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*

[beelsebob]

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

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]

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*

[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*

[Anonymous Coward]

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

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*

[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*

[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*

[davester666]

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

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*

[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*

[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.

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.

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.