

But now it's crazy to question his ability to run for the presidency because his mother was American, ya know just like Obama

I would say the issue is already hammered out because of what happened with Obama and the only crazy thing about bringing it up would be some lame attempt to shovel different and contradictory results for pure political reasons.

Re:*sigh*

[HBI]

He was born in Canada. But, his mother was a US citizen and only there due to her husband's work, and I think as a result he does qualify as native born. McCain was born in the Canal Zone and we've had a few other situations like that. I think that even if Obama had been born in Kenya, as some aver, he would probably have been adjudged as native born due to his mother similarly being a US citizen.

Re:*sigh*

[whoever57]

McCain was born in the Canal Zone

Got a cite for that? There are people claiming that he was born in a hospital outside the canal zone.

He was born in Canada. But, his mother was a US citizen and only there due to her husband's work, and I think as a result he does qualify as native born

Obama was born in Hawaii, but even if he had not been born on US soil, he still had one parent who was a US citizen. So, all those people who were questioning the legitimacy of Obama as President, where are they now, since Obama has a stronger claim to be a natural born citizen than Cruz has.

Re:*sigh*

[phantomfive]

Which 'smart person' are you talking about?

Re:*sigh*

[bill_mcgonigle]

Why must we keep electing people who are so fucking stupid?

This is the result that democracy produces. *SO* many people want to deny it despite all available supporting data.

Maybe because admitting it would demand some sort of corrective action.

Re:*sigh*

[fisted]

Having been expelled before 8th grade is not something to brag with, son.

Re:*sigh*

[93 Escort Wagon]

If I were a betting man I would think Ted Cruz will be our next president. The tea party is very energized and filled with so much anti Obama emotion that a right wing leader will be pushed.

Which is exactly why Ted Cruz will not be the next president.

The current GOP is making the exact same mistakes the Democrats made repeatedly in the late 60s and early 70s (and then again in the 80s). They are too beholden to a very vocal minority that is simply too far removed ideologically from the bulk of Americans. After their candidates have completely bent over to placate the extremists in order to win the nomination, even the most skilled spin doctors can't repaint them as close enough to the center to actually win.

Sure, the GOP can ride this strategy to grab House and Senate seats, but - like the Dems - they can't acquire the Big Chair without largely ignoring the extremists and moving towards the center.

Re:*sigh*

[Zontar The Mindless]

As someone to the left of the D's

What the heck is to the left of the D's?

In a normal country it would be about 75% of the population.

Re:*sigh*

[sumdumass]

I understand that. What I cannot find is where he actually questioned Obama's eligibility. As far as I know, Ted Cruze has never done so publicly and the closest I can tell- has supported efforts to have people prove their citizenship before being allowed to vote.

As for the key difference between Obama and Cruze or even McCain is that in 1961, there was a requirement that the citizen parent reside in the country for at least 10 years (five of which after they were 14 years old) prior to birth and for the child to reside in the US for 5 consecutive years starting after age 14 and before age 23. There was some question about those conditions being met due to timelines from books published by Obama or about Obama's family. In 1966, the law was amended to allow service associated with military or official government duties to qualify as in country for those time span purposes. Or at least that was the claim and it certainly was not helped by Obama playing games with releasing his birth certificate which made some question it's authenticity and/or validity.

I think it is clear now that he was born in Hawaii so it isn't an issue for anyone but the die hard crazies. Nothing will be done about it anyways at this point. Interestingly, the birther movement is associated with right wing nutjobs but it originated around Hillary trying to win the primary.

Re:*sigh*

[Jane Q. Public]

Why must we keep electing people who are so fucking stupid?

Where have you been all your life?

They aren't stupid (most of them, anyway). On the contrary. They:

(A) think WE are stupid, and

(B) want US to think THEY are stupid. While the entire time their hired pickpocket is sneaking into our wallets.

Re:*sigh*

[StevenMaurer]

Huh? You can just forward classified material to non-secure servers outside of a classified network? I think not!

As Secretary of State she would have access to incredibly sensitive material.

A couple of things, that might set your mind at ease. According to reports:

1. Ms. Clinton did not "forward" material to her private server. People were just emailing to her at her personal email address at "clintonemail.com".
2. Those emails she received considered to be official business, her staff forwarded to the State Department for their IT operators to save.
3. She also produced a huge amount of documents to various Congressional Committees.
4. None of these emails were classified. They appear to have been sent to her unencrypted
5. Sensitive material never went through this email system.
6. Apparently the State Department isn't very good at IT. They only recently were able to figure out how to even just save Secretary Kerry's email; his top staff using the @state.gov address still do not have their email records saved. So by using @clintonemail.com, HRC likely was preserving more email than if she'd saved used an @state.gov address.
7. Personal emails (and presumably spam) was not sent on. But no law covers that anyway.

This is much akin to the media breathlessly discovering that Hillary Clinton also has a private phone number, which maybe official calls were received. Except that because this is "email", it's totally different somehow. (By which I mean, as she's the presumptive Democratic nominee, the nutcases and conspiracy loons are going to do their nutcase conspiracy theorizing, which Blogs and FOX will pick up - because it sells eyeballs.)

Re:*sigh*

[Zontar The Mindless]

Branstad makes more money than you do, or ever will.

Yes, and...?

He also has more influence over more people than you do, or ever will.

But how much control does he really have over his own life?

You think you are smarter than he is? You know more about tech. He knows more about how to obtain power and utilize it for his own benefit.

Perhaps. Whether he's really benefitting himself is matter for debate, but I'll grant you the rest.

For this, he gets access to security,

I don't have to worry about some loony with a rifle coming to visit my house nearly as much as he does, either. There's this thing about standing out that tends to draw attention from crazies...

luxuries,

I can't eat crab or lobster, red wine gives me a headache, and a ceramic toilet seat works just as well as a gold-plated one.

drugs,

"My life is better because I've better drugs"? Uh, what?

Even so--Nobody's stopping me from smoking this joint I've got in my hand. And even if I get busted, I doubt it'll make the local paper.

and women that are forever beyond your reach.

I have one woman who I am pretty sure is forever beyond his reach--or anyone else's.

His kids will have a better education than your kids, and will likely live lives that are far more opulent than those of your kids.

They will likely receive a more expensive education and be brought up in more opulent surroundings. Neither of which has much bearing on how well they'll be brought up by a man who maybe can't teach them anything other than, "Just tell people what they want to hear."

You think you are smarter than he is? You are missing the big picture.

And you're missing out on a myriad of details, wherein, 'tis said, dwells the Devil.

Keep reading those technical manuals. Maybe you will be the next Bill Gates. But probably not.

Good. I don't need a billion bucks to be happy, and I've no wish to have on my conscience some of the things he does.

Re:*sigh*

[sumdumass]

One of those just might be the next president if Hillary ever gains any traction. It was originally brought up by one of her supporters in order to help her win the primaries..

Re:*sigh*

[Dahan]

The issue with Obama as it has been stated is that his mother was 18 at his birth and had not lived for five years in the US after she turned 18. So If your mother was under 19 you can't be president. For me, that fucking bogus. An obvious bug, written into the US constitution.

No, that is not an issue at all. While you have to be 35 years old to be president of the US, the age of your mother when you were born is irrelevant. The text of the US constitution is readily available online for you to see for yourself: "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States."

You seem to be vaguely referencing the requirements for citizenship at birth for someone who was born outside the US, but that's not an issue with Obama because he was born in the US, and is therefore a natural born US citizen.

Re:*sigh*

[Anonymous Coward]

As Secretary of State she would have access to incredibly sensitive material.

Bullshit considering she didn't pass the top level security clearance. She had very limited access to classified materials. She was also kept out of nearly all planning with the White House. It is a Republican lie that she has materials that could have been hacked and made public. Besides, her server was more secure. She hired a certified expert to do an audit. That is better than what her office did. Again, this is just Republican lies that Faux Knews is spouting.

Re:*sigh*

[MichaelSmith]

But wasn't this the argument about Hawaii, that it wasn't really a state when Obama was born there, but his mother was a US citizen, etc, etc.

Re:*sigh*

[Tablizer]

who don't care whether or why she's being feloniously coy about things like her email use...[emph. added]

Cite one clear-cut law that she broke.

Politicians may be naive about technology, but it seems techies are naive about law. Touche!
 

Re:*sigh*

[DamonHD]

Have you noticed the small place called Europe over the other side of the Atlantic?

Almost all of it bar the openly racist parties is to the left of almost all of the US politically.

Rgds

Damon

Re:*sigh*

[meerling]

They're smart enough to have morals and not sabotage society for their own benefit, otherwise they'd probably already be politicians.

Re:*sigh*

[FlyHelicopters]

Have you noticed the small place called Europe over the other side of the Atlantic?

Almost all of it bar the openly racist parties is to the left of almost all of the US politically.

That is what they tell you, but frankly I'm not actually convinced that is true...

The parts of Europe that it is more true of, won't survive long term in their current state... They are being held up due to the Euro and Germany more than anything else, but that likely isn't a long term solution...

Re:*sigh*

[Paradise Pete]

Why must we keep electing people who are so fucking stupid?

I'm no political wiz, but it seems to me that the skills required to get elected and the skills to do the job well are nearly orthogonal.

Re:*sigh*

[davester666]

No, they go into banking and buy politicians to use as fall guys.

Re:*sigh*

[Paradise Pete]

i don't question President Obama's legal qualification to be president. But what I don't understand, and I'm surprised this hasn't gotten more attention, is that you can download a copy of his birth certificate directly, and yet there are many edits in the layers. You'll need something like Adobe Illustrator to see the layers, but it's obvious a lot of work was done on it before it was posted.

Here's a video showing the layers. I assumed the guy was a nut case, but they're really there. At the very least an explanation is in order.

Re:*sigh*

[dbIII]

Huh? You can just forward classified material to non-secure servers outside of a classified network? I think not!

Of course you CAN because there's little or nothing to stop it happening, and the law doesn't apply to the big end of town. Hence the oil company in Nigeria which the Manning leaks tell us wanted to share as little information with US government agencies as possible because they were convinced that merely classifying it would not stop it leaking via someone like Clinton, Libby or whoever. The same set of leaks had Hillary giving orders to obtain the credit card details of foreign diplomats (mostly NATO allies) for the purpose of framing and blackmail if necessary to force UN votes - once again, something she could do but shouldn't.

Like Libby, North, Poindexter, Petraeus and all the rest she's not going to face any legal consequences for revealing classified material. Meanwhile Manning rots in jail and Snowden is in exile, because they are the "little people".

Re:*sigh*

[dbIII]

You mean he isn't? Shutting down a government during a time of war requires a misplaced focus on political games instead of reality.

Re:*sigh*

[dbIII]

Got a cite for that? There are people claiming that he was born in a hospital outside the canal zone.

Due to the nationality of his parents it does not matter.

Re:*sigh*

[tlhIngan]

Because smart people don't seem to want the job.

Let's not make the equivalence between tech savvy and intelligence, because /., is a perfect example of people who claim to be intelligent, yet painfully ignorant at the same time.

Just because you can use a computer doesn't mean you know how the world works. Heck, tech-savvy people are among the worst people in the world for a job that requires extreme interaction with people who are unpredictable, where how you say something is extremely important (more than what you say), and where how you dress and appear is critical.

Re:*sigh*

[Dragon Bait]

Those emails she received considered to be official business, her staff forwarded to the State Department for their IT operators to save.

Reports also indicate that there were months long gaps. Throwing that assertion into question.

None of these emails were classified. They appear to have been sent to her unencrypted

Without all of the e-mails, there's no way to verify this statement, but it is probably true. The air-gap between classified and unclassified would probably prevent this, but you'd be amazed at how frequently data spills occur. If there was a data spill, it would probably be the fault of someone sending her an classified e-mail versus her generating one on her unclassified system.

Sensitive material never went through this email system.

This statement is probably completely false. Anything not reviewed and marked for public release is considered sensitive. Note that sensitive is not the same thing as classified.

They only recently were able to figure out how to even just save Secretary Kerry's email; his top staff using the @state.gov address still do not have their email records saved.

But in this case, the responsibility is where it belongs -- on the government and the government employees. By being on Clinton's private server ... who is legally responsible?

This is much akin to the media breathlessly discovering that Hillary Clinton also has a private phone number, which maybe official calls were received. Except that because this is "email", it's totally different somehow.

It is. E-mail is automatically backed up and leaves an electronic trail. At this point, phone calls are not automatically recorded -- although the phone call meta-data would certainly be traced and of value.

(By which I mean, as she's the presumptive Democratic nominee,

I voted for her in 2008. Given her actions and reactions to lots of different things, including the fall that may have caused a concussion, she just doesn't seem to be on the same level as she was 8 years ago. But you're right, any criticism of the presumptive Democratic nominee must only be based on nutjobbery and not legitimate concerns. I, for one, would much prefer that we get this out in the open and properly dealt with before the campaign season begins in earnest. With luck, we'll have a Democratic nominee that is presumptive.

Re:*sigh*

[Dragon Bait]

As Secretary of State she would have access to incredibly sensitive material.

Bullshit considering she didn't pass the top level security clearance.

A quick google didn't show this, do you have any links that show she didn't have a clearance? Seems like it would be impossible to do her job without one (or at least, without access to classified and/or sensitive materials).

Re:*sigh*

[serviscope_minor]

It is. E-mail is automatically backed up and leaves an electronic trail.

No it's not. It's only backed up if you make your mail server actually make backups. There is nothing in the email protocol which implies backups are made. In fact sorting out backups is something you have to deal with if you run a mail server.

Re:*sigh*

[jellomizer]

No it is partisan politics.
If Hillary personal email server was really an issue, it would have brought up years ago before the start of the next presedential run.
But because she is a political threat it is a good discression that the republicans can make a fuss about, and this time the media is on their side, because they want access to her personal email. While the media touts government transparency they really want to see if Hillary is on good terms with Bill.

Now if Hillary stunk up the bathroom. The republicans will deny that they would never do that.

Re:*sigh*

[Anonymous Coward]

Some scanners do all kind of things, including sharpening, background removal, and text detection. I'm not surprised that a PDF from a scanner is more complicated than a bitmap.

Re:*sigh*

[DamonHD]

The UK and Germany, as relatively solvent and sane parts of the EU are both well to the left of US politics, and various aspects of US outlook from religion to guns to science denial are inexplicable from over here. Not strictly left/right but probably as much to do with the general level of education.

Rgds

Damon

Re:*sigh*

[Dragon Bait]

It is. E-mail is automatically backed up and leaves an electronic trail.

No it's not. It's only backed up if you make your mail server actually make backups. There is nothing in the email protocol which implies backups are made. In fact sorting out backups is something you have to deal with if you run a mail server.

In context, now you're being an idiot. The records management law requires the back ups of decision making records -- which includes e-mails but not phone conversations. I remember when my kids were 5 and they would jump on every statement to try and show how it was wrong while the context would show that it was correct (or should be considered correct). Thankfully, they out grew that.

Re:*sigh*

[zenyu]

Native born isn't really the issue. It is pretty easy to argue he isn't native born if you just look at the original constitution. But the 14th amendment pretty much states that if you a citizen you have full rights whether naturalized or born, and of course anyone born in the country is a citizen. This means the whole native born stuff is meaningless now. By the time this amendment was passed the country no-longer worried that England might infiltrate the government and put an Englishman in charge and there was the very real problem of the Southern states abridging the rights of blacks.

If he is a citizen he can run for president, under the law of the land at the time all he had to do to naturalize was file a short form stating that his mother was a US citizen. My mother filed this form on my behalf when I was a child and I got a nice letter from Jimmy Carter. Same with McCain, he was probably born in a hospital outside the canal zone, but it doesn't matter due to the 14th amendment. He is unquestionably a citizen.

Re:*sigh*

[TheGratefulNet]

"I know he can GET the job, but can he DO the job? I'm not arguing that with you. I'm not arguing that with you!"

(memorable quote from a really funny movie)

Re:*sigh*

[Anonymous Coward]

Hawaii was a state in 1961.

Re: *sigh*

[BlueTrin]

You make a confusion here, smart and honest is not the same thing.

Re:*sigh*

[CrimsonAvenger]

a good discression

I really hope you meant "an indiscretion" here, otherwise I have no idea what you're talking about.

So, enquiring minds want to know: are you semiliterate, or are you trying to say something else entirely?

Re: *sigh*

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only did he start two wars on two fronts, but he paid for it all on the government equivalent of credit cards and IOUs. And it wasn't until the next guy I office finally took control and started picking up the tab and paying for it properly that the other political party realized just how much we were actually spending to enforce freedom! Amazing how they could blame the guy currently in office for those wars that he didn't start but most certainly had to finish.

Re: *sigh*

[BlueTrin]

You seem to forgot the most basic truth of the justice system: it is up to the accusers to prove that she is guilty not up to her to prove she is innocent.

Re:*sigh*

[jmac_the_man]

Scooter Libby lost his job and had to pay a shitload in fines. Only the prison term was commuted. He was also never charged with leaking anything. Also, his conviction was part of a partisan witch hunt. Richard Armitage leaked the name of Wilson's wife. Armitage confessed to the prosecutor before Libby was ever interviewed, so there was no reason to interview Libby in the first place. The prosecutor did anyway because he wanted to stick The Bad Guys with something.

Armitage opposed the Iraq war, and leaked the name by mistake. The leak wasn't a Cheney/Rove plot to smear Iraq war opponents, which is the story we were all fed at the time.

Re:*sigh*

[jmac_the_man]

But the 14th amendment pretty much states that if you a citizen you have full rights whether naturalized or born, and of course anyone born in the country is a citizen. This means the whole native born stuff is meaningless now.

The 14th amendment doesn't overturn the Article II eligibility requirements. However, there have always been two ways to get US citizenship, by birth and through the naturalization process. Obama and Cruz are both citizens by virtue of the fact that their mothers were US citizens. (Obama is also a citizen by virtue of the fact that he was born in Hawaii.) By contrast, people like Madeline Albright (she was Bill Clinton's secretary of state), and Arnold Schwarzenegger, who became US citizens through the naturalization process, are not eligible to be President.

Re:*sigh*

[Anonymous Coward]

An explanation was provided. That's not a simple photo of the original birth certificate, it's a scanned copy of a re-issued certificate which was produced by Hawaii and has been certified as such by multiple Hawaiian officials, and OCR software often produces those layers.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/04/29/expert-says-obamas-birth-certificate-legit/

If you believe that the Hawaiian officials are lying, in particular, Alvin T. Omaka, the state registrar, your avenue to pursue an inquiry into that is in Hawaii's state court system. Perhaps you might even be able to establish your right to examine their files yourself.

Otherwise, please desist with this waste of time, when you can prove to your own self that your allegations are specious and false. Repeating them only shows your ignorance or willful practice of deceit.

Re:*sigh*

[jmac_the_man]

Literally every president - and candidate - since Reagan has been called "polarizing"

You don't think Carter was polarizing? Or Nixon? LBJ was certainly polarizing. Somebody shot Kennedy, so he certainly qualifies. Maybe Eisenhower wasn't polarizing. But then Truman was. FDR's New Deal and court packing schemes were polarizing. (The New Deal is polarizing to this day.) Skipping back through history (over another guy who got shot, BTW) half the states tried to leave because Lincoln got elected. I'd say polarizing has been the rule, rather than the exception, since Washington left office.

Also, you're leaving out important context in the Romney quote. The reason 47% of the country wouldn't vote for him is because the full weight of the media is devoted to covering up for the Democrat and attacking the Republican. It's not because there's something inherently wrong with Romney or his ideas.

Re:*sigh*

[jmac_the_man]

Sure, the GOP can ride this strategy to grab House and Senate seats, but - like the Dems - they can't acquire the Big Chair without largely ignoring the extremists and moving towards the center.

Counterpoint: Obama was elected in 2008 and 2012

Re:*sigh*

[jmac_the_man]

You're kidding, right? It's against the law to destroy records that are the subject of a subpoena.

Re: *sigh*

[ColdWetDog]

So there is a choice only between selfconsciuos idiots and too conscious intelligent people?

Well, there is us ....

I'm not entirely sure what it suggests for the fate of mankind, but we're here.

Re:*sigh*

[ColdWetDog]

Bullshit considering she didn't pass the top level security clearance. She had very limited access to classified materials.

Honestly, I think that if the Democrats picked someone who can't get a Top Secret clearance to be Secretary of State, Fox News would have been all over that. This goes double if the Democrats are getting ready to nominate her to run for President.

Think about this for a moment.... We don't have any sort of security clearance and we seem to be able to run this country better than the Powers-That-Be. Maybe this is a feature, not a bug.

Re:*sigh*

[Livius]

Getting elected requires saying false things, convincingly, year after year. To do that requires being a sociopath, uninformed, or genuinely mentally ill. Or more than one of the above.

Re:*sigh*

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, Branstad probably does NOT use email. His staff do that sort of thing for him, replying to all the questions in the emails he gets. A similar staff came up with the "technologically savvy" moniker and the iPad campaign ad and...

Re:*sigh*

[wisnoskij]

That was seriously the worst part of Limitless (2011). Super Intelligence means you clean your apartment religiously and run for president.

Re:*sigh*

[Crashmarik]

Hillary. (and democrats in general)

The party of a two term president. Never wins the next one.

Oh really

Lincoln Republican
Johnson Republican
Grant Republican
Hayes Republican
Garfield Republican
Arthur Republican

Not only are there 2 termers in there that's a continuous streak.

Re:*sigh*

[Crashmarik]

I believe it's PERL but the source is available ( google slashcode )

Re:*sigh*

[Bing Tsher E]

Some politicians (i.e. the Clintons) are steamier sacks of shit than the usual, though.

It's going to be a 'fun' 8 years if retread (either retread, actually) manages to get elected.

Re:*sigh*

[Bing Tsher E]

Somebody shot Kennedy, so he certainly qualifies.

Kennedy was shot by a left-wing nut. Somebody who had renounced his citizenship and gone to live in the Soviet Union, and who didn't like it there and came back to the US.

A nut to almost the degree of a Spartacist or Trotskyite.

Re:*sigh*

[Bing Tsher E]

You're buying into the whole 'left/right spectrum' schism.

It's always more complicated than that, though if you're political enough you buy into one scheme or another.

Re:*sigh*

[Bing Tsher E]

I'll take a tax-cut and spend Republican if it means more surplus office furniture in the District of Columbia. Really, we need to auction a LOT of surplus office furniture there. Think of the impact on the carbon footprint if there are 70% fewer bureaucrats commuting there every day.

Re:*sigh*

[Anonymous Coward]

I've often wondered if we'd be better off, or worse off, if we simply picked politicians by random... like a draft, but using nothing but a computer generated drawing of SSN's or something. Then the people picked would have to serve the relatively short term they were chosen for, and then go back into normal populace and someone else chosen at random goes in.

While you would most definately get some idiots, you'd also randomly get some smart, caring, non-sociopath people as well. The added benefit, would be that you wouldn't be selecting from the small pool of people who already have millions of dollars to run a campaign and really WANT power. Also, you would avoid the whole problem of getting people who were versed in the whole "politics" game (backdoor deals, owing favors to campaign contributors, trying to climb the political ladder, and become drunk with power and no-accountability, and being detached from reality).

Re:*sigh*

[Billly Gates]

People like you .... no offense bud as notca personal attack by any sense will stay home as unsatisfied with the options.

The Obama haters, tea partiers, and the gop will come in very heavy numbers. So that will be my prediction.

If Elizabeth Warren runs that will change

Re:*sigh*

[anagama]

None of them were subject to the draft, so your point may have value actually.

Re: *sigh*

[anagama]

Obama has had almost 8 years to stop being Bush III. He obviously is much of a police-state neo-con as the one who went before.

Re:*sigh*

[anagama]

Astroturfer, and a bad one.

Clinton is PUBLIC official.

I am a PRIVATE citizen.

That a public official should be required to save absolutely everything says absolutely nothing at all about what a private person like me can do with my email. Even the spam. Who knows, they could be be making deals with cleverly spam-appearing emails and so those need to be stored for analysis too.

Re: *sigh*

[anagama]

However, destruction of evidence leads to an inference that the information would be damaging.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...

Re:*sigh*

[fikx]

General rule of thumb for any leadership position: the people who want the job are the ones we don't want to have it.

we solve that one and doves will fly, music will play and we all will convert to pure energy and live on the higher plane....

Re:*sigh*

[Dragon Bait]

Context?

serviscope_minor tried to show he has some form of brilliance by stating that the e-mail servers won't automatically back up data unless you configure them to. In the context of this conversation, that was an incredibly stupid statement. Almost as stupid as saying, "Well, without electricity it won't run and you never mentioned plugging the thing in."

Re:*sigh*

[anagama]

But if a Clinton get's elected again, I know at least one thing for sure, that is that she won't start approving tax cuts while boosting spending (gotta boost that Military industrial complex or they might not get their checks at election time) like the Republicans want.

When HRC was agitating to get a war started in Iraq back in the early 2003, she said exactly that, which is awesome if you consider starting a war in Iraq a good thing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

• 1:40 HRC enters room
• ~ Code pink intro: war in Iraq will harm American and Iraqi families and cost a lot.
• 6:30 HRC parrots the WMD arguments, blames the danger to Iraqis on Hussein, ignores harm to Americans, financial costs, and the fact that Iraq was not a threat to the US nor involved in 9/11.
• 8:52 HRC lies about careful review of WMD info. HRC never even read the National Intelligence Estimate which while suggesting WMDs existed, also contained significant disagreements with that conclusion that a reader not interested in a particular outcome would have agreed called the whole thing into question.
• 10:00 Audience member: not up to the US to disarm Hussein, up to the world community, Iraq has no connection to terrorism, not only are Iraqi people in danger, so are US people, and will harm the economy. It's reckless.
• 11:14 HRC: The world community would not take on difficult problems without US forcing the issue. Goes on and on about Bosnia. Segues into how GWB tax cuts are a bad idea.
  
• 13:29 Interesting note on the negative effect of the tax cuts: "Here at home, this administration is bankrupting our economy forcing us to make the worst kinds of false choices between national and homeland security, which they don't fund ..."
  
• -- IOW, HRC would have preferred GWB raise taxes for more war and domestic surveillance. --
• 14:12 HRC is given a pink slip
• 14:20 HRC goes off: "I am the Senator from NY I will never put my people at risk ..."
• -- Yeah, like Saddam had anything to do with 9/11

Re:*sigh*

[readin]

That would explain why there are so few incremental updates and improvements.

Re:*sigh*

[phantomfive]

Here is her motivation, she says, "as much as I've been investigated and all that, why would I want to do email?" So her intention for using a private email server from the beginning was to hide potential scandals.

Not only was keeping a private email server against the law, when asked to turn over the emails, she printed them out on paper, 55,000 pages of paper. What motive would she have for doing that, other than to make any investigation harder?

Think about whether you want police officers to wear cameras, and why you want them to wear cameras. It is because we don't trust them, and for good reason. Well, you shouldn't trust public officials either, even if they are on 'your team.'

Re:*sigh*

[CronoCloud]

considering Hawaii became a state in 1959 and Obama was born 2 years later.....

Re:*sigh*

[ABEND]

Smart politicians follow Lomnasey's rule: Never write if you can speak; never speak if you can nod; never nod if you can wink..

Re:*sigh*

[Bo'Bob'O]

I'm going to assume that you don't think the current lineup on either side is particularly satisfying, because I can't honestly believe that you find any current candidate that compelling. You look at who may be the next US president and then look at the potential pool of people that -could- be and just think, "Wow, people are stupid." And maybe some of the choices by some of them are pretty dumb, but I think you have to look at just what is going on in the big picture of the US political system.

Having a winner take all system, means that we have a first-past-the-post system. Voting for a third party candidate means that people on a similar part of the political spectrum are diluting their vote if they vote for one or more candidates, and thus, must get in under the banner of a candidate that can win a simple majority vote. This by it's nature reduces the political process to two parties.

So despite the broad spectrum of issues, politics, and views on personal leadership, you have to vote tactically -or you will lose-. Occasionally a third party rises, but it either swamps over another party, or the established parties shifts platforms in order to pull people from the up-commer. The two big parties know this, and they put massive resources into making sure that they have far greater ability to field candidates then any third party might, only adapting their platforms when they have to. This is also why elections seem continualy so close, the parties will one issue at a time take on views in order to slowly ratchet voters one way, then he other party ratchet voters another. Voters don't elect for issues, parties have issues to gain voters.

It's absolutely, positively broken. Even if we did manage to develop a third party strong enough to take on the incumbents, it would quickly turn back into a two party system as one party would get crushed as people with opposing opinions flock to the other party to try to challenge it.

Unless somehow some outsider manages to take the stage and get people on board to truly change this one thing, I sadly, don't see any way out of it, and that outsider is surely not me. I'm neither charismatic or 'electable'. The multibillion dollar buisness of the established parties surely don't want to see it change. So yes, in 2016, I'm going to have to vote for one of the two choices given to me as the lesser evil, and i have no power to change that.

Re:*sigh*

[Tablizer]

The subpoena doesn't cover personal emails, and her team already made and kept copies of the work-related emails for the investigation. Whether she "did it right" is another matter that may eventually come up, but so far I have yet to see a CLEAR violation of any written law.

Re:*sigh*

[frank_adrian314159]

Well, I agree, but we all know Lizzie will never get bankers' money and so it's H's turn. It will be an interesting election.

Re:*sigh*

[ganjadude]

well if she couldnt even pass top secret security clearance... she doesnt deserve the job either....

Re: *sigh*

[BlueTrin]

The saddest part is how he got modded up. Shows the ability of some people to follow a conversation. It wouldn't be so sad if he wasn't talking about politics. Sometimes I wonder if this kind of person deserve to express their opinion.

Re:*sigh*

[Dragon Bait]

You mean he isn't? Shutting down a government during a time of war requires a misplaced focus on political games instead of reality.

The last time we were at war was World War II. Everything else has just been police actions. Technicalities aside, shutting down the government came with an exemption for the military.

Re:*sigh*

[Dragon Bait]

Somebody shot Kennedy, so he certainly qualifies.

Kennedy was shot by a left-wing nut. Somebody who had renounced his citizenship and gone to live in the Soviet Union, and who didn't like it there and came back to the US.

A nut to almost the degree of a Spartacist or Trotskyite.

There were plenty of people at the time that were not fond of Kennedy. One quote I remember hearing about Johnson was He may be a crook, but at least he's an American crook. A not so subtle jab at Kennedy. There was pretty wide spread belief that Kennedy only became president through ballot stuffing efforts in Chicago. Rather than challenge the results like later losers, Nixon conceded. The best thing to happen to Kennedy's long term mystique was to die young.

If Kennedy hadn't died young, the bay-of-pigs, Cuban missile crises, and Viet Nam would have all dragged his legacy down.

Re:*sigh*

[Dragon Bait]

As someone to the left of the D's

What the heck is to the left of the D's?

In a normal country it would be about 75% of the population.

This says far more about you than about anything else.

Re: *sigh*

[BlueTrin]

You made the mistake again, there is no destruction of evidence but destruction of possible evidence. This is terrible wording. Although I get your point: it obviously look like she was hiding something, but careful with wording and logic ...

Re:*sigh*

[ScentCone]

Section 1236.22 of the 2009 NARA, for example. She deliberate violated both the letter and the spirit of that non-trivial bit of federalness. Basically, she decided it didn't matter to her, though it was very much in effect while she held that office.

Re: *sigh*

[jandrese]

Worse, they will get branded as some sort of elite and someone you couldn't just go and have a beer with. That's why voters flock to everyday joes like Mitt Romney.

Re:*sigh*

[AK Marc]

Without all of the e-mails, there's no way to verify this statement, but it is probably true.

Why is the standard of proof so much higher for Hillary than Palin?

But in this case, the responsibility is where it belongs -- on the government and the government employees. By being on Clinton's private server ... who is legally responsible?

So you are asserting that Hillary Clinton, while serving as Secretary of State, is not a government employee?

Re:*sigh*

[AK Marc]

Not only was keeping a private email server against the law,

What law is it against? I've seen one regulation quoted (after she was using personal email) that indicated that emails should use the official system, but no idea if there was any grandfather clause, and the department policy isn't "law".

Re:*sigh*

[phantomfive]

Good question, I only assumed so because all the news sources seem to think so. I don't care enough about the topic to actually verify it, though (and it sounds like, frankly, you don't either).

Re:*sigh*

[AK Marc]

Because Obama's mother was a minor at the time, had he been born outside Hawaii, he would not have been a natural-born citizen without additional paperwork that wasn't done (as it wasn't needed, as he was born in Hawaii). The only problem with Obama's birth was that his mother, being under 18, was unable to confer citizenship at birth, because the laws were sexist. Though those laws, if challenged today, could be considered unconstitutional, making him retroactively a citizen at birth.

The law was not settled. It never really came up at the time, and was changed between his birth and now anyway.

Re:*sigh*

[AK Marc]

What year was he born? What year did HI become a state?

Re:*sigh*

[AK Marc]

What, that in the rest of the world "center" is well to the left of the US "center"? How does that say anything about the messenger?

Re:*sigh*

[AK Marc]

Counterpoint: Obama was elected in 2008 and 2012

And his corporate welfare and war policies were not significantly different from the previous president, marking him as center. He's far too right wing for me. He promises change, but doesn't deliver.

Re:*sigh*

[AK Marc]

Yeah, and the news has picked up on a facebook joke that quotes Cruz as saying Obama couldn't run for president because his father wasn't American and he wasn't born in the US. Sometimes the news has it wrong.

Re:*sigh*

[Tablizer]

Exactly what word or term did she violate? I don't see anything specific enough. I cannot see the computations taking place in your mind to conclude she clearly violated some law. Please be more explicit.

Re:*sigh*

[Tablizer]

If you mean "Agencies that allow employees to send and receive official electronic mail messages using a system not operated by the agency must ensure that Federal records sent or received on such systems are preserved in the appropriate agency recordkeeping system."

Then sending to or CC'ing a person using an agency system would be abiding by the law since it would be recorded under their account. I've seen no evidence that she failed to do such. Only heresy from political opponents.

Re:*sigh*

[phantomfive]

Yeap. Go ahead and fact-check it if you want.

What she did was an attempt to hide her actions. While I understand why she would want to do that, it's not acceptable for a leader of the country.

Re:*sigh*

[ScentCone]

Do you REALLY think that the only people with whom the US Secretary of State communicates in the course of her professional duties are people INSIDE her own department? Not a single person in another country, not a single person in a think tank, another federal agency, not a legislator, nobody? Only the people directly under her authority at State?

Really?

Remember that one of the events leading to this was an email leaked by Romanian hacker Guccifer, who cracked into the private mailbox of Clinton confidant Sydney Blumenthal. He is advising her on sensitive intelligence (re: Europe, the Muslim Brotherhood, and much more) in a series of "highly confidential" messages. Those messages, by definition, never saw the State Department's mail servers or archiving systems as required by federal regulations in place at the time. Why? Because he was providing the Secretary of State with that sensitive information via a private mailbox on an server kept in her house, the contents of which government archivists will never have their legally mandated opportunity to review for what is, and is not government-related communication.

She went out of her way to keep such communications out of the hands of the archives. You can't possibly be confused on this subject.

Regardless, she did NOT claim that the State department had all of her records. If she held that position, then why did she (after the existence of her private stash had been discovered) agree to provide to State (long after she'd left office) 50,000+ printed out pages of emails once pressed on the matter years after she left office and there was no denying it? Why didn't she just refer the people seeking the records to the CC's you're saying were adequante? You know why: because she knew it would be BS to imply that was the extent of her legal public records. But of course we get ONLY her opinion on what was or was not relevant. Everything else has been deleted, says her lawyer. But ... in those 50,000+ pages are gaps of weeks and months. Are you really suggesting that she exchanged no email, in her role as Secretary of State, for months at a time?

Really?

Re:*sigh*

[Tablizer]

Are you claiming the Blumenthal messages were never copied to the appropriate department persons? Do you have evidence of this? Note that even IF she did not CC'd them directly, that does not mean she didn't later send a copy.

If she held that position, then why did she (after the existence of her private stash had been discovered) agree to provide to State (long after she'd left office) 50,000+ printed out pages of emails

I don't know their reasoning, I cannot read their minds. I've heard the department archives are in poor shape, for whatever reason.

Re:*sigh*

[Zontar The Mindless]

It says something about the countries I've lived in, perhaps.

Re:*sigh*

[anagama]

The fact that I recognize HRC for a neo-con warmonging surveilling Democrat makes me a Republican? Funny -- I can't tell the difference between the New GOP (aka Democrats) and the Old GOP (aka parody of itself). If Nixon had a godchildren, they'd be named GWB, Obama, and Clinton. These latter three get to do way more than he ever did, and Obama even got Nixon's health care plan passed.

Anyway, go take your partisan bullshit and fuck yourself with it in the eye. I hate them both, GOP and DNC alike because they are exactly alike.

Re:*sigh*

[ScentCone]

Are you claiming the Blumenthal messages were never copied to the appropriate department persons?

Which "appropriate department persons?" Those messages were sent from him on his private account to her, on her private account. Period. She provided NONE of her email to State during her time there (required by the 2009 NARA), when she left (required by the Federal Records Act), or for year after she left - until a Romanian hacker spilled the beans. That's what got congress re-interested. Why? Because requests for the legislature for those records were coming up entirely empty. Multiple FOIA requests from external entities (like the NY Times, the Associated Press, etc - some of whom are now suing over the matter) came back completely empty.

She only printed out her personal selection of some of her emails (conveniently minus all header information, etc) when she could no longer maintain the lie-by-omission that the records didn't exist. "Oh, THESE emails? I didn't realize you meant THESE emails! Silly old me, I'm just a Grandma blah blah blah..."

Waiting years to provide culled copies, without anyone in a government archivist's role to weigh in on what's really relevant, is completely at odds withe spirit and letter of multiple rules and laws that were very much in play while she was there.

that does not mean she didn't later send a copy

No, that's EXACTLY what it means, because State, in responding to FOIA requests, said they had 100% of nothing of hers to meet those requests.

I don't know their reasoning, I cannot read their minds.

You're misunderstanding things here. It wasn't "they" that did this. It was SHE that did this. SHE decided, under pressure to finally produce some records before getting hauled into court to do so, to provide the emails she personally selected from her home server as header-redacted hardcopies. This wasn't the archive or IT people at State deciding that. That's what she dumped on them. However poor the archives at State may or may not be, her emails were not kept there, they were kept on her server at home. She's said as much. And she's said that she had her personal staff (people without clearances, paid for with funds much of which was supplied by foreign countries from whom she solicited huge sums of money while traveling abroad on taxpayer-paid trips) help her print them out so that State could finally have her records. You can't be still not getting this.

Re: *sigh*

[anagama]

That's the way it always is with an adverse inference. For example, one party requests discovery, the other party destroys it -- adverse influence instruction. Nobody knows for certain what was destroyed (if they did, it would be actual evidence because there'd be a copy or something like that) -- but the jury is allowed to infer (i.e guess) that it would be damaging. That's the whole point of the adverse inference instruction -- by destroying possible evidence, it is presumed you are destroying evidence that would be damaging, even if in actual fact the evidence would not have been damaging. It's the best we can do in that circumstance and the evidence destroyer, whether Olly North or HRC, should get fucked hard over it.

Re:*sigh*

[Tablizer]

She provided NONE of her email to State during her time there (required by the 2009 NARA)

You don't have any evidence of that.

in responding to FOIA requests, said they had 100% of nothing of hers to meet those requests.

Link? Like I said, the State Department servers happen to be in poor shape. That may be the reason the FOIA people didn't use it, NOT necessarily because H didn't follow proper notification steps. Or maybe FOIA is too lazy to sift for CC's etc.

her emails were not kept there, they were kept on her server at home.

It can be both.

She's said as much

No she didn't. Making sure a full set is available here and now is NOT the same as admitting past copies were not sent.

Making sure is simply making sure. If I make sure I've locked the car door that does NOT mean it was not locked.

Anyhow, let the smart lawyers work it out. You are not a lawyer with sufficient experience on this such that I cannot trust your judgement.

Re:*sigh*

[AK Marc]

What she did was use personal email when an official email was not provided for her, at a time when it was allowed to do so. The rest is mostly lies, made up by the people who hate her. When did the IT department make an official email account for her to use? Never. When was she officially notified that the rules she was hired under had changed? Never.

But it's her fault that she followed all the rules she agreed to.

Re:*sigh*

[ScentCone]

You don't have any evidence of that.

What? The evidence is that State said they had none of it, nor any record of having seen any such correspondence until she just recently dumped that self-selected pile of paper on them. SHE said that was when she provided them with "the appropriate" copies. Not when she was in office. Not when she left office. But years later when forced to. SHE said so, not me. Congressional investigators (under both parties) could find not a single indication she had ever provided those records, State's internal records show no such thing. FOIA and subpoena-based requests turned up no such thing.

So what is it you're looking for, to understand this? She herself says you're wrong. Does that cover it for you?

Making sure a full set is available here and now

She did NOT make a "full set" available, as required by law. She made available redacted hardcopies of only those that she decided she wanted other people to see. Investigators say that what she provided has gaps of weeks and months missing. What part of that are you refusing to hear?

Anyhow, let the smart lawyers work it out.

Her smart lawyer says there's no point allowing anyone with any forensic skills to look at her server to see if she's lying or not because she's deleted everything off of it. You don't have to trust MY judgement. Trust the "smart lawyer" you just cited. If you don't like THAT smart lawyer, trust the smart lawyers from the congressional investigations that took place multiple times now, and the smart lawyers from the Associated Press, all of whom disagree with you.

Re:*sigh*

[phantomfive]

You're clearly a fan of Hillary Clinton.

If she is so innocent, when the emails were requested, why did she print them out on 55,000 pages? A digital copy would have been more convenient for everyone involved.

Re:*sigh*

[Tablizer]

State said they had none of it, nor any record of having seen any such correspondence

They also said their records are poor in general. "We don't have a record of X" thus does NOT rule out X having existed in the past.

Investigators say that what she provided has gaps of weeks and months missing.

I can only find Republicans claiming that, not objective (non-political) examiners. Do you have a better link?

Her smart lawyer says there's no point allowing anyone with any forensic skills to look at her server to see if she's lying or not because she's deleted everything off of it.

What's that have to do with points being discussed? I didn't dispute that they (eventually) deleted it from her server.

Re:*sigh*

[AK Marc]

I know at least one thing for sure, that is that she won't start approving tax cuts while boosting spending like the Republicans want.

When HRC was agitating to get a war started in Iraq back in the early 2003, she said exactly that,

The quote you give says the opposite of what you say it will.

Re:*sigh*

[AK Marc]

You're clearly a fan of Hillary Clinton.

You've proven yourself a liar or an idiot. You are wrong on that point, and so you believe it to be false and are baiting me by lying, or you think it true and are an idiot for making up things in your mind to make your silly little world view easier to reconcile with reality when the two are quite divergent.

Everything I said was 100% true, but because I point out reality, that proves my bias, and it must be my bias I'm arguing with you, and not because you are 100% provably wrong.

If she is so innocent, when the emails were requested, why did she print them out on 55,000 pages?

You are lying again. I never said she was "innocent." I just said that her handling of emails didn't break any law identified so far. I note that the Hillary haters don't quote the laws broken often (except when accusing her of having received confidential documents, which would have indicated a law breach, but not by her). But for the email-only issue, what law did she break? If there is no law broken,then it's legal. It is that simple. If you can't name the law you think she broke, then you should default to thinking she's law-aiding. That you don't indicates *your* bias, not mine.

Re:*sigh*

[DamonHD]

I totally agree that life is not that simple, but it seems to be a useful starting point.

Until the real nutcases wrap round the back... %-P

Rgds

Damon

Re:*sigh*

[Dragon Bait]

What, that in the rest of the world "center" is well to the left of the US "center"? How does that say anything about the messenger?

It means that in his world, "normal" is defined where everyone is much more left. He probably means Europe is "normal". Given that in 2 or 3 generations Europe will no longer exist in its current form, I'm not sure that it is the ideal to emulate.

Re:*sigh*

[ScentCone]

They also said their records are poor in general. "We don't have a record of X" thus does NOT rule out X having existed in the past.

State Department IT staff are on the record having told her multiple times that her method of communicating was preventing them from archiving her official email as required. Are you saying that despite the steps she took to make sure that no mail sent to and from her counterparts all around the world, to and from other agencies and branches of government (including the White House) , and to and from the well known mile-long list of donors to her family enterprise and political operation, that somehow there was a magic link between her private server and some archiving mechanism at State? A link that you think might exist, but which SHE acknowledges did not exist, and which some how - despite no email address involving state.gov being used in such communication - magically somehow got archived at State, and not one single example of such can be found by multiple investigative teams? And why would they find it - preventing it from getting into that system is exactly why she built a path around it. State's archives have copious correspondence from hundreds and hundreds of their other officials, staff, contractors, previous cabinet appointees and related users - just not a single scrap from her? Of course they don't: she didn't use that system.

And SHE HERSELF says that she thinks having corresponded with staffers inside State was a good enough way to retain those messages. She hand-picked reporters and pre-approved questions in the only Q&A she's allowed on the subject, and so conveniently was able to avoid being asked how she thought that method would apply when corresponding with people like Blumenthal (who hasn't denied that the leaked emails were his, by the way). Which is why she's never had to address the fact she wasn't personally taking any steps to CC or otherwise mirror all of the mail sent to and from her private server, as required by law. She hasn't mentioned CCing her State.gov mailbox that because at her direction, State's IT never even established an email account for her to which she would mirror her mail.

When finally capitulating to demands that her public records actually be made available, she didn't print out 55,000 pages of them because of a failure by the staff and systems at State, she printed them out because that was the only way she was willing to make them available. She could have forwarded them electronically, in their entirety, as required (so that, as the law requires, a government archivist can evaluate the messages and cull the official from the private). But no - she and her lawyers opted for a method that would absolutely maximize the additional delays in allowing other people to look through the records, would remove helpful header information, and would add untold thousands of hours of taxpayer-funded work to turn the documents back into searchable form. That was a deliberate choice that added work on her part in order to make the process more difficult and slow for investigators and the press, who had been requesting the documents for years.

I can only find Republicans claiming that, not objective (non-political) examiners.

Do you consider the investigation run congress when it was controlled by HER own party (which established after spending millions of dollars looking into related things, that there were NO such records at State) to have also been polticized against her? Now - under pressure - she's dumped hardcopies of the records that actually did exist all along (well, just some of them), and investigators who - unlike the last ones - aren't in her pocket for political gain say that the records have large date gaps. Unlike HER, they are conducting activity that will be entirely in the public record. When the investigators looking into this say something, you and they know that they will be fact checked to death by her po

Re: *sigh*

[jmac_the_man]

Of course, if we do take it was true, what about the corollary to Romney's remarks, that there is a segment of the population which itself is resistant to anything Obama or a Democrat would offer is worth considering on its own?

Well, I guess there's two points, and I don't think they are worth considering about Obama specifically. Romney was talking about the contrast in media treatment of a Democrat and a Republican, so I think they only make sense in comparison.

First, there's a certain amount of "natural polarization" that President Obama (or a theoretical President Romney) would be affected by, even with a fair media. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson dealt with this kind of natural polarization, but in their day, the media was known openly to be biased, and was not regarded as the kind of arbiters of truth that some people treat them as today.

Secondly, 47% sounds high, but that's because Romney is accounting for the unfair media. The corollary to THAT, the number of people that would never vote for Obama because of things they heard from an unfair media, is admittedly non-zero, although you will probably think the magnitude is higher than I will. (Similarly, you're discounting the magnitude of the unfair treatment of Romney.) I guarantee you that Obama knew what percentage of the population wouldn't vote for him, and targeted his ads toward segments of the population who would. He just didn't have a malicious reporter lie about the context.

The 47% quote, itself from a non-fair media source, was originally presented (and is usually presented) as "47% of the population will never vote for Romney because his ideas will hurt them economically or socially or whatever." The specific example Romney was talking about was people on welfare. Romney's welfare plan would have helped people get off of welfare and into jobs. That would be better for them than staying on welfare forever, but these plans are commonly portrayed as leaving people to die in the street.

Re:*sigh*

[jmac_the_man]

Kennedy was a left-wing anti-communist, something that you don't see too much of today. He was killed by a crazy communist, partially because of the whole anti-communist thing. (You'll note that Barry Goldwater wasn't assassinated by a member of the John Birch Society.)

Kennedy didn't have the extreme faction of his side of the isle, and he didn't have any significant portion of the right wing, hence, he was polarizing.

Re:*sigh*

[jmac_the_man]

The subpoena doesn't cover personal emails, and her team already made and kept copies of the work-related emails for the investigation.

Leaving aside the question of why you think Team Clinton's sanitizing of the e-mails is trustworthy, we already know they're lying. Top Hillary aides Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin used secret ClintonEmail addresses rather than their State Department ones, which means any e-mails to Clinton's Chief of Staff or Deputy Chief of Staff weren't turned over. And Sidney Blumenthal (not a government employee, by the way) was sending secret intelligence information about the Benghazi attack to her ClintonEmail address. Also work related, and also not turned over.

Re:*sigh*

[jmac_the_man]

He's far too right wing for me.

Fine, but you're a well known radical leftist troll. Relative to the electorate, Obama is part of the hard left. He beat Hillary Clinton in 2008 by convincing Democrats that they should go with a hard-leftist rather than a moderate-by-comparison like Hillary. And since Obama has been a disaster for everyone in the Democratic Party EXCEPT Obama, the party is going to nominate Hillary Clinton, as scandal ridden as she is, instead of another leftist in the Obama mold like Elizabeth Warren.

Re:*sigh*

[jmac_the_man]

and leaked the name by mistake

I'm offended that you think I or any unfortunate readers who read your words are gullible enough to believe it.

Fine, then. What possible motive would Richard Armitage have for leaking the name of Joseph Wilson's wife? Remember, Armitage and Wilson were allies.

And as far as the "might makes right" bullshit, Libby was only ever testifying because the prosecutor wanted to trap somebody in perjury charges. At the time Libby testified, Armitage had already confessed. The prosecutor already knew who committed the crime and could have sought an indictment against Armitage if he wanted to. Libby's sentence was commuted because the whole thing was a miscarriage of justice. Which is EXACTLY what pardons are for.

Re:*sigh*

[dbIII]

What's with the spin? It wasn't like that at all.

Re: *sigh*

[BlueTrin]

Yes totally agree with your points.

Re:*sigh*

[vinlud]

One of the main problems in the finance sector is that these people actually think they are smart, while driving economies into the abyss. So let's get rid of that false picture

Re:*sigh*

[anagama]

Start at 11:14 -- if you take her later comments around 13:29 out of context, it sounds like she is criticizing GWB's push for war. If you put it in context, it is exceptionally clear she is criticizing cutting taxes during war and that her opinion is that getting rid of Saddam is equivalent to whatever went on in Bosnia and that we should do it. She doesn't care if the world community is against war in Iraq -- she thinks we should go alone, but she also thinks GWB should have tried harder to get world support.

So... she supports the war (increases costs) but does not support tax cuts. That's about exactly what the GP said. To mean the opposite, she would have to have said war with Saddam is a bad idea. Period. What she did say is that war in Iraq was a _good_ idea AND taxes should not be cut. Seriously, explain how she didn't say that.

Re:*sigh*

[Noah Haders]

Lol I totally responded to the wrong post so my message above seems unrelated...

Re:*sigh*

[Noah Haders]

Because smart people don't seem to want the job.

It's not that smart people don't want the job, smart people aren't electable. During an election they'll inevitably make a comment that hurts a special interest group and get whisked out of the public spot light before the next sun rise.

the key differentiator isn't smart people. it's people of conscience. people of conscience couldn't tie themselves into the mental knots required to say things like the tea party: "keep government hands off our social security!"

It's the pandering that's the hardest part for a person of conscience to accept.

Re:*sigh*

[phantomfive]

If you're not a Hillary fan, why are you defending her so emotionally? If you don't think she's innocent, why are you so stuck on technical points?

If you're merely upset about 'inaccurate reporting,' there are plenty of places where that happens.....every article. If that's all you cared about, you wouldn't be so upset about a single news story. But you're stuck on this one, with such strong emotion, so you must be a Hillary fan.

Re:*sigh*

[eric_harris_76]

And power-hungry scoundrels (and the merely well-meaning-but-inept) do.

Re:*sigh*

[eric_harris_76]

Hey, gstoddart! Keep your pronouns to yourself. *I* don't vote for the bi-partisan scum. Other people are electing those dolts and scoundrels.

Oh, wait. You may not have included me in that "we".

Never mind.

But to answer your question, there's "Why America Stopped Voting" by Mark Lawrence Kornbluh. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/inde...

Shorter answer: because the government-printed ballots introduced during the Progressive Era meant government, not the people, decided what organizations were and were not political parties -- eliminating competition by new entrants. Voter engagement and voter turnout and election competitiveness declined to modern levels by attrition of engaged voters.

In the political sphere, we're living in a world of only Coke and Pepsi. By law. No Dr. Pepper. No Seven Up. And definitely no water or milk or tea.

And no realistic chance of getting any of them unless things deteriorate apocalyptically, or something else highly unlikely happens.

Re:*sigh*

[AK Marc]

And how many until the US no longer exists in its current form?

Re:*sigh*

[DiEx-15]

You forget that this is Iowa. Iowa is so far behind the times, they think that putting a message on a rock and chucking it at the recipient is "Instant Messaging".

...That and they bet all their money on that dead Ethanol from Soybeans horse.

Re:*sigh*

[AK Marc]

Fine, but you're a well known radical leftist troll.

"well known"? that's a laugh. For one, nobody knows me, for another, I'm center. When I go to places outside the US, I'm a radical conservative troll. Given that I get accused of being a radical from each side, I must be doing something right. I'm a libertarian. That's right to the left, and left to the right. And no, I'm not a US neo-liberal Libertarian, but a classic one.

Re:*sigh*

[AK Marc]

If you're not a Hillary fan, why are you defending her so emotionally?

Stating facts is "emotional"? Since when is "emotional" an insult. I guess that's considered a feminine trait, and the misogynist in you that makes you emotionally hate Hilary so much makes sure you try to take as many subtle jabs as possible. So subtle that if you are called on them, you'll deny them. But your words are there for everyone to see.

But you're stuck on this one, with such strong emotion, so you must be a Hillary fan.

Nope. I argue on others. That you have a selection bias doesn't change reality. Though that would be nice for you to support your bias and misogyny. After all, if you aren't a woman-hater, why do you emotionally hate Hillary so much, when you have no facts that support your irrational and emotional rants against her?

Re:*sigh*

[Keybounce]

Because smart people don't seem to want the job.

Because an ordinary person cannot be elected without some sort of backing.
And, because those that can back a person don't want to back someone that will vote intelligently.

The cost to back someone to be in politics is basically an investment, made by those with business connections, for the purpose of those business investments.

No facts or studies to back this up; this is just observations over decades.

There are smart people that want the job.
Smart does not equal rich, or connected.

Re:*sigh*

[Tablizer]

State Department IT staff are on the record having told her multiple times that her method of communicating was preventing them from archiving her official email as required.

Link to them. I don't believe you.

that somehow there was a magic link between her private server and some archiving mechanism at State?

I never claimed that. I don't know where you got that idea.

Do you consider the investigation run congress when it was controlled by HER own party (which established after spending millions of dollars looking into related things, that there were NO such records at State) to have also been polticized against her?

What's this question have to do with anything? I see no relation. And I already explained how no found records at the present is not the same as no records ever.

When the investigators looking into this say something, you and they know that they will be fact checked to death by her political operatives.

Politicians often spin for short-term gain and don't care about fact-checkers much.

In cases of private communications being mixed in with official ones, government archivists are supposed to look at ALL records

Where is this rule written?

When cornered you seem to get wordy. Please focus more instead of idle speculation about motivations. Motivation speculation is rarely useful info.

Re:*sigh*

[Dragon Bait]

And how many until the US no longer exists in its current form?

Good question. I think there will be some interesting inflection points coming up.

Individual freedom and personal liberty have been under open assault for the last several decades. We rightly objected to Bush the Lesser's domestic spying, but there seems less outrage over Obama's domestic spying (and does anyone even remember or care about Clinton's Carnivore project?).

Roe v. Wade is founded on the principle of medical privacy. Something that we are now actively wiping out. IIRC, there were 17 federal agencies looking at tracking all our medical records.

That's just on the individual privacy front. The very structure of government, the roles and responsibilities, division of authority, the meaning of law is now under open assault. If your the president and don't like a law, pretend it doesn't exist either by a policy of non-enforcement or withholding funding.

And, no. I have little hope that constitutional government will survive in the US for much longer. Far too many people have the attitude that if it's their guy doing it, it's okay. They fail to see the principles involved. If the current crop of potential presidential candidates even pays lip service to such things, it's more along the lines of they want to be the one choosing the music as the band plays on and ship goes down.

But just because our ship is going down, doesn't mean that I want to rush out and hang onto the boat anchor of the other ship that's going down either.

Re:*sigh*

[ScentCone]

I don't believe you

That's not true. You're just doing your best to play like you really think all of this is just a misunderstanding. It's not, and you know it. I know you've already spent ten seconds and Googled for things like this, but I'll play along if it makes you feel better. Here's just one random first-on-Google example:

http://america.aljazeera.com/a...

I never claimed that. I don't know where you got that idea.

You've speculated that her records were kept correctly (despite what she and everyone else says), and that there's no evidence she's done anything wrong. The implication then, by you, is that she did things correctly - and the ONLY way that could be, is if there was some sort of mechanism in place to do what the 2009 NARA and other rules required. But there wasn't. SHE SAID THERE WASN'T. So you are tap-dancing around the whole "show me proof" thing in order to avoid just plain facing what the woman involved has herself been saying. Why, I can't imagine. Are you working for her or her party?

What's this question have to do with anything? I see no relation.

Yeah, sure. It was someone else hacking your account when you complained that the current people looking at the matter weren't objective and a-political enough for you. It's perfectly reasonable to ask you if you found the prior investigation - which was run by HER party - to be likewise. You're implying it's not, which means you're being hypocritical on the subject. Only the party you don't like can be political in such matters, or only the party you favor can be objective?

Politicians often spin for short-term gain and don't care about fact-checkers much

The politicians doing the spin, here, are the ones relying on the fact that the person they're backing has conveniently destroyed records. The politicians conducting the investigation are relying on the documents SHE cherry-picked, and those are the ones that show the date gaps, a matter which they (unlike her, with tens of thousand of mixed-in emails we'll never see) will be placing right in front of your nose to review. Asserting that they're probably lying as they talk about public records you can review, while proposing the exact opposite about a stridently partisan person who has just been caught avoiding the very rules she said her department employees must all follow, shows how objective you're (not) being.

Where is this rule written?

This has been the case for a long time. Jason Baron, former director of litigation with the National Archives, explains the problem here. He said in an interview that "Clinton’s use of a private server gave her exclusive control, thus preventing the department from having full access to emails she sent and received while a federal employee. Government employees have no right to privacy on government computers and even personal emails are subject to review and perhaps release at the department’s discretion. Setting up a private server to conduct public business inappropriately shifts control of what is accessible to the end user alone rather than allowing the institution to decide threshold questions.” That's been true of federal records for decades: the agency archivists decide what's private, not the person running her official email on a server she's keeping in her home.

When cornered you seem to get wordy

Who's cornered? Not me. I'm just explaining the facts to someone who seems really desperate for them to go away.

Re:*sigh*

[AK Marc]

Nobody was saying we (or they) should be doing what the others are doing. But that the global definition of "center" puts the US firmly in the "right" category. That was all, not that we should be more or less like someone else.

That the US is likely not in much better shape, it's not like we have found the magic answer.

Re:*sigh*

[Tablizer]

Your own link:

"We tried," the employee said. "We told people in her office that it wasn't a good idea. They were so uninterested that I doubt the secretary was ever informed." [emph. added]

You claimed she was DIRECTLY informed (as worded). This is why I ask for links: details matter.

if there was some sort of mechanism in place to do what the 2009 NARA and other rules required...

Those rules only specified they be stored on gov't systems, and said almost nothing about the technology and technique to do it. If she copied or CC'd gov't employees, she would be abiding by the law. I've explained this already.

SHE SAID THERE WASN'T.

There wasn't what?

It's perfectly reasonable to ask you if you found the prior investigation - which was run by HER party - to be likewise.

No it's not. The debate is not about GENERAL party accuracy. My debate points don't depend on prior partisan accuracy.

and those are the ones that show the date gaps, a matter which they (unlike her, with tens of thousand of mixed-in emails we'll never see) will be placing right in front of your nose to review.

Fine, I'll wait until they actually do so rather than rely on your or vague GOP claims. If details come out that smack her, fine. Until that happens, I'm not going to guess out of my ass.

As far as Jason Baron's comments, they are not explicitly connected to any specific text of the law. It's hard to tell if they are an opinion or not. I originally asked for specific laws, not opinions about them.

Re:*sigh*

[jmac_the_man]

The claim, "Oh yeah? I'm to the right of European socialists" is trolling every time it happens. Only American citizens can vote in American elections, so it doesn't matter what kind of crazy stuff Europeans socialists support. Relative to the American electorate, you are a leftist troll.

Can you name a position taken by the GOP that you support over the position taken by the Democratic party? Because I first noticed your signature and gun related username in a thread involving Sarah Palin somehow (I think, but can't swear to it, that it was the non-scandal where the 4channer son of a Democrat state representative hacked her e-mail) and assumed you'd be a supporter of hers because she's popular in Alaska. Then I went back and re-read your post and saw that you were criticizing her somehow. (Again, I forget the issue at hand.)

Not liking Sarah Palin is fine, I guess. But I kept noticing your signature and gun related username showing up every time there was an opportunity to attack a Republican or a conservative, and usually to defend a Democrat. Unless I'm massively missing a part of your posting history, it's not reflective of you being a centrist.

Now, I don't claim to be a centrist. I'm a conservative, and my posting history reflects that... probably better than anything else*. I'm not a huge fan of the Republican party, but that doesn't make me a liberal because I don't think the solution is more Obama, Reid, and Pelosi. I've seen you criticize the Democratic party for being insufficiently liberal, which is the other side of that coin.

The problems with the major parties aside, I'll be generous and assume you're not trolling, and really think you're a centrist. Take the Cruz-Warren test. Ted Cruz and Elizabeth Warren are probably the most conservative and the most liberal mainstream politicians in the country today. In order to be a centrist, there has to be at least one issue where you agree with Cruz and disagree with Warren, and one issue where you agree with Warren and disagree with Cruz. I want you to really think about what it says about you if all your tallies are in the Warren column.

It says you're a liberal. And that's fine. There's nothing wrong with that**. But take it from me. You'll be happier once you realize that you come down on one side of the isle and not the other.

*To save you the trouble of digging through my post history, other topics that I post on are Microsoft and how I'm usually a fan... Apple and how I'm usually not... Google often makes good Android-related decisions and bad non-Android ones... I'm quick to defend the Zune... The 360 was a great console, and I have an Xbox One, but I don't think that a great console game has come out yet this console generation. A couple of times, I've asked Sony fans if there's an exclusive on their side of the isle that's truly great.

**Except for the fact that you're wrong.

Re:*sigh*

[jmac_the_man]

How was it?

Re:*sigh*

[ebvwfbw]

You're right of course. Here in the US the biggest fool to ever live is President. Worse, he has so many people thinking he's great. Especially in the press. Just like other dictators.

Re:*sigh*

[ebvwfbw]

Politics is so fucking nasty. Stand up for what is right and it's like signing up to be kicked in the crotch daily. People as a society are a whiney, selfish, stupid lot. Individuals can be very smart. Most don't want to work. Don't want to do anything. Not even sure why they're even alive. I know, that's what they've told me.

Getting worse, much worse. Schools teach "tolerance" what they mean is tolerance for the leftist ideas. Not for others like God, being heterosexual, being smart. In fact they detest being smart. That's what common core is all about. Baffle them with bullshit. This "new math" crap.

How to destroy a thriving society. Well it's know, long time - Congressional record: http://www.uhuh.com/nwo/commun...

Soon it will be over and we'll be back to slavery. Feudalism.

Re:*sigh*

[phantomfive]

Stating facts is "emotional"?

No, emotional is the way you state them. And your posts are full of emotion.

Since when is "emotional" an insult.

When it prevents you from thinking clearly. And you aren't thinking clearly, you are defending a politician.

Since you don't want to look up the relevant policies, here is the retention policy, here is the state department communications policy. In case the documents seem unclear to you, Scott Gration was fired by Clinton in part because of not following email procedures.

But none of that matters. Who cares if it was illegal? Nixon's "18 lost minutes" were not illegal, but that doesn't make it right. Even if somehow she thought it was ok to run her own email server, deleting half the emails and sending the rest over on paper was something she knew was bad.

Re:*sigh*

[AK Marc]

. And you aren't thinking clearly, you are defending a politician.

You are lying again. Attacking people emotionally attacking politicians is not "defending" the politician.

Who cares if it was illegal?

All the Hillary haters, evidently. They keep calling it "illegal" not "wrong" or "bad"

keeping a private email server [is] against the law

Apparently you care about the legality. Then lie about it a few posts later, like we can't see what you just wrote.

Re:*sigh*

[AK Marc]

Have you not seen my constant complaints that the Republicans aren't conservative enough? They want to pass lots of laws that restrict freedoms, and increase spending while cutting taxes. All of them too "liberal" for me.

Re:*sigh*

[jmac_the_man]

Have you not seen my constant complaints that the Republicans aren't conservative enough?

No I haven't. That's my question. Can you give me an example where you think Republicans aren't conservative enough? I think there's plenty of examples, but I'm a conservative and not a centrist, so you'll probably have less then me. (You hinted at domestic policy with "laws that restrict freedom" and "increase spending while cutting taxes," so the quick list that follows leaves out foreign policy stuff.)

I think Republicans aren't fighting hard enough to defeat Obamacare.

I think Republicans should be fighting to repeal the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

I think Republicans should be fighting harder to split the Farm Bill into a bill that funds farm insurance and a bill that funds SNAP, because as currently constituted, both are ridiculous corporate welfare. SNAP should be reformed on the financial side (the taxpayers need better protection from the bank who issues the cards), and we don't need the actual farm insurance part of the bill.

I think Republicans should force the government to drastically reduce its stake in the student loan market, and let private industry back in, like it was less than a decade ago.

Republicans are already good on gun rights, support the Keystone pipeline, and largely oppose the regulatory overreaches that characterize the executive branch during this administration.

Republicans and Democrats are both too pro-amnesty and pro-H1B. The unconstitutional Internet Sales Tax compact they're trying to pass is bipartisan. Neiter of those are differences.

These are short lists. They're incomplete because I'm running late for work. But you get the idea. Is there an issue where you agree with conservatives over Democrats?

Re:*sigh*

[Tablizer]

Are you really suggesting that all of a secretary of state's sensitive and official communication is with her own staff? That she has no communication with people in the senate, the congress, ...

Sending to the Senate and Congress would ALSO likely qualify, since they are Federal systems. It doesn't have to be only to her department's own servers. Besides, she may have CC'd or forwarded such to her department staff. Anyhow, you have presented NO clear evidence that she failed to CC/copy sufficiently to comply. I just see meandering speculation from you.

You're convinced that, for example, Blumenthal's emails are all fake? Be specific.

I have not seen them confirmed by a reliable source. It appears to be mostly right-wing conspiracy sites echoing around that story, with no concrete citations. Further, H may have forwarded a copy of them to her staff/department. There is no proof she didn't. Even IF the hacker's copy had no CC with such, that doesn't mean she didn't BCC or forward a copy AFTER sending to Blumenthal. The hacker wouldn't see such on B's box. I assumed you worked in an office before and understand forwarding and BCC.

You suggested she committed a crime, and the usual assumption is "innocent until proven guilty". Can you solidly PROVE beyond a reasonable doubt she never forwarded or BCC'd the alleged Blumenthal message? (Let it alone it's legitimacy to begin with?) Some hacker's blog is hardly crime-level evidence by itself.

Any mechanism in place to automatically mirror her correspondence with third parties. None

I never claimed there was.

So, you'd be all for what the current investigation proposed: handing her server over to completely neutral third party for forensic analysis...

That's a side issue. Let's focus on your crime allegation.

which contradict things she's saying in public

No I didn't. You just have an incorrect model of reality in your head, probably obtained from cheesy blogs. You should focus on objective info available instead of the conspiracy blog plot claims.

It requires federal officials to proactively keep their public documents available for things like FOIA searches. She actively hid her records from such searches,...

Incorrect. It requires official gov't business be saved, not "public documents". So far there is no evidence she failed to comply. She's is NOT obligated to turn over copies of personal emails (so far. A judge may rule otherwise eventually, but that's future.)

because she had not provided the records, even after she left office

Her "server dump" is bonus info. She may have copied/CC'd the proper people/servers during the course of her time as SOS, but THE ORIGINAL SYSTEM IS SCREWED UP. That's not her fault.

I will agree the retention laws were F'd up at the time, but that's not directly her fault, and even if she failed to manage IT "well", it's not a criminal act.

From a technical standpoint, to track email properly and make sure none are missing, something similar to an ACID-compliant database with unique sequential message keys would probably needed. But, the law at the time didn't require such (and seemingly still doesn't), and thus it's difficult to prove certain messages were never sent. One can prove the existence of a message under such a rickety system, but maybe not the ABSENCE of. Thus, it just may be impossible to prove that Mrs. H "never sent a compliant copy of message X" because the technology used was not just powerful enough to document and prove the "hole".

Re:*sigh*

[AK Marc]

No I haven't. That's my question. Can you give me an example where you think Republicans aren't conservative enough?

The two I already gave are enough. They are fiscally "liberal" because they don't match spending to income.

They are "liberal" in that they want to change laws to restrict freedom.

Is there an issue where you agree with conservatives over Democrats?

Yeah. Gun control. If you want gun control, the first step should be to change the Constitution, not passing laws that are "bad" and fighting in court to justify them.

Re:*sigh*

[Tablizer]

Each agency/department has its own archiving systems, especially those that deal (as State does) with sensitive and frequently compartmentalized information.

Again, the relevant laws AS WRITTEN do NOT dictate which specific systems are to do the "storing". If you believe they do, then give the exact passage and demonstrate how your interpretation of the text is the One and Only Proper interpretation. Otherwise, it appears you are making up rules out of your tail end.

Why? Because two years worth of FOIA requests to State turned up no such emails.

We don't know how thorough their digging was and/or how much was lost or damaged over time. Maybe FOIA are lazy and dumping the problem onto other agencies. Gov't can be like that. If somebody wants to make a case that prior searches were thorough enough to cover everything possibly sent, they can, but I have NOT seen such a presentation. You are welcome to present such evidence. Otherwise, please don't speculate based on your impressions and personal notions about how the guts of gov't work or don't work.

Please stop wasting my time with so much idle speculation. She's not going to prison based on mere guesses and nebulous accusations of the other side.

But not a single one tucked away as a CC or BCC from Clinton's home-based private server that shows sending or receiving such mail.

Which specific item of mail are you talking about here? Please be clear about timelines, and who, what, when, and where.

Re:*sigh*

[jmac_the_man]

Gun control. If you want gun control, the first step should be to change the Constitution, not passing laws that are "bad" and fighting in court to justify them.

I've never seen you make this point on Slashdot before. My apologies.

Re:*sigh*

[jmac_the_man]

That's some impressive analysis... Too bad it's wrong. First off, both parties' Congressional Delegations have moved towards the poles since 2010. (Look up what happened to the Blue Dog Democrats sometime.) And since there's more Republicans in Congress than Democrats, I'd argue that the electorate leans closer to the rigjt at the moment. Ditto for Governor's Mansions. (Obama has a personality cult thing going on. Elections with him on the ballot are an outlier. Other Democrats can't count on that.)

Secondly, I assume that nobody trusts what ANY politician says while they're running for office. Regardless of what he said while he was running, Obama has governed from the left (TO A GREATER EXTENT THAN HILLARY CLINTON WOULD HAVE, which was my original point.) McCain and Romney, on the other hand, are well known for being on the Republican Party's LEFT. Romney's healthcare plan as governor was a state level version of Obamacare. You can't really think that most of the Republicans are to the left of the guy who implemented state level Obamacare, can you?

Re:*sigh*

[AK Marc]

It's never an issue. Those for gun control don't think they need to change the Constitution, and those against never offer it up as a gauge of public opinion on the matter.

Re:*sigh*

[jmac_the_man]

It's never an issue. Those for gun control don't think they need to change the Constitution, and those against never offer it up as a gauge of public opinion on the matter.

I'm not sure what the bolded part means. You mean it's never an issue on Slashdot right? Gun control comes up as an issue on Slashdot fairly often. When it's related to the article, it's usually in the context of a gun authentication technology that gun owners oppose being introduced to the market because some misguided states have laws on the books that mandate all guns implement authentication technology as soon as such a scheme is commercially available. (This law is on the books in my state (NJ) now.)

I'm not sure what "offer it up as a gauge of public opinion" means. Do you mean my list of problems with the Republican party, like how they won't reform the farm bill? Because for all their failings, they're pretty good on gun right.

Re:*sigh*

[ScentCone]

Otherwise, it appears you are making up rules out of your tail end.

What? Clinton herself signed a memo to her staff reminding them that they had to use state.gov mailboxes for their official correspondence. The woman you're trying to let off the hook certainly supported the common practice of each department (which have to handle their own FOIA requests) maintaining their own records. Do you really think that when someone at, say, the FAA gets a FOIA request, that it's the intention or the practice for their own records people to then contact hundreds of other agencies and departments to scour THEIR records for FAA-related correspondence? I guess you might think that if it allows you to ignore the hypocrisy of Clinton's own words.

Otherwise, please don't speculate based on your impressions and personal notions about how the guts of gov't work or don't work.

What are you talking about? You're essentially saying that absolutely no career archivists and investigators can be trusted to know if they've looked through stored email records, but we can trust Hillary Clinton to be 100% upright when she tells us that we have to trust her when she says that the tens of thousands of records she destroyed were without relevance to the multiple inquiries that she's stonewalled for the past few years. You operate on a really bad case of mixed premises.

Please stop wasting my time with so much idle speculation.

Who's speculating? She's the one who says she destroyed the records without allowing State archivists to do what they're required to do with all of the staff under her (review mixed private/official communications to make judgement calls about what's a public record). She's the one who deliberately transformed convenient, searchable electronic records with context-providing header info into clumsy, labor-requiring hardcopies ... and only after they were demanded of her long after leaving office. Her own description of her actions shows that she didn't provide State with any magical CCs of her communications with external third parties or other agencies, but YOU'RE the one saying not to worry, she probably CC'd somebody, somewhere, somehow, in order to be in compliance with the 2009 NARA requirement. Since you're so tired of speculating, how about being specific on why you think the thing that she's carefully avoided saying she did was none the less actually done, even though it left no trace whatsoever for multiple investigators to find at State? Please, be specific.

Which specific item of mail are you talking about here? Please be clear about timelines, and who, what, when, and where.

That's the point. There ARE NONE. The only way your lame, blithe dismissal of that can be anything other than shameless spin is if you are asserting that she never exchanged a single piece of official email with anyone in another agency, branch of government, or third party/nation. How about answering one single question: do you really think that's true, that she neither sent nor received a single email from anyone in the Senate, at the CIA, at DoJ, in Germany/Japan/UK/Arkansas/NY, or with any long-time fixer like Blumenthal during her entire tenure? Not a single email? Yes or no.

If you say no, then please just stop the hand-waving "she did nothing wrong" nonsense, since it's BS. If you say yes, then please just stop everything, including voting, because you're either toxically naive or being completely disingenuous.

So, yes or no? One single email with any one single contact outside of subordinates at State?

Re:*sigh*

[Tablizer]

Clinton herself signed a memo to her staff reminding them that they had to use state.gov mailboxes for their official correspondence.

Hypocrisy is not a crime. You claimed a crime. Internal memos are not laws. (Peronsally, I suspect she rubber-stamped it without thinking about it much.)

Do you really think that when someone at, say, the FAA gets a FOIA request, that it's the intention or the practice for their own records people to then contact hundreds of other agencies and departments to scour THEIR records for FAA-related correspondence?

Sorry, you lost me here. What does "THEIR" refer to, FAA or FOIA.

You're essentially saying that absolutely no career archivists and investigators can be trusted to know if they've looked through stored email records, but we can trust Hillary Clinton to be 100% upright when she...

False dichotomy. I'm only applying "innocent until proven guilty". Criminal behavior of archive diggers is not the topic here. And you forgot that the investigators suggested there were problems with State Dept. archives. It could be a hardware problem; I never implied it was sabotage; I'm only saying there could be gaps in what's is available here and now based on such statements. Don't read more into what I said and invent intent and conspiracies. If they go searching for something and don't find it, it could be (at least) one of two things: 1) It never existed, or 2) the server or archive machine has a defect, bug-based, or servicer error-based gap, as earlier suspected. (They didn't say the cause of the problem.)

Here is a link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03...

(Begin Quote)

But the State Department disclosed on Friday that until last month it had no way of routinely preserving senior officialsâ(TM) emails. Instead, the department relied on individual employees to decide if certain emails should be considered public records, and if so, to move them onto a special record-keeping server, or print them out and manually file them for preservation.

This patchwork system, reflecting a broader confusion and slowness throughout the government as federal agencies struggle to catch up with the digital age, raises the possibility that some emails from Mrs. Clinton to other State Department officials may have been lost altogether.

(End Quote)

Thus, mere using of the State Department emails BY ITSELF would not guarentee longer-term archiving. Had she merely used the State Dept. email system (and/or Fwd/CC'd S.D. staff), such emails would have STILL been at risk of being lost. As far as what is supposed to be placed on the mentioned "special record-keeping server", I don't have any details on that. If you do, please present them.

(Side note: Ideally an assistant would assist H in doing that rather than her spending her own time deciding what needs "official" archiving. It's not something a Sr. official should spend their time diddling with. Further, it may be cheaper and more reliable to archive everything rather than pay sifters.)

She's the one who deliberately transformed convenient, searchable electronic records with context-providing header info into clumsy, labor-requiring hardcopies

So printing is a crime? Lovely. Maybe the judge wanted printed copies. Why invent PrintGate out of nowhere? Why are focusing on that? You are meandering again. Bad habit.

Her own description of her actions shows that she didn't provide State with any magical CCs of her communications with external third parties or other agencies...

Link? I don't trust your reading comprehension after you fouled up the Al Jez. quote.

The only way your lame, blithe dismissal of that can be anything other than shameless spin is if you are asserting that she never exchanged a single piece of official email with anyone in another agency, branch of government, or third party/nation.

How do you conclude that, exactly?

Re:*sigh*

[ScentCone]

Sorry, you lost me here. What does "THEIR" refer to, FAA or FOIA.

Now you're just being coy. Do you really think that it has ever been a feature of the Freedom of Information Act to require the archivists at the FAA to scour, say, the records kept by Justice, or Agriculture or Commerce etc when someone submits a FOIA request to the FAA for all correspondence involving a given FAA official on a given topic? Of course not. It's understood that the FAA is the keeper of all of the FAA staff's correspondence. If that agency's director was running all of his official mail through a private domain on a server kept in his house, and corresponded with, say, a Senator or someone at Justice, the FAA's own mail archives would have no record of that because said message never traversed the FAA's systems and the archiving mechanisms they have in place. A FOIA request to the FAA's records office for that official's correspondence with said Senator would - just like the FOIA requests for some of Clinton's mail - come up dry. Why? Because a FOIA request to the FAA doesn't cause the FAA's archivists to ask every other agency in the government to also scour the archives of all of those agencies.

We have no record of Clinton's correspondence with anyone in any other agency or branch of the government because the FOIA requests to State can't come up with them. Because those messages didn't traverse State's systems. Her claim that she was relying on her correspondence with other people at State to serve as a record of her official mail deliberately avoids the topic of how her personal server was allowing State to keep records of correspondence that didn't involve State's mail servers or archives. The only possible record of such external communication was going to be found through bottomless research against mail servers all around the government and the world, or through access to her own server - which she says she's wiped clean and will not allow anyone to see. We also get her own personal decisions on which fraction of her email she decided to print to hardcopy, rather than simply passing along in their entirety. And this she did only when pressed to do so, long after she left office. That is in direct violation of the Federal Records Act generally, as well as the 2009 NARA. That it's also in contradiction to her own signed policy just helps to illustrate how phony she's being on the subject.

Thus, mere using of the State Department emails BY ITSELF would not guarentee longer-term archiving

But using that system would have been a good faith effort to comply with the FRA and NARA. Rather than make that good faith effort, she deliberately acted to keep her records from going anywhere near State's servers, didn't provide ANY of the records during her tenure, and didn't provide any when she left.

Ideally an assistant would assist H in doing that rather than her spending her own time deciding what needs "official" archiving

Yeah, an assistant DID. A personally paid aid, working for the family foundation. Someone who's not cleared for sensitive/classified information, and whose paycheck is funded in part by the millions of dollars Clinton collected from foreign donors to her family enterprise while on tour as the country's top diplomat. Regardless, she's the one telling the press that she decided when a message wasn't to be kept for being irrelevant from the State archivist's perspective. I'm sure the career archivists appreciate being told what to think and cut out of that process - not for the incidental use of a staffer's private mail, but for ALL of the top official's communications.

So printing is a crime?

I didn't say that. But because it is the slower method with more work involved, it reflects a deliberate choice to produce the required documents in a way that maximizes the delay in allowing FOIA requesters to see the result

Re:*sigh*

[AK Marc]

I'm not sure what the bolded part means.

That it's exeedingly rare when the gun-nuts say "rather than that unconstitutional legislation, why don't you try to change the Constitution so it would be legal?"

I think because the gun-nuts are worried that the gun haters would actually try it.

For all the lawsuits on guns, it would make sense to "clarify" the right in the Constitution. It's obviously a point that needs clarification. But I see the gun nuts backing down from that stance because they don't want the Amendment process to weaken it.

Re:*sigh*

[Tablizer]

Now you're just being coy.

No, your writing is just bad and meandering and assumptive. How about you pick a specific "guilty" scenario, a "sample" email, and we'll each run that scenario through our models (assumptions/perspectives) about how Fed emails and/or the email-related laws work or don't work step by step.

Rather than make that good faith effort, she deliberately acted to keep her records from going anywhere near State's servers

You claim that, but have no solid proof.

slower method with more work involved, it reflects a deliberate choice to produce the required documents in a way that maximizes the delay...

That's merely your personal speculation based on pre-conceived notions. Maybe there is a perfectly logical reason it was done that way. For example, maybe her personal system didn't have a converter to convert messages into a digital format the judge's system can import. Without more info, I see no reason to continue to speculate on that. It's off topic anyhow as it's not about your crime claim.

Re:*sigh*

[phantomfive]

Here's an actual law she broke. Punishable by twelve months in prison.

Re:*sigh*

[AK Marc]

As part of the email thing? Or is this another Benghazi conspiracy theory? Because that law doesn't say anything that would make a private email server illegal.

Or is non sequitur the only response you are capable of?

Re:*sigh*

[phantomfive]

Congress requested her email. According to her lawyer, after that she deleted all her email.

BTW you must be smoking pot, because your ability to follow a conversation is shot.

Re:*sigh*

[AK Marc]

I can find nothing that indicates she failed to comply with any Congressional request. She provided 900 pages of emails in response to a Congressional request, and provided "all" emails later.

I followed the conversation, but that law can only be broken by failing to respond to a request. You identified no such request. Thus, by your statements, it would be impossible for her to have broken that law. That's why I wasn't following. The first "email request Hillary congress" I found was in regards to Benghazi. So, that's where I got that. In direct reply to your statement, and as on topic as I could be.

If you think she broke a law by failing to follow a Congressional demand, you should specify which one you mean.

Re:*sigh*

[ScentCone]

How about you pick a specific "guilty" scenario, a "sample" email, and we'll each run that scenario through our models (assumptions/perspectives) about how Fed emails and/or the email-related laws work or don't work step by step.

Scenario: A freelance fixer and political operative long associated with and sometimes in the employ of Clintons sends to her an email containing what he describes as very sensitive diplomatic intelligence about people, events, and governments in the Middle East and Europe. He sends this to her in the context of her role as Secretary of State, but of course sends it to her not on her State.gov account (because she told State not to set one up for her), but to her personal mailbox on the private server in her house, using a domain she paid a contractor with a phony name to set up for her the day she was named to the job.

Open receiving this email, she takes it into account (or doesn't - she may have considered its importance to her policy ideas and the execution of her job as being insignificant ... though that's not her call, that's for State's archivists to decide), and that's that. There's nobody and State that she thinks should also read it, so she doesn't forward it to anyone. There's no mechanism in place for that email to be automatically copied over to State or to any other federal institution. Nothing happens to it for the remaining years of her tenure there - a violation of the Federal Records Act and of the 2009 NARA - and nothing happens to it when she leaves office. She doesn't provide that correspondence, or any others like it, to State's archivists.

Years go by. She has done nothing to make that correspondence part of FOIA-able records. Multiple FOIA requests and investigations have come and gone, seeking exactly such documents, but State says there are none, because of course they've never seen it, and can't where she's got them stashed in her house.

Eventually the fact that a hacker has exposed the existence and exclusive use of this private mailbox, along with it dawning on multiple investigators and reporters just how deliberate she's been in keeping this material away from scrutiny, she has her private (non-cleared) employees assist her in choosing which emails she thinks she wants the public to see, and prints them on paper. She mentions that she has deleted tens of thousands of messages that she doesn't consider appropriate for State's review, and that she will never make those messages available to any party for a review of her process.

Messages like the one from her third party intelligence source may, or may not be included in the print-outs - it will take time to find them, because she delivered that correspondence not in a simple-to-search file of messages, but in a redacted stack of paper - the most time and labor intensive choice possible for the transcription and review of those government records.

Scenario two: exactly the same, only the message she received is still sensitive, but is marked as such, and is from someone in the Defense Department. She's now keeping sensitive and/or classified information outside of the secure platforms required by law, and since it was meant for her eyes only and not something she decides to forward to someone at State, the information is once again beyond reach for any FOIA request or investigation that looks to State's archives for official records.

The email may be at DoD because it was sent from there, but investigators can't know to look, since there is no record at State of such a message ever having been sent to the person running State. If she decides to dispose of that message along with the tens of thousands of others she deleted, we'll never know - unless investigators pursue the matter by researching the records of every other federal entity, including legislative offices.

Re:*sigh*

[Tablizer]

Okay. Let's focus on the first scenario first. Here's a hypothetical but probably not unrealistic court dialog:

Prosecution (P): Your acquaintance sent you a message that was clearly work-related, and other than the hacker's discovery, investigators and technicians can find no record of it. How do you explain this?

[Note that hacker's claims have not been verified, but I'll ignore that fact for now.]

Defense (D): I cannot claim I recall with 100% certainty, but I believe I did forward a copy to my assistant at the State Department, and thus the email entered into our standard email system.

P: The hacker's copy didn't have a "CC" going to your assistant.

D: I often send a copy AFTER I reply to certain people. That action wouldn't show up in the original reply's CC.

P: Then why couldn't we find a copy of that after-the-fact message in the State Department system?

D: As my legal council pointed out, the State Department's system has what are now known problems or limitations. That system may have simply lost the message at some point before the investigation started.

P: Your assistant did know about a special secondary server intentionally designed to have better archiving, correct?

D: Based on the testimony given, I believe that is the case. My assistant did know.

P: Then why didn't your assistant use that system to make a lasting copy?

D: I don't know. I rarely have the time to micromanage those kinds of details. I usually leave the decision about what to formally archive or not up to them unless it becomes an executive-level decision, which this situation was not. The written guidelines didn't require executive-level decisions for this kind of message, as it's covered nicely with guideline steps 7, 12, and 15; as my defense attorney pointed out.

P: So you believe it's possible your assistant simply forgot to archive the copy in the advanced server?

D: It's possible, yes, but I have no specific knowledge of that happening or not happening.

P: Can you prove your assistant forgot?

D: This is the defense attorney speaking. I don't believe my client is obligated to prove her assistant skipped the advanced archive step. It's within "reasonable doubt" that the assistant could have forgotten. The exact actions of the defendant and her assistant have not been filmed or stored in a way that we can verify either way. Prosecution, can you prove beyond a reasonable doubt that my client failed to send a copy of the original reply to her assistant?

P: Um.....no, I cannot.

Re:*sigh*

[Tablizer]

Gawker? And Blumenthal claims have not been verified.

Re:*sigh*

[ScentCone]

You would also need to address the presence or absence of such email in her printed-out dump of cherry-picked messages. If it's missing from that pile, it adds to the picture.

And we'd have to see how you imagine the testimony going from the assistant (not that the assistant would be the one in legal jeopardy with regard to federal laws here, other than perjury-related ones).

Recall that the only records we have of external emails are printed. She has not even suggested that she or her staff were in the habit of CCing/forwarding any correspondence with non-State-Dept people to some special place at State. She's only said that she figured the act of corresponding with people IN the State's mail system was a good enough way for those in-house messages to be legally kept. Because her only discussion about this was a single press conference in which she hand-picked the reporters and pre-screened the questions, she wasn't asked about how she thought that mechanism would protect her correspondence with people in other agencies or countries. And that leaves us with her personally selected hardcopies ... which investigators have said are missing any records at all from long blocks of time.

All they have to do is turn up one example of a third party's communications with her, something that she chose not to print, and which she has (as she's said she's done) destroyed, and we're back the FRA again. Destruction of official records. The, "Gee, I thought we were CCing all of that to State" defense doesn't work if there no examples, at all, of any habit of or even attempt to do so. Nobody at State has said, "It's my mailbox she sent copies to," or "Here's the name of the mailbox we set up for her to CC to," and indeed multiple investigations and FOIA requests have found no sign of such a repository ever having been established, let alone used.

Re:*sigh*

[Tablizer]

You would also need to address the presence or absence of such email in her printed-out dump...

I do not believe it's been fully sifted yet.

And the assistant's guilt is not at issue. Maybe he/she will eventually take the stand, but that's speculation about the future.

She has not even suggested that she or her staff were in the habit of CCing/forwarding any correspondence with non-State-Dept people to some special place at State. She's only said that she figured the act of corresponding with people IN the State's mail system was a good enough way for those in-house messages to be legally kept.

CCing and forwarding are specifics of "corresponding". Just because she didn't go into specifics with the press doesn't mean she didn't "do specifics".

The, "Gee, I thought we were CCing all of that to State" defense doesn't work if there no examples, at all, of any habit of or even attempt to do so.

A big "if" there. You haven't presented any evidence that there are no such attempts. You seem to be doing yet more speculating. If you have solid evidence that she "Never did X", then present it.

she wasn't asked about how she thought that mechanism would protect her correspondence with people in other agencies or countries.

If she CC'd or (later in day) forwarded a copy to her staff, then it would be covered. If you have CLEAR evidence she FAILED to do that, then please present it.

her only discussion about this was a single press conference in which she hand-picked the reporters and pre-screened the questions...

That's not a crime. You are again wandering off topic seemingly to bash her on side issues, like the PrintGate you keep mentioning.

I don't think you want to debate your original crime claim, but rather want opportunities to sneak mention of alleged OTHER bad behavior to paint her badly. If that's not the case, then you have A.D.D.-like symptoms and perhaps should see a doctor.

All they have to do is turn up one example...

Please do.

...which investigators have said are missing any records at all from long blocks of time.

Again again, it's GOP senators & politicians claiming that, not dedicated investigators. I'm tired of rehashing the same points over and over again.

Re:*sigh*

[ScentCone]

Again again, it's GOP senators & politicians claiming that, not dedicated investigators.

The investigation conducted earlier (by a Democrat-run panel) also failed to turn up a single such email, just like multiple FOIA queries by multiple parties. Not one. But those investigations did turn up such messages by, to, and between other officials in State and outside of State. Just not hers (no coincidence that she was the only one avoiding the use of State's email platform). So you're saying that though those Democrat investigators COULD come up with copies of anyone else's mail they looked for, involving both internal and external communications with State users, it was just a bizarre stroke of bad luck that her forwards/CCs of messages were mysteriously lost in State's systems? Every single one of them? And that nobody at State, interviewed during those investigations, mentioned the existence of any sort of forward/CC process being in place to catch her mail?

As for "PrintGate" (your phrase, not mine), the point in referring to it isn't the paper (though that was just rude - a juvenile delaying tactic making extra work for other people), the issue is that in producing that dump, she appointed herself to the role - years after she was no longer employed by State - of deciding what is, and is not, correspondence that meets the standards of needing to be archived. She characterized THAT delivery of her selected messages as her providing what the requests required. She didn't say that it was yet another instance of the same messages she had already forwarded or CC'd by other means. She said that delivery WAS her complying with the requirements.

The problem is she didn't do it (nor has she implied or claimed that she had) while in office or on the way out the door as required by law. That's the crime part you keep tap dancing around. Let's try this: YOU provide a single example of her - other than her much-delayed and behind-closed-doors-picked-over recent paper transfer - saying that she had been, all along, providing CCs or forwards of ANY email between her and outside-of-state entities. You won't find such a reference, because she's been very careful not to make one, since she will be unable to back that up with a single bit of evidence that she complied as required, and would rather be caught having been non-compliant with the law than being non-compliant AND lying about it.

As for putting her history of exactly this sort of behavior on the table along with this latest example, it goes to her overall MO. You seem strangely anxious to wish it all away. In what, an effort to make her seem like a better, more electable person? Her character and judgement are very much on display here. She wants to run the entire executive branch of the government, and it's 100% appropriate to shine a very bright light on her unrepentant ethical lapses. Her political appointment to Secretary of State was her first ever executive job. Handling the job in a loophole-seeking way is highly predictive.

Re:*sigh*

[Tablizer]

The investigation conducted earlier (by a Democrat-run panel) also failed to turn up a single such email, just like multiple FOIA queries by multiple parties.

I'm talking about claims of general "gaps", not the hacker event. You appeared to have mixed them up.

it was just a bizarre stroke of bad luck that her forwards/CCs of messages were mysteriously lost in State's systems?

Those servers are KNOWN to be bad, and not designed for long-term archiving. Bad luck? No. Skimpy product selection, probably. (Tea party wants them to be thrifty, after all.)

the issue is that in producing that dump, she appointed herself to the role - years after she was no longer employed by State - of deciding what is, and is not, correspondence that meets the standards of needing to be archived.

That's after-the-fact, not the day-to-day email situation. Her providing copies from her own server is essentially bonus info. I've never read her claiming her server was the qualifying archiving system for regular work-days. (Although, perhaps it might even qualify, the laws as written were vague.)

She characterized THAT delivery of her selected messages as her providing what the requests required.

What requests? The judge's request? Again, the investigation digging is a different matter than day to day work & archive practices.

since she will be unable to back that up with a single bit of evidence that she complied...

"Will"? I don't want future prediction/speculation, I want here and now facts.

Let's try this: YOU provide a single example of her - other than her much-delayed and behind-closed-doors-picked-over recent paper transfer - saying that she had been, all along, providing CCs or forwards of ANY email between her and outside-of-state entities.

A spokesperson for her suggest she did, but didn't give a lot of details. See the opening paragraph:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03...

Anyhow, the burden is NOT on me to show that she is innocent, but rather on you to show that she is guilty. You claimed a crime, and the burden of evidence for a crime is "beyond a reasonable doubt". It's not guilty until proven innocent, but the other way around.

I have given you plenty of opportunity to present the DETAILS backing your "felonious" claim, and got none.

I challenge you once again to put together a court dialog representing known details.

Might help to look under Branstad

[ralphdaugherty]

and you'll find:

"In a court deposition released last week, Governor Branstad acknowledged he has a Blackberry smartphone and receives email on it."

http://whotv.com/2015/03/25/go...

Crooks Ignore Email and use Text Messages Instead!

[McGruber]

Crooked politicians & public officials may receive email, but their actual communication is done by text messages... because they usually can hide their text messages from freedom of information act requests.

Here's an example: In Georgia, fired Dekalb County School System Superintendent Cheryl Atkinson did all her business via text messages:

WSB-TV: Lawsuit raises concerns about DeKalb Schools corruption (Dec. 4, 2012)/

According to the article, the school district was willing to give 12 people their jobs back if the attorney withdrew an open records request for a copy of Superintendent Cheryl Atkinson's text messages.

Ah, Governor Braindead...

[QuasiEvil]

Yeah, well, we didn't call him Governor Braindead for nothing. I still would rather have him there than some of his immediate predecessors. Seems to be able to run my home state without completely screwing things up.

smartphones = apps = email !!!!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you believe "using the Internet" is "email" then you're a fucking moron. Yes, you.

In fairness....

[Livius]

A lot of contemporary software is so bloated that it's quite a convoluted process to read the underlying e-mail in the form of an actual e-mail in the 'classic' sense.

And while I would concede that Brandstad seems less informed about technology than average, we really could use some clearer terminology to distinguish the proliferation of forms of communication.

The Hillary email thing is a nonissue

[Anonymous Coward]

Republicans are just trying to make something out of nothing. She has every right to delete email she sends and receives. Saying she doesn't is a slippery slope towards making all of us responsible for data retention wrt our own email. Standing up against the Republicans on this issue protects our privacy.

Re:The Hillary email thing is a nonissue

[DerekLyons]

She has every right to delete email she sends and receives. Saying she doesn't is a slippery slope towards making all of us responsible for data retention wrt our own email.

That's the thing, these weren't her emails. They were the official communications of an elected official, OUR emails.

Brandstad actions have been criminal.

[Anonymous Coward]

He covered up his son's crimes (killing 2 people). http://www.apnewsarchive.com/1993/Iowa-Governor-s-Son-Facing-Illegal-Possession-of-Alcohol-Charges/id-6dc14502b6ac4335223b2363f3e70c4d

  He forced a Highway Patrolman to lose his job after stopping Brandstad's driver doing 2+ over the posted speed limit.
      http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/02/terry-branstad-driver-speeding_n_3535934.html

In my opinion the guy is a crook, a charlatan, a public nuisance that never should have held office.

Re:Crooks Ignore Email and use Text Messages Inste

[mysidia]

because they usually can hide their text messages from freedom of information act requests.

This is probably because IT policies for maintaining compliance with the law and the courts in some regards to retention of public records simply haven't caught up with the new technology.

The electronic records laws generally do not exclude new methods of stored documents or communications. Once upon a time when e-mail was brand new.... e-mail messages were also "claimed" not to be records.

It's just a matter of time, before someone is penalized legally for failure to produce SMS messages.

Re:Just Curious

[Nyder]

No.

Disposable email address

Any more questions?

Disposable email is still email.

All government orders should be recorded

[Karmashock]

Not literally every government official, but all high government officials should have all their orders tracked. The literal execution of their power should require putting it in writing. At the very fucking least they should have a wax seal and put their chop on whatever document they want obeyed.

This notion that "we don't get recorded if we don't use email" is offensive. No subordinate government official should accept an order that is not duly recorded. State or federal.

Anything out of a mayor's office should get recorded. Governors, cabinet ministers, heads of departments, heads of bureaus, etc. That ay if there is wrong doing, a court can peel the records open and audit when the orders were given.

you just demonstrated exactly why

[raymorris]

Based on the headline, you've decided the governor is stupid. Presumably, you'd vote against stupid politicians, or at least wouldn't vote for him.

The article expalins that the governor once accidentally sent a completely blank email from his Blackberry - he sat on the button or whatever. A guy whose only email was a blank'one sent accidentally is a guy who doesn't use email. Exactly as the governor said, after he was elected he quit using email, to avoid a Hilary situation. He's exactly right - sitting on your phone once doesn't suddenly turn you into someone who uses email for their work.

Yet, with no interest in the facts, you decided based on a clickbait HEADLINE whether or not you'd support the guy. Whatever headline you saw first decided your position, and you end up voting for dumb politicians. Fyi, there is a connection.

What's with the lame commentary?

[floodo1]

"... Perhaps he's distancing himself from e-mail because it's a Hillary thing."

Isn't someone supposed to be editing the story to remove this sort of commentary?

Summary is lacking, as usual

[wonkey_monkey]

The summary goes on about how he uses Instagram and Skype, but doesn't actually get to the point brought up in the headline, which is that the guy does use email, on his Blackberry, apparently without knowing what it is.

It's the ghost of end of term Reagan

[dbIII]

I'd say it's the Reagan copying factor.
They think Reagan won due to being a apocolypse cult wingnut instead of being able to put on a front of being nearly all things to nearly all people. By bringing out people that make Reagan at his worst look like a moderate they think they are hitting the target of emulating a popular President - not understanding by the time Reagan looked weird even the GOP was calling him a lame duck President and counting down the days.
That's the only thing that makes sense as to why they are pushing so many people up from the extreme shallow end of the party.

Re:It's the ghost of end of term Reagan

[dbIII]

I'd say I have a few more decades of watching US politics than you which more than makes up for it.

Maybe he doesn't "use" e-mail.

[EdwardFurlong]

For instance I have several e-mail accounts, you need them if you want to sign up or buy anything online. I never use them to correspond though, and might only log in every couple of months. So I could say I don't use e-mail.

Another Republican says he doesn't use email

[Streetlight]

A previous Republican presidential candidate, John McCain, claims he doesn't use email either. He showed how really smart he was at the time by choosing the brilliant Sarah Palin as his running mate. I remember the interview of her with him sitting there responding to the questions she stumbled over in her responses. Anyway, the non-use of email may be a Republican thing. Then again by not using email there's no written evidence in that form of a politician's intelligence or lack of intelligence. If everything is written by staffers the chief can just blame the anonymous staffer for incompetence.

so?

[superwiz]

Texting is not email. Emails are going the way of Yahoo messenger. Texting has the advantage of the counterparty being pre-approved. Although even that is beginning to break down. Donald Knuth said many years ago that he stopped using emails.

Branstad has been a good governor

[ITRambo]

Iowa is better off because of Branstad being governor. Look up how well the state is doing compared to its neighbors. I think he might be ready to retire now, though..

Re:Branstad has been a good governor

[acidradio]

I so agree. His defense of the pink slime industry is what has pulled Iowa out of the dark ages and into the light!

Re: Denying e-mail, evolution, and climate change

[EdwardFurlong]

Is this a reply to me? If so I do not get it.

Ah yes, I forgot about weasel words

[dbIII]

Ah yes, I forgot about weasel words.
I should just shut up due to being part of the "reality based community" then should I?

Re:*sigh* [CORRECTION]

[Tablizer]

I meant "hearsay", not "heresy". My apologies.

Re:*sigh* [Blumenthal Story]

[Tablizer]

Further, the Blumenthal story appears to be hearsay only. The hacker only claims they are legit. Nobody of respect has verified the hacker's full claim, to my knowledge.

CEOs are not always very wise

[iq145]

http://www.newser.com/story/17...

A bluff is it?

[dbIII]

There's been a lot in the media, books, all kinds of things. You know what really happened so please stop pretending that it wasn't a textbook "might makes right" situation where a loyal party member was pardoned out of being caught breaking the law for very petty reasons.

Re:A bluff is it?

[jmac_the_man]

OK, so you got nothing. You can't win them all, and your side has a bad hand on this one. Great argument. See you next time.

Re:A bluff is it?

[dbIII]

Come off it. Your bullshit is ridiculous and you know it. Here's what really happened:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plame_affair

Re:A bluff is it?

[dbIII]

My side? Do you mean the side that believes in the rule of law because I've certainly never voted for the Democratic Party of the United States.

Let's Start a PAC

[sampson7]

Seriously, how many people reading this would be interested in donating $100 each to a new Political Action Committee dedicated to mercilessly mocking candidates of both parties that revel in their technological ignorance? I am a liberal Democrat, but I just cannot fathom voting for a candidate -- of either party -- so out of touch with the world today that they eschew email -- never mind taking pride in such a shocking level of ignorance.

Are there politically-minded Millennials living in mom and dad's basement interested in taking up the challenge? I've got your first donation right here.

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