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?

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[aardvarkjoe]

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

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[Anonymous Coward]

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

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[beelsebob]

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

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[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?

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[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!

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[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.

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[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.

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[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.

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[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.

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[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.

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[Anonymous Coward]

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

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[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.

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[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."

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[fisted]

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

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[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.

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[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.)

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[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.

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[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.

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[meerling]

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

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[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.

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[davester666]

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

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[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.

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[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.

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[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.

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[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.

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[BlueTrin]

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

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[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.

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[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.

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[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]

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*

[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.

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[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.

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[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.

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[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.

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[anagama]

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

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[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.

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[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.'

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[CronoCloud]

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

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[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.

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[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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.