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US Gov't Confirms Clinton Emails Contained Top-Secret Information (thenextweb.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Just days before candidates begin primary season with caucuses in Iowa and New Hampshire, the Obama administration confirmed for the first time that Hillary Clinton's emails did contain sensitive information. The Associated Press reports that seven of these email chains, are being withheld from the press because they contain information deemed to be "top secret" and that 37 pages included messages described by intelligence officials as "special access programs" — meaning, highly restricted and closely guarded government secrets.
I'm not voting for her in the primaries, and she probably did fuck up w/operational security big-time. I don't think it was with malice
Doesn't matter. Carelessness with Secret information is a federal felony. These "Special Access" documents are "above Top Secret", and likely contained names of covert sources - that is, when this server was hacked by foreign intelligence services, this carelessness caused deaths. That's why it's a felony.
But there is evidence of malice - there is an email instructing a subordinate to strip off the classified header from a document and "send it insecure".
There are important issues like who does and doesn't get massive financial support from wall street to complain about.
Off topic, but Hillary's top lifetime donors have been investment banks and our friends the cable companies. That is the legal donors. The FBI is also investigating Hillary for illegal contributions to the Clinton fund.
We'll know the truth of all of this when it goes to trial, or we'll know we're in a banana republic if it doesn't. In either case, this isn't some trivial issue - people likely died behind this.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Unfortunately it's not how it works - if the evidence is classified it's hard to release it.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
The only one that will profit from this is Bernie Sanders. So far he hasn't been touching the email issue, probably because it's contaminated.
Hillary has so far not been convincing in the denials around that - or a lot of other stuff that she did during her time as secretary of state.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
To me the problem isn't so much the legality - regulations can be a huge pain and how can you remember them all while trying to conduct diplomacy in a complex world? What bothers me is the lack of judgement. Even if she tried to keep classified stuff off the server and did a pretty good job - she's the Secreatary of State. Nearly everything that is emailed to her is something an enemy might be interested in. She agrees to go to lunch with Joe from accounting again? Joe seems to have her ear he would be a great guy to gain influence over to get him to influence her policies and gain information.
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
Because an authoritarian president plus corrupt police forces and intelligence agencies is a recipe for success.
hilary is basically unelectable over this issue. who ever the republican nominee is (begins with TRUM) will hammer her daily about this, drown out all the news cycles, and she'll never be able to get her message out there.
She repeatedly broke the rules because she wanted to beat the system. She runs a farce of a charitable foundation which gives almost no money to charity, and which doubles as a campaign slush fund. And she lied at every step of the way.
I'm a democrat and that's not some partisan attack. She's a corporate whore. Her donor list is a who's who of the banking, insurance industry and big-Pharma elite. Why on earth is she even considered to represent the people's party?
Screw Hilary and her elitist cabal of sell-out faux-populists.
She's the absolute worst,
You do realize that she had to have known, right? Any program she had access to, she would have had to have been briefed on. The information is classified even if it's not marked as such...everyone who's ever worked with classified will tell you that. So, for example, if you create a document, email, etc., that has classified information, you're supposed to mark it properly.
So, for the sake of discussion, let's say she didn't know, even though she's said...
“I did not e-mail any classified material to anyone on my e-mail. There is no classified material. I’m certainly well-aware of the classification requirements and did not send classified material.”
Then that could only mean a few things...1) she slept through the program briefing, 2) she didn't read the emails, 3) she read the mail, and didn't understand that it was classified...meaning her above statement shows clear lack of understanding, or 4) she's lying about the whole thing to cover her ass. Are there really any other possibilities beyond it being "a vast right wing conspiracy"?
One other detail...even if she never sent, and only received these items, as soon as she became aware that she had classified material, she would have been required to report it, and turn it over...immediately.
Just another day in Paradise
Until the details come out of who sent them, when they were classified, and who should have known it was problem material, there is not much use in speculating at this point.
Also note that the "regular" office server she allegedly should have been using was NOT designed for classified info either. The same issue would still exist: classified stuff winding up on the wrong equipment. Whether anybody would then still know or care in that case is another matter.
Table-ized A.I.
But that doesn't stop the new conservative owners of this site from pushing this load of garbage.
Excuse me, but I don't consider the opinions of our intelligence agency professionals, who have examined the emails in question, to be garbage. Moreover, Mrs. Clinton is a candidate for President of the United States which makes this all the more relevant. I don't know what's in the emails. I haven't seen them and neither have you. I can understand why Bernie didn't want to discuss the emails either, especially before this latest news, because it was speculation. However, the situation has changed now. The emails will not be released, even partially redacted, because, in the opinion of the intelligence professionals who examined them, they contain references to information obtained through "special access programs", which could reveal sources of information or endanger the lives of those working with American intelligence agencies. What are we to conclude from this latest development? That the emails contained no classified information? If so, then why are the emails never going to be released, even in redacted form? No matter how you slice it, that looks bad. Maybe you're willing to give Mrs. Clinton a pass for breaking the law, but that's hardly a qualification for becoming the chief executive of the United States, an office with responsibility for enforcing the laws. How can somebody who breaks the law with seeming impunity be elected to enforce it upon others? If our laws don't bind everyone equally, whether they be high or low, then what are they? These are serious questions that cannot be dismissed. I will be very interested now to hear the recommendation of the FBI. If they recommend prosecution and President Obama orders the Justice Department not to pursue the case, that would be tremendously damaging to the rule of law in this country and ultimately that's what separates us here in the United States from every other two-bit dictatorship. Without the rule of law the United States will become a mere shadow of it's former self, a kleptocracy in all but name with government by men (or women) and not laws.
I wish news organizations would press her harder with followup questions. I was listening to a NPR (my main source of news) doing a question and answer with Hillary.
NPR: Did you send or receive classified e-mails?
Hillary: I did not receive or send e-mails marked classified.
NPR should have followed up with: Did you discuss with anyone over your private unsecured e-mails system anything that should have been classified? (To have done that would would have been illegal)
During this Q&A with Hillary, she laughed and said that one of the e-mails that is now being classified was of someone sending her a New York Times article. How could it be classified if it was in the newspaper?
(I spent a year in Iraq supporting the US Army. At one point, a co-worker gave a google earth picture to me (by hand) of area around us. He pointed out that the picture originally was not classified because it came from google earth. But then he pointed out that he had made some markings on the picture and now it was classified.)
NPR should have followed up with Hillary: In this e-mail did the person have classified knowledge about the subject of the newspaper article, and did he make comments about the article. (As in my example above, if someone with classified knowledge made any comments about the article and sent it over a non secure e-mail system, it would be illegal)
(disclaimer: I am a Bernie Sanders supporter)
Right? She "confirmed" they didn't. 100% honest to goodness. No way jose.
Except... turns out she lied.
Again.
That's what happens when you try to hide the "charitable" activities of the Clinton "foundation". When is this horrible creature going to be sent up the river?
>has insulted almost every class of citizen except "straight white Christian male"
He is the only one who isn't insulting the White Christian male.
... and still be elected, and people care about Hillary Clinton's emails? Isn't this political system a bit messed up??
No, she's unelectable because what she did was criminal. It doesn't matter if the data was leaked or not. What matters is that she knowingly had classified (the lack of markings also doesn't matter...when you know material is of a classified matter, and she claims openly that she does, then you report it and turn it over), and claimed she didn't, and then tried to whitewash the entire matter.
Now her campaign is taking the tactic that it's because the govt. is overclassifying the material. Answer this...how would they know unless they know what's in those 22 emails that nobody has seen. Regardless, it certainly wouldn't be lowered from Top Secret to Unclass, and anything about that would be admitting that she had stored classified. And nobody, but nobody, gets to "just get shit done" with that.
As for your misdirection with Trump, yes he's a jackass too. But it's off-topic.
Just another day in Paradise
Unfortunately it's not how it works - if the evidence is classified it's hard to release it.
So we're just supposed to trust these Republicans when they claim she did something wrong? That isn't how things work in the US. You are innocent until proven guilty. There is no evidence against her, or the Repubicans would have already released it.
It's her old office (you know, the Obama State Dept.) that is slow rolling out the emails. But only because they were forced to. Otherwise we probably wouldn't have seen any of this for decades.
Just another day in Paradise
Her intent was not to "get shit done", it was to keep as much as possible from being subject to FOIA requests; remember that she directed at least one aide to circumvent classified channels by manually retyping classified information, stripping it of its classification markings, and sending over the internet. And are you seriously suggesting that it's okay because there's "no evidence anything was leaked"? Because the fact that it was on a non-secure server IS evidence that it was leaked.
Well, it's not the Republicans investigating, it's the FBI, and Director Comey is one of the most non-partisan guys around (he threatened to resign if Bush continued his domestic spying program).
Correct. She "did not receive or send e-mails marked classified" because she directed her aides to strip all the markings and send it via non-secure means.
The only one that will profit from this is Bernie Sanders.
Nope. If she gets put away, his chance to be VP does, too. If he gets the nomination, he'll be the next George McGovern.
he hasn't been touching the email issue, probably because it's contaminated.
He's treating her with kid gloves, because he wants something from her.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Saying that women have always been the primary victims of war is pretty damn insulting to those men and boys maimed and killed in wars they were forced to fight in.
You're a retard. The soldiers sent to die at the behest of some government are the primary victims in war.
OK Mr Smartass conservative, if what she did is criminal, then why have charges not been filed?
Lifelong Democrat here...et me be blunt:
Charges not been filed because she was the Secretary of State AND a former First Lady. There's no way the government will blacken its own eye by doing a goddamn thing to her. They'd NEVER put a former First Lady in jail. She could behead a 9-year old boy on the steps of the White House on national TV and she'd still get off.
I'm a Democrat, and a pretty liberal one at that. And yet, I have NO love in my heart for Hillary Clinton- she's a fascist tool of the banking industry and rich, moneyed, concerns. She's a crook and a liar, basically a Republican-Lite masquerading as a Democrat.
Let's face it- she fucked up and broke the law with the whole private email server thing and we both know it. If you or I had been found to have a single classified email on OUR private server we'd already be serving time in prison somewhere. But not her, oh nooooooo.
So no, even a lifelong Democrat like me won't vote for her. I just can't do it. I gotta call 'em as I see 'em, and she's dirty, as dirty as they come.
No, she's unelectable because what she did was criminal. It doesn't matter if the data was leaked or not. What matters is that she knowingly had classified (the lack of markings also doesn't matter...when you know material is of a classified matter, and she claims openly that she does, then you report it and turn it over), and claimed she didn't, and then tried to whitewash the entire matter.
Now her campaign is taking the tactic that it's because the govt. is overclassifying the material. Answer this...how would they know unless they know what's in those 22 emails that nobody has seen. Regardless, it certainly wouldn't be lowered from Top Secret to Unclass, and anything about that would be admitting that she had stored classified. And nobody, but nobody, gets to "just get shit done" with that.
As for your misdirection with Trump, yes he's a jackass too. But it's off-topic.
Without knowing what these e-mail contained I'm not going to jump to the conclusion Hilary Clinton was mailing the real world identities of th CIA's chief spies in the Kremlin to her friends in clear text. Overclassification of documents is a real problem. I do research into WWI/II as a hobby and there is a mountain of stuff available for research today that would still be classified for no particular reason othe than sloth and bureaucracy if a lone US govt official hadn't decided to declassify it when he had the authority to do so decades ago. The label 'Top Secret' is a type of holy cow in the US. People assume that everything labeled 'Top Secret' is guaranteed to be a vital state secret. However, the bottom line is that you would not believe some of the stuff that has a 'Top Secret' stamp. Apart from all the cruft that is still labelled thus, 'Top Secret' serves purposes other than state security. For example, it is very convnient to cover up incompetence and corruption by stamping stuff 'Top Secret'. It is also very convenient to bash people for being careless with 'Top Secret' information even if the information in question was pretty harmless because it is not as if the accused can defend themselves by revealing the over classified information to shed light on the idiocy of the charges. If you went on a witch hunt for people who for some reason mailed classified data to non cleared persons you'd have to crack down on most of congress and large portions of the military. So if it is all the same to you I'll remain skeptical until I know whether Hillary really did mishandle something really important or whether this is just a big shitstorm over harmless information that happened to be labelled 'Top Secret' for the purpose of campaign sabotage.
The impeachment (and subsequent acquittal) of her husband was clearly part of a smear campaign. It is of no interest to anyone but Bill's wife into whose mouth he puts his cock. The e-mail scandal, on the other hand, is a big problem.
I don't know what is " turbo-liberal" about Planned Parenthood: it's an organization that provides health services. Some people disagree with some of those services on religious grounds. The resulting debate is given far too much importance on the National political stage. In reality, the issue is used as a tool to divide the electorate and everyone seems to fall for it.
I don't much like Hilary, but I like less silly ad hominem like saying "incontrovertible proof of mental illness", which just lower the standard of discourse and contribute nothing.
soylentnews.org
Apparently, at least one of the emails was about a NY Times article about the US classified drone program. Hard to imagine why an email about an article in a public newspaper would be classified.
If the person who sent the article from the public newspaper has classified knowledge and that person makes comments about the public newspaper article, then the e-mail has classified information.
A lot of you seem to have completely lost your morals, and it's frankly disgusting.
If Hillary Clinton is actually found guilty of something, then yes she should be held accountable. We can throw her in jail, right after Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and any one else involved in what happened at Gitmo and elsewhere. Until all those assholes are behind bars, you can all shut the fuck up. Compared to torturing people who may not have done anything wrong (after all, they never had a trial), I DON'T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT THIS STORY.
That's yet to be seen. The issue here is that the bulk of the email is so large that it is being sorted and the security classification is being determined in batches. The articles you reference can only speak to the amounts of email processed to date and they are dated before this statement about the yet to be released next batch (it missed the deadline).
The assertion of classification alterations after the fact may well be true. Just as we cannot make the affirmative statement that all the emails were not classified when sent, we cannot make the same that any were classified until it has been processed. Executive order 13526 makes all official communication with foreign nations classified by default until declassified so I find it improbable that all emails were later classified. But I also do not see much in the way of sensitive information being discussed via email in this sense. You would think a more dedicated secure source of communication would be employed for state level negotiations other than "hope you like steak and potatoes " concerning a state dinner or "congratulations on your daughter getting married " good will type communication.
Wait, CLINTON is UNELECTABLE because she may or may not have sent emails from a personal server that though not top secret secure has no evidence anything was leaked - and have proven through the non-redacted bits that her means were ignorant of technology but her intent was just to get shit done.
But TRUMP, who has openly contradicted almost every stance he has previously held, has insulted almost every class of citizen except "straight white Christian male" (debatable, since he has even made veiled references that anyone supporting him is a moron), and has even literally praised and kowtowed to the US's greatest rival, Vladimir Putin, is somehow ELECTABLE (let alone not a real traitor)?
Cut the tidbits nobody gives a shit about. What matters: Did she fuck anyone but her husband, and did Trump get a blowjob when he shouldn't? That would have ten times the influence on the US voter than petty things like national secrets or foreign politics.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Hillary Clinton had Talent Keyhole satellite imagery classified higher than TOP SECRET on her secret email server. All actual Talent Keyhole images are codeword classified because revealing the images would reveal the capabilities of the Talent Keyhole satellite. This is confirmed by the FBI.
Clinton also had highly classified HUMINT on her server. (Again, above Top Secret.) HUMINT is "Human Intelligence," in other words, intelligence gathered by a mole inside wherever but working for the US. The reason it was so highly classified is because its improper disclosure would put the source in danger. There was no security in place on the server (which was hacked by China and Russia.) Clinton very well may have gotten this source killed. (The FBI confirmed this part too.)
What a silly, non-sensual argument.
Hillary Clinton, as a Harvard educated lawyer is not, simple-minded, and she knows ignorance of the law is no excuse.
Hillary was taught, first as a Senator, then as Secretary of State, how to identify, mark, and handle classified information (classified means 'confidential', 'secret' or 'top secret' classification).
Hillary was taught that material does not have to be marked with a classification to be secret/require special handling.
Hillary knew that removing a classification marking from a document doesn't make the contents less secret.
Hillary has turned over at least one email exchange in which she instructs an aide to print out material from the classified email system and send it to her insecure home server, the act of doing so is a breach of security protocols and a crime.
As Secretary of State she refused to allow her official email from passing through secure gov't email servers - that is NOT the same as forwarding emails from your gov't email account to a private account, a practice frowned upon, but employed by many gov't workers, including past Secretaries of State.
The argument Hillary supporters would have you believe is that every email sent or received on her server by her or her aides were not classified, that anyone could have read them at the time she got/sent them, but it is only with the passage of time that the information in these emails became secret, requiring classification and special handling.
At it's simplest, the moment Hillary handed her attorney the flash drive containing the 55,000 pages of emails, some of which contained classified information, she committed a crime. General Patraeus showed secret documents to his mistress and was convicted of mis-handling state secrets. Hillary, in handing over state secrets to her lawyer committed the very same crime.
Ken
Because no ex post facto law means that since the emails were not classified and were on a government owned server for unclassified emails and documents at the time means that Clinton isn't guilty of squat, any more than the entire US government is guilty because they owned the servers that these "classified" documents resided
You're doing it wrong here in a number of ways.
First off, Hillary had a privately owned server. She owned it, not the government.
Secondly, using a privately owned server to do Official Government Business is a crime even if the work is unclassified. (It violates the Freedom of Information Act, which says that the people have the right to demand records from the government so they can check for corruption.)
Also, the documents were classified when they were sent. The State Department is lying to protect Clinton when they tell you otherwise.
Not only that: just sending the article can make it classified. Suppose I have classified information about the North Korean nuclear weapons program, and someone sends me an email asking for a good overview of the NK nuclear weapons program. That's a classified query about classified information. My response, even if it's just sending a link to the NYT article, is a classified response.
In that case, your decision to send the link in response to the query does actually provide information beyond the content of the article... specifically it indicates that, based on your classified knowledge, you consider the newspaper article to be correct, or at least sufficiently correct to be worth referencing.
And all children, male and female, between the ages of 5 and 15 must register for school.
But there still hasn't been a single person drafted in over 40 years. Not one. So if you're looking to score some Men's Rights points by bringing up "The Draft", you can just get in the fookin' sea.
You are welcome on my lawn.