Emails Show NSA Rejected Hillary Clinton's Request For Secure Smartphone (cbsnews.com)

An anonymous reader writes from an article on CBSNews: Newly released emails show a 2009 request to issue a secure government smartphone to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was denied by the National Security Agency. Clinton's desire for a secure "BlackBerry-like" device, like the one provided to President Barack Obama, is recounted in a series of February 2009 exchanges between high-level officials at the State Department and NSA. Clinton was sworn in as secretary the prior month, and had become "hooked" on reading and answering emails on a BlackBerry she used during the 2008 presidential race. "We began examining options for (Secretary Clinton) with respect to secure 'BlackBerry-like' communications," wrote Donald R. Reid, the department's assistant director for security infrastructure. "The current state of the art is not too user friendly, has no infrastructure, and is very expensive." Reid wrote that each time they asked the NSA what solution they had worked up to provide a mobile device to Obama, "we were politely told to shut up and color."

Comments

Yep.

[ArmoredDragon]

Few people know this, but Hillary Clinton is the final boss of the Democratic party. Also called the Queen of Corruption, she is currently a level 100 Democrat. All level 100 Democrats have the the Corrupt Soul ability, which allows them to corrupt anybody 10 levels below them. If you want proof of this, Obama was a level 90 Democrat when he was elected. He's currently level 100, but because Hillary is a raid boss, her stats count as 3 levels above him, thus making her the final boss.

Bernie of course stands no chance against her, because he's only a level 34 Democrat with quest greens. Hillary's ass is so big, she can literally one shot him.

Re:Yep.

[Feral Nerd]

Few people know this, but Hillary Clinton is the final boss of the Democratic party. Also called the Queen of Corruption, she is currently a level 100 Democrat. All level 100 Democrats have the the Corrupt Soul ability, which allows them to corrupt anybody 10 levels below them. If you want proof of this, Obama was a level 90 Democrat when he was elected. He's currently level 100, but because Hillary is a raid boss, her stats count as 3 levels above him, thus making her the final boss.

Bernie of course stands no chance against her, because he's only a level 34 Democrat with quest greens. Hillary's ass is so big, she can literally one shot him.

Hillary also has 100 minions who are lvl 40 Democrats who can crit heal and replenish mana cash at anytime, she is also known as the Fallen Angel. When she is full charged she is a lvl 103 False Prophet and gains the ability Full Immunity.

Obligatory: https://xkcd.com/393/ - I particularly like the despair in death's voice when the guy pulls out the rule book.

Re: Yep.

[Type44Q]

Hillary's ass is so big, she can literally one shot him.

OMG, almost pissed myself.

Re:Yep.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, to be 14 again. Sigh.

Re:Yep.

[freeze128]

This is what happens when RPG players learn about politics.

Re:Yep.

[Darinbob]

Leeeeeerooooy Jeeeeeenkins... for President!

Re:Yep.

[rtb61]

You dungeons and dragons knowledge is appalling Hillary Clinton is a low level shadow monster cast by Cabalist Illusionists. Only low level because she requires to be constant feed by tiny magic green scrolls which she consumes at a prodigious rate in order to produce the required prismatic spray with fog and hypnotic modifiers. Even then she still requires a cadre of bards to provide extensive support, casting beguiling ballads and songs of hope and change. Without all that support she is more a flatulent miasma of no real consequence.

Re:Yep.

[Zaowulf]

Yes, and it's glorious.

Re:Yep.

[danbert8]

At least we'd have chicken...

Re:Yep.

[WallyL]

I don't care what Leroy Jenkins looks like, but he can't be worse-looking than Trump.

This negates the entire email scandal

[Anonymous Coward]

If you ask me. She was going out of her way to do the right thing and getting cockblocked by our friends at NSA. I have to wonder in light of these revelations, whether perhaps Obama's phone is not susceptible to NSA tampering/eavesdropping after all, and they would absolutely not give such a thing to someone else.

Re:This negates the entire email scandal

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course it does.

Any time someone in IT thwarts your desires, you should immediately expose information that could get people in other countries killed.

And you absolutely be given a free pass for that, because reasons.

Re: This negates the entire email scandal

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you shitting me!?,I can't get an exemption to the speed limit, so that makes it okay for me to speed? What the fuck kind of logic is that? You do realize, of course, that the president travels with a military communications team and a 747 dedicated,to giving him that ability, mostly so that he can authorize nuking the world. Hilary could wait 8 hours until she got to an embassy; her boss is actually informed enough to make decisions for her in her absence.

Re:This negates the entire email scandal

[93 Escort Wagon]

The facts behind this news item actually explains very little, other than she wanted a Blackberry-type device. If (as seems likely) she intended to use a Blackberry to read email from her personally run server - how does that change anything?

ThIs smells like a bizarre attempt at trying to somehow spin her request for a Blackberry-type device into "hey we tried to get Hillary a secure email solution and got turned down, so the personal server thing shouldn't be an issue".

Re: This negates the entire email scandal

[Anonymous Coward]

A better car analogy is that, when she was denied the right to speed on the highway with nitro, she built her own racetrack in her backyard. Of course she didn't intentionally use nitro there as it's dangerous if not done properly.

Several years later, an investigation revealed that a few gallons of gas she was shipped had a little nitro in them, even though they weren't labelled as such at the time.

Re: This negates the entire email scandal

[KenHansen]

ThIs smells like a bizarre attempt at trying to somehow spin her request for a Blackberry-type device into "hey we tried to get Hillary a secure email solution and got turned down, so the personal server thing shouldn't be an issue".

Exactly. What I see is the NSA telling Hillary that what passes as a 'secure' blackberry-type solution was in fact a very custom, labor-intensive, manual process that was deemed too expensive/hard to offer to anyone other than POTUS. Let's not forget the timeline: 1) confirmed as Secretary of State 2) hired consultant to establish private server 3) never asks for gov't email account 4) starts working as Secretary of State 5) requests Presidential-level secure device 6) request denied 7) goes rest of her career at State using private email server, keeping all emails private & out of reach for FOIA requests 8) a year after leaving state, amid public outcry, turns over 55,000 pages of printed (on paper) emails 9) declares herself most transparent Secretary of State...

Re: This negates the entire email scandal

[Falconhell]

Perhaps then you can link to the 55k emails released by other Secretary of state office holders? The ones who were more transparent?
Just because you dream up a fantasy from right wing bizzaro world.

Re: This negates the entire email scandal

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a crap car analogy. She didn't stay in her backyard.
A better car analogy is she asked for an armored car to transport money between her home and work. They said she couldn't have one because she had no business taking her work's money home. She decided she'd build her own little garage at home and used it for all of her own cars. But while she was at it she took some of her work's money home with her in her sports car, and got some of her accomplices at work to stuff the money into sacks that read 'definitely not money' so she wouldn't be troubling her bosses with details like what she should and shouldn't be taking home with her in her hot rod.

Re: This negates the entire email scandal

[Bartles]

This article is wrong. She requested to be allowed to use her own blackberry as well as her aides in SCIF facilities. As far as I can tell she never requested a secure bb.

Re: This negates the entire email scandal

[Anonymous Coward]

...It really sounds like she knew she might need a secure channel of communication, was denied it, and now is being raked over the coals for not having one. In short, the Republicans are playing dirty pool again, and using the media to make it look like Hillary is attempting to flaunt national security, when the NSA deemed information she received wouldn't be important enough to set up a secure channel.

Okay, she sent 55 thousand pages of emails, though I suppose many of them were just to Clinton. Does anyone know how many she actually originated that were later marked classified? Certainly actually having 55k pages of documentation about her job is more than most leave behind. I rather suspect it will be a record that won't be beat anytime soon, or perhaps ever.

Beyond that, with 55k pages, I find it unbelievable that there were not a lot of people that knew she wasn't using the normal server. That would imply a level of collective ignorance that would be stunning.

Do you really think if Colin Powell kept the job and had 55k pages, this would be such a story?

Re: This negates the entire email scandal

[blindseer]

"It really sounds like she knew she might need a secure channel of communication, was denied it, and now is being raked over the coals for not having one. In short, the Republicans are playing dirty pool again, and using the media to make it look like Hillary is attempting to flaunt national security, when the NSA deemed information she received wouldn't be important enough to set up a secure channel."

She was told she could use a secure laptop or desktop. She was not without secure e-mail, she was without secure e-mail on a device she preferred.

I do not believe for even a nanosecond that she was denied a secure means to communicate with POTUS and ambassadors. It has been said many times and many ways that she was provided access to secure e-mail. When she could not get the e-mails she wanted on her insecure device she ordered her staff to copy sensitive data from the secure systems, strip it of the marks identifying it as secure, and send it to her on the insecure system. She knowingly violated the laws on protecting state secrets for her own convenience.

You call this "dirty pool" by the Republicans. Here's something that bothers me, we have a public official that broke the law, where are the Democrats in enforcing these laws? Where is the press on this? I see the press covering up for her more than anything.

Do you believe that if Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio had been accused of a similar violation of the law that they'd get the same treatment? Of course not, Democrats AND Republicans would be demanding they leave the race for POTUS. The press would be talking about this daily. I don't know if the press respects or fears the Clintons but they've been largely silent on the gross violations of the laws that the Clintons have committed. This CBS article is just further evidence of the mainstream press being little more than the PR department for the Democratic Party.

Re:This negates the entire email scandal

[colin_faber]

Nonsense, if anything this demonstrates that she's willing to do whatever she has to do, to get what she wants.

Re:This negates the entire email scandal

[frovingslosh]

If you ask me. She was going out of her way to do the right thing and getting cockblocked by our friends at NSA

Absolutely. If you ask for something and you don't get it for any reason, then you are completely justified in risking the national security by setting up your own insecure email sever, using your own insecure mobile device, and even putting classified information on thumb drives and giving them to people without security clearance. Everything she did is the NSA's fault. Hell, the NSA must have even killed Vince Foster.

Re:This negates the entire email scandal

[Anonymous Coward]

So she's a good little republican.

Bingo!

Re:This negates the entire email scandal

[dbIII]

Back in Nixon's time the joint chiefs of staff had a spy in his office so it's not unexpected that the toy soldiers in the NSA would be up to similar games with Obama.

Re: This negates the entire email scandal

[dbIII]

Funny how it's OK for Palin but not Hillary.
However I think we are being distracted by trivialities.
The Manning leak exposed a pile of things that were far worse than this.

Re: This negates the entire email scandal

[Raenex]

Where is the press on this? I see the press covering up for her more than anything.

Actually, I'm surprised they covered it as much as they did. She was raked over the coals for quite a while, especially when she tried to blow it off and the press was having none of it. The story has been on the back-burner since then, but if the FBI investigation results in criminal proceedings it's going to explode.

Re: This negates the entire email scandal

[DaHat]

How many classified emails were found in Palin's personal inbox again?

Re: This negates the entire email scandal

[tranquilidad]

The other Secretaries of State didn't need to release emails because the State Department already had them.

She was trying to escape FOIA requests and got caught with other crap as well. She was also skirting federal records keeping laws.

What other Secretary of State kept their own personal email server and then, only after being ordered to do so, decided which emails were actually government records that she should then return to the agency for which she was employed.

Re: This negates the entire email scandal

[Bartles]

Well there's an unanswered question in all of this. How did classified information get from SCIF to hrc's email server? She requested secure blackberries for herself and her staff and was denied. Hrc doesn't like being denied. It doesn't take a leap of the imagination to suppose that she and her staff brought their personal bb's into SCIF and used them to take pictures of classified info on SCIF displays, or copied classified info right off the screen.

Re: This negates the entire email scandal

[Bartles]

Are you nuts? Why would the governor of Alaska have top secret info in her personal gmail account?

Re: This negates the entire email scandal

[DaHat]

Bingo.

The left is full of such hate, they are still obsessed with a woman who has not run for office in 8 years now, but are more than eager to forgive economic illiteracy (Sanders) or serial corruption and fraud (Clinton).

Re:This negates the entire email scandal

[TechyImmigrant]

I'm shocked! Shocked!.

Oh wait. No I'm not. If playing with the seating plan is the worst corruption you can find, be glad of the honest and uncorrupt government you have.

Re: This negates the entire email scandal

[TechyImmigrant]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

It doesn't seem like it's such a big deal to run SRTP on a phone and mix in some other crypto goodness. They (the NSA) presented the design in public in 2012.

Re:This negates the entire email scandal

[Anonymous Coward]

Why the shit would you need an NSA-modded Blackberry to connect to a personal server? Nothing on State Department email is supposed to be classified, period. The small number of questionable emails turned up are exactly what you'd expect in that volume of communications--the presence of those communications on email would not be permitted EVEN IF it had been an official state.gov account.

In order for the conspiracy claims to hold any water, you have to string so many conditions together that it just doesn't make any rational sense.

The facts are that no Secretary of State had ever used a State Department email address before, that everything sent via email is supposed to be unclassified regardless, and the only piece that runs into real trouble is the possibility of dodging FOIA, which is well-tread territory in the government. People have side-channeled conversations forever, and will continue to do so via any number of methods. Forget Hillary Clinton--It's a whole lot of nothing, period, and it would be if it were George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, or Bernie Sanders.

Re:This negates the entire email scandal

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course it does.

Any time someone in IT thwarts your desires, you should immediately expose information that could get people in other countries killed.

And you absolutely be given a free pass for that, because reasons.

[citation needed]

...and no. Fiction from Fox News does not count.

Re: This negates the entire email scandal

[Anonymous Coward]

Where is the press on this? I see the press covering up for her more than anything.

Eh?

This CBS article is just further evidence of the mainstream press being little more than the PR department for the Democratic Party.

Holy crap.

What weird reality are you living in? It's certainly not the same as for one everyone else.

Re: This negates the entire email scandal

[Applehu Akbar]

"I can't get an exemption to the speed limit, so that makes it okay for me to speed? "

I have a physicist friend who can do that. "Officer, if I knew how fast I was going, then I wouldn't know where I was, now would I?"

Re: This negates the entire email scandal

[ambisinistral]

A good geek joke ignored -- such a shame.

Re:This negates the entire email scandal

[dywolf]

good.
good.
let the hatred flow through you, and take your place at my side.

Re:This negates the entire email scandal

[Whatsmynickname]

Yes, yes, yes finally someone gets it. Yes, she's more republican than Trump and WAY more republican than Sanders.

I will be modded to oblivion by the Hillary shills, but oh well. When you have someone who starts more conflicts than George Bush, pushes MULTIPLE trade agreements to strip US of businesses and workers, was against gay marriage before she was for it, wasn't always on the minority's side, ran a war room against the women which Bill had hurt then tweeted all women who are assaulted should be heart, and is in bed with Wall Street, yes she's pretty much a Republican.

Re:This negates the entire email scandal

[Coren22]

So you have no problem with the blackmailing of a press person and feeding them the actual wording of the article? You talk about the seating arrangement?

Re:This negates the entire email scandal

[Coren22]

http://dailycaller.com/2016/01...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...
http://www.washingtontimes.com...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Next challenge?

Re: This negates the entire email scandal

[Anonymous Coward]

I distinctly remember this getting so big that FOX news decided to broadcast the Senate hearing in full, expecting juicy tidbits and blood. Even after eight hours of grilling, FOX finally threw in the towel.

Of course, nearly nobody remembers this, because there's been no press on it. Yet, every slow news day we hear of someone (the boogyman?) claiming that there has been another small step in the path that eventually leads to an indictment. If they have the evidence, and it is court-worthy (as opposed to National Enquirer-worthy) and indictment would be trivially easy. The lack of indicting her seems to indicate that such evidence is lacking.

So far the closest thing we have is that someone claims to have been told to remove secret markings on documents to send to the Secretary of State on a non-secure channel during a critical time period in the Benghazi attacks. We have no evidence that such a thing was done, nor do we know if such a thing was requested. We have no idea of the witness is credible, or if the witness has an agenda. We do know that Hillary's legal (at that time) email server contained emails that were later classified (7%), but that is a coincidence and not a proven effect of receiving something stripped of classification.

But this is the revised, revised, revised version of the original charge. It's like as the prior charges turn out to be poorly designed, full of holes, or false, they just update it to improve the accusation. If Hillary had been charged with the initial complaints, the case would have closed, and she could not be retried. However, by trying her in the media, the case need never be closed and the trial can "almost be ready" forever.

We saw these tactics with President Obama's birth certificate. Nobody ever asked a court to charge the President with failure to be a natural born citizen; because, while it would have taken a few months, it would have been fully decided. Instead, they kept hinting and gossiping to keep the news alive, until people in the public have been so overexposed to this idea that even after a birth certificate was presented in the public forum (as opposed to a court forum) people still don't believe it.

It is a media presentation pattern (much like a software pattern) with the aims of creating news. This pattern is typically leveraged by conspiracy theorists (the moon landing hoax is a prime example) and in light of evidence that should remove all doubt (we brought back moon rocks) the conversation continues omitting any evidence that might not support the desired outcome (we didn't go to the moon).

In this case, it would be foolish to think Hillary's treatment is otherwise. All conversations stem from a delayed FOIA request, made on behalf of a Republican led investigation into the assumed wrongdoing during the Benghazi Attack. Later we find that Hillary surrenders the email server and it's contents to an agency (instead of the requester) so the information can be reviewed for release to the public. Some of it is deemed unreasonable to release (Secret), therefore Hillary is not complying with the FOIA request. That entire premise is silly, and it is just as silly as the premise that because someone else deemed the emails Classified, they must contain evidence of Hillary's wrongdoings.

It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts. We have little data that something is wrong, but I promise you that whatever data becomes available will be used (in the media only, a court wouldn't put up with it) to prove the already pre-supposed truth that Hillary did wrong.

Re: This negates the entire email scandal

[Bartles]

Unfortunately for you, who is president has very little to do with the economy. Who is in control of the house and the senate, on the other hand, does make a significant difference. Using that information, why don't you go back and look at our economic history for the last 35 years or so.

Re: This negates the entire email scandal

[Raenex]

Yet, every slow news day we hear of someone (the boogyman?) claiming that there has been another small step in the path that eventually leads to an indictment. If they have the evidence, and it is court-worthy (as opposed to National Enquirer-worthy) and indictment would be trivially easy. The lack of indicting her seems to indicate that such evidence is lacking.

No, it indicates that the politically elite are treated differently than peons.

So far the closest thing we have is that someone claims to have been told to remove secret markings on documents to send to the Secretary of State on a non-secure channel during a critical time period in the Benghazi attacks. We have no evidence that such a thing was done, nor do we know if such a thing was requested. We have no idea of the witness is credible, or if the witness has an agenda.

Do you just make this shit up as you go along? It was uncovered in Hillary's email:

"Hillary Clinton, who has been hounded by questions about her use of a private email account while heading the State Department, instructed a staffer in 2011 to send her a talking points memo by a nonsecure system after it could not be sent by secure fax.

Clinton also expressed surprise in another 2011 email that a State Department staffer would use a private email account for work, according to the latest batch of Clinton emails released by the State Department under a schedule ordered by a federal judge.

[..]

But the latest batch of emails sheds light on her sometimes contradictory attitudes about email security.

In June 2011, after an aide said staffers were having trouble sending her talking points by secure fax, Clinton advised: 'If they can't, turn into nonpaper w no identifying heading and send nonsecure.' "

And the context appears to be a sensitive issue that was going on in Sudan: http://dailycaller.com/2016/01...

I'm not even going to get to the rest of your post. Too much bullshit already.

Re: This negates the entire email scandal

[DaHat]

Lets see... we are comparing a private citizen who hasn't held or sought any government office in how long?... vs a person who has spent most of the last 25 years in government or seeking government positon.

Yes, Palin mentions are so relevant.

Re: This negates the entire email scandal

[david_thornley]

Correction on your first point: It is illegal to use a private mail server for official business. This law was passed about a year after Clinton left the State Department, and does not affect Clinton's activities. It would be illegal for Kerry to use a private server that way.

Re: This negates the entire email scandal

[david_thornley]

I used to read about worse behavior from private sector CEOs in the Daily WTF. You can drop the "politically" from "politically elite".

There's also the question of who should be allowed to suspend classification in the interest of getting work done, and if this has been considered generally acceptable in other cases. If you were to look at any executive that closely, you'd likely find cases of suspending the rules, formally or informally.

Wake me up when you've got something solid, like an indictment or an FBI finding of probable wrongdoing.

Re: This negates the entire email scandal

[david_thornley]

I believe both Powell and Rice used private email accounts. The only difference is that they didn't run their own servers.

Re: This negates the entire email scandal

[Raenex]

There's plenty of solid material already, enough that low-level employees would have been fired and had their security clearances revoked, and possibly sent to jail. But because it's Hillary "My Turn" Clinton, the powers that be, people like you, and the idiot anon I replied to make excuses, despite her reckless behavior, disdain for transparency, shady "Foundation", and lies.

Re: This negates the entire email scandal

[Straif]

Powell used a private account because the email systems at State at the time were apparently archaic. He was responsible, at least in part, for upgrading the systems while he was there. It was also considered acceptable practice at the time to use private email as long as someone with a state.gov address was cc'd and so far no one has shown any example of any Powell email to anyone outside of State that doesn't include that cc. For actual top secret emails he only used the internal secure server and not his personal account.

Rice apparently never used email although she did have a .gov address. Some of her assistants did have external email accounts but once again, no top secret emails were found (and State looked all the while claiming in court to not have resources to review Hillary's emails).

The closest dirt they could find on Powell and Rice were some internally classified State department emails on Powell's account and Rices assistants accounts. The big difference between Hillary's cache and Rice and Powell's is while each of them as the SoS can declassify any State documents (Powell claims his weren't classified at the time and possibly not even now), they have no authority to declassify documents created by other departments and most of the exposed documents from the Hillary invesitagation have been from external sources (NSA, CIA, foreign governments).

Re: This negates the entire email scandal

[dbIII]

Here's a clue - people with budgets in the millions sometimes discuss commercially sensitive information, and also every state, even Alaska, has issues that touch on national security.

Also it's very much a side issue. Hillary has done a LOT worse DELIBERATELY than repeat Palin's stupid mistake.

Re:This negates the entire email scandal

[TechyImmigrant]

I saw the witty banter yes. Since you had your sense of humor removed, you were unable to see it.

Re: This negates the entire email scandal

[Yew2]

Thats terrible. Think "when all fuel has nitro, her job as racecar driving SoS made her game dangerous the moment she built her own racetrack" Still terrible. If you KNOW a thing thats classified and type it into a brand new email, is that classified? This is a simple question, and the answer to this whole case...on the surface. But there is so much more: http://thehill.com/blogs/ballo...

Re: This negates the entire email scandal

[Yew2]

But when you KNOW a thing thats classified and type it INTO a brand NEW EMAIL - whats that? Marked? Its *born* classified.

Re:This negates the entire email scandal

[Coren22]

How cute, another anonymous troll giving no citations while being provided citations.

Re:This negates the entire email scandal

[Anonymous Cow Ward]

No it doesn't. Her phone wasn't secure, and that's apparently the NSA's fault, but that doesn't mean she had to set up a private email server at home. "My phone isn't secure" doesn't mean "I should set up another thing that isn't secure, because it's already compromised".

Re: This negates the entire email scandal

[Anonymous Cow Ward]

Most of the ones before her didn't use email nearly as often. They are also likely in violation of record-keeping laws, but that doesn't excuse her actions.

Re: This negates the entire email scandal

[KenHansen]

"Perhaps then you can link to the 55k emails released by other Secretary of state office holders? The ones who were more transparent?" Seriously? Previous Secretaries of State didn't have to 'release' their work emails, they used gov't email accounts - their emails were 'released' the moment they were sent or received, only Hillary felt the need Toledo 100% of her emails private until she had a chance to personally review them and hand-pick which she would allow to be available for gov't archives, FOIA requests. To use the language the left is so fond of, she only released a 'highly-edited selection'of her email history, and she somehow never kept a backup of her 'raw' email archive.

What, Didn't get Obama involved?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe the NSA has the power to the the SOS to get bent (I don't know), but they don't have the ability to do so to the POTUS.

Re: What, Didn't get Obama involved?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's cute. You think the intelligence machine and the banking cartel don't tell the President when to jump and how high. The last President to oppose them was Kennedy. Oops.

Re: What, Didn't get Obama involved?

[Type44Q]

For some reason, it seems to require an abnormally-high IQ to see the obviousness of this (either that or nearly everyone else is even dumber than previously suspected... and that's saying something).

Onlt if Clinton's the trump suit

[rmdingler]

The only way I could vote for Bill's wife is if she is opposed by a candidate one lab accident away from a supervillain...

Re:Onlt if Clinton's the trump suit

[KiloByte]

I'm not 100% certain she's the lesser evil. And considering Trump, that's saying something.

Re:Onlt if Clinton's the trump suit

[rmdingler]

This looks like a particularly good year for a third party candidate to have a real shot... and not just as a distraction or vote siphon.

As long as it's not Trump. Let him have the Rep. nomination he has earned under the present rules, and run somebody independent against him and Hillary (if she's still in it).

Though candidates for recent Presidential elections have lowered expectations for voters, this one is shaping up to be a real doozy.

Re:Onlt if Clinton's the trump suit

[rmdingler]

Heh, heh! It seems like Senator Cruz hasn't even properly denied being Canadian.

Is Sénator politically correct, yet?

Re:Onlt if Clinton's the trump suit

[Anonymous Cow Ward]

The thing I find the most ridiculous (and stupid) about the whole "Ted Cruz is the Zodiac Killer" meme is that Ted Cruz wasn't even born for some of the killings. Bernie Sanders, on the other hand, would have been around the right age and in the right place for most of them...

Re:Onlt if Clinton's the trump suit

[PopeRatzo]

The thing I find the most ridiculous (and stupid) about the whole "Ted Cruz is the Zodiac Killer" meme is that Ted Cruz wasn't even born for some of the killings.

Your mama didn't raise no fools, did she?

Re:Onlt if Clinton's the trump suit

[Anonymous Cow Ward]

You clearly haven't met my brothers.

I know, I know, it's just a meme. But there are so many other bad things to say about Ted Cruz, why go with this one?

Totally justified

[31415926535897]

Ah yes, when you can't get your own way and get what you want, that totally makes it okay to break the law.

That's why a police officer who can't get his confession can keep bashing the suspect's head in.

That's why politicians can sell votes.

Following the law is for chumps who have no leadership potential.

Re:Totally justified

[Zero__Kelvin]

I see you are finally starting to understand how it really works.

Re:Totally justified

[arthurh3535]

Ah yes, when you can't get your own way and get what you want, that totally makes it okay to break the law.

That's why a police officer who can't get his confession can keep bashing the suspect's head in.

That's why politicians can sell votes.

Following the law is for chumps who have no leadership potential.

You missed the point. She tried to play by the US security apparatuses rules and basically got told to go away, so she did what many people do when your IT department is being stupid and figured out a way to do what she needed so she could do her job.

Re:Totally justified

[drawfour]

That's not a bizzaro world. That's reality.

Re:Totally justified

[Zero__Kelvin]

Actually, Bizarro World refers to an alternate reality. While I agree with you that reality is bizarre, it's still just called reality.

Re:Totally justified

[colin_faber]

No... She was told "No, you can't have a secure blackberry, Your boss (The President) won't authorize it" so she ``conspired'' with others to break the law to get what she wanted.

Re:Totally justified

[colin_faber]

This comment indicates how little you know about how our government functions. She works at the behest of POTUS as part of the executive branch, last time I checked, Obama was a democrat.

Re:Totally justified

[flopsquad]

No, jackass, she tried to get an exemption to the rules ... an exemption that requires a full-time military communications staff and a 747 to support the president.

All politics aside, where are you getting the information that having an NSA-secured Blackberry requires a round-the-clock contingent of soldiers and a big ass plane?

I would've bought "$30,000 to build and test" or maybe even "special independent network of cellular towers."

But right now I'm envisioning two jumbo jets vying for airspace over the Whitehouse as POTUS and SECSTATE hold their phones in the air, each trying desperately to reach the transmitter on their personal communications 747.

And two squads of delta-force-trained IT pros eye each other warily, the chargemaster they call "Volt" slowly turning an AC adapter over in his hands.

Re:Totally justified

[h33t l4x0r]

Where do you get that? Bizarro World is a planet. It's fictional, but otherwise part of our reality.

Re:Totally justified

[DaHat]

Internalized misogyny maybe?

Lets not forget that this is the same woman who not only stuck by her husband who was repeatedly and credibly accused of sexual assault, but also attacked his victims along the way.

Sure he got impeached and disbarred over some of the deceptions, now she is somehow a champion of women's rights despite her previous anti-woman actions.

Re:Totally justified

[DaHat]

Storing classified information on an unauthorized system was very illegal at the time... hence the FBI investigation and the granting of immunity to the staffer who set up the server.

Re:Totally justified

[DaHat]

Success... success... success... care to point me at some? It's hard to see much through the burning middle-east which flared up on her watch.

Re:Totally justified

[HornWumpus]

WTF?

Where? I call bullshit. You are just deluded.

Cops beat confessions out of people all the time in western Europe, and get promoted.

The key to being treated better is the same around the world. Make it obvious you can afford a _good_ lawyer.

Re:Totally justified

[DaHat]

The FBI investigation is a circus made to look like someone's looking into it because they have to pretend to care. Nobody actually does, nor should they.

While that may be the case in the DoJ, given the # of FBI agents on the case I'm pretty sure they care, and should an indictment not happen you will see leaks like never before.

Re:Totally justified

[Zero__Kelvin]

"The Bizarro World (also known as htraE, which is "Earth" spelled backwards) is a fictional planet appearing in American comic books published by DC comics. Introduced in the early 1960s, htraE is a cube-shaped planet, home to Bizarro and companions, all of whom were initially Bizarro versions of Superman, Lois Lane and their children and, later, other Bizarros including Batzarro, the World's Worst Detective."

The firtst thing you need to realize, and I seriously think you might not, is that we are discussing something that is completely made up and doesn't acxtually exist at all, either in this or any other reality. That being said Wikipedia very clearly describes a world where there are different versions of Superman, etc. that directly correlate (roughly inversely) to their non-Bizarro World counterparts. This is what is known in this case as an alternate reality. I believe you may be confused by not seeing the words Bizarro and Alternate closely enough together for it to sink in, but don't worry, Bizarro h33t l4x0r actually is an elite hacker, and understands this almost intuitively! Also, bear in mind that the whole idea of an alternate reality is fictional as well, so arguing this further is quite absurd indeed.

Re:Totally justified

[h33t l4x0r]

That's cute the way you argued that. You belong on the internet.

Re:Totally justified

[Anonymous Cow Ward]

Lots of them were classified at the time. Some information - including some that was, in fact, on her server - is born classified. As soon as it exists, it is classified information. Continuing to store classified information on a personal server after leaving office is also illegal.

nsa ia not so braindead afterr all

[RY]

Clinton and Co were already breaching security protocols and wanted to know what the president used. The info would be sold or given to the highest bidder by Clinton and Co.

Have a coloring book.

Re:nsa ia not so braindead afterr all

[bug_hunter]

Do you actually believe that? Not being American I don't know much about Senator Clinton's baggage but...
You actually think that she was asking for details about the president's security to effectively sell to spies?

As far as I can tell the email scandal was she used an insecure email server after finding the secure communication server inconvenient.
A stupid thing to be sure, but not a scenario where selling state secrets for money cartoon villain.

Re:nsa ia not so braindead afterr all

[DaHat]

Selling state secrets may be a bit too much of an accusation, but selling favors and access isn't.

The entire Clinton Global Initiative looks to be an amazing scam in which she was personally able to enrich her family thanks to her position as SoS. Granted a book written on this subject isn't able to 'prove' much (though it does make a compelling case), it would be up to the feds to do a criminal investigation on the subject and that isn't likely.

I can just hear their response:

[Type44Q]

Bitch, get your own fucking phone.

Alright, probably not but I can pretend...

Funny how this turned out?

[cashman73]

Isn't it a little weird how they demanded a secure smartphone for President Obama when he took office, and he got it. And then Apple made one even more secure that even the government can't hack, and they raise hell? Kind of a double standard there, eh?

Re:Funny how this turned out?

[swb]

We don't really know what the NSA can or can't do, just that the FBI can't do it on their own.

I would also guess maybe the FBI didn't ask for help (or say "pretty please with sugar on top") on purpose because they wanted to leverage it into their PR campaign for unlimited surveillance.

Given that part of the FBI's mandate is domestic counterintelligence, if there was some kind of real threat to national security, they wouldn't be running a PR campaign and the NSA would be asking if they wanted the data on USB3 sticks.

Hell, the NSA may just decide it would be worth the lulz to provide them with a Nexus running iOS with the data on it, just because they can.

Re:Funny how this turned out?

[HiThere]

Ummmm....just that the FBI *claims* they can't do it on their own. They may be telling the truth, but that's not the only possibility.

Re:Funny how this turned out?

[wvmarle]

No double standards that I can see considering the device issued to Obama no doubt came with back doors for the NSA, the FBI, and maybe some others built in already. That's exactly what they want Apple to provide for them as well.

Re:Funny how this turned out?

[Anonymous Cow Ward]

Nah, that's what politicians always do. *They* get to have cool things, we don't. Even the most anti-gun people in Congress demand that their security gets to have guns. Some of them even have (or had, but their positions haven't changed) concealed carry permits.

Two of Three

[ZipK]

So the only two options were (1) get a secure phone from the NSA, (2) cowboy? There was no (3) don't read government mail on a mobile device?

Re:Two of Three

[wvmarle]

Considering the job I can imagine that (3) is not an option to them.

Re:Two of Three

[ausekilis]

From my sporadic reading it seems to go like this:
1 - The request was made, NSA determined that she didn't need one... so was told to pound sand
2 - Of course, this was what was done. That classic tradeoff between security and convenience.
3 - Is what the law says... but we have someone that is old enough to remember when dirt was young, and is not technologically savvy. It seems that she was just complaining that she got used to a blackberry and couldn't be bothered to A) sit still at a desk and B) learn a new technology (for her).

Sounds like laziness and ignorance to me, but I don't know the job.

Re:Two of Three

[Anonymous Coward]

What aspect of her job do you suppose takes her anywhere in this great big world that doesn't have an NSTS phone or secure facility to access SIPR/JWICS/NSAnet/etc. ?

Because these exist in every embassy and can be setup in virtually any location within minutes with the proper type-1 crypto box.

The plane she is flying on, or the limo she is being driven in have these capabilities as well. Unless you think she absolutely needs to be able to answer these questions while stopped at the coffee shop on the way from or two one of these facilities with the proper access.

The truth is that she is techno-illiterate and wanted to make use of the same platform she has been using for a decade rather than be forced to move to something unfamiliar. And when she was told this platform wasn't compatible with their infrastructure and couldn't be secured, she decided to make up her own rules and do whatever the hell she wished.

Quite the opposite

[Albinoman]

It seems more like this would indicate that she knew full well she was dealing with sensitive information that she knew had to pass through a secured device. So, ignoring the law, she sent that sensitive information through a server that she knew she shouldn't. We know she knew she shouldn't because she told her own staff they couldn't do the same.

Yes Mr. President

[bugs2squash]

You can call any other secure mobile phone from your blackberry. But you have the only secure phone in existence. Now he knows how Bell felt.

Article is smoke and mirrors

[steveha]

This is a sympathetic article designed to sow confusion about this stuff. The article made the true but irrelevant statement that of a recent batch of emails not many were classified and those not Top Secret; it repeated Hillary Clinton's assertion that nothing she sent or received was marked classified, without discussing what is questionable about that assertion; it didn't mention how many Top Secret emails were found, didn't mention the satellite data or the discussion of the names of spies, and didn't mention that about 7% of all the emails were classified at some level. It also didn't mention that the State Department offered a Blackberry and Huma Abedin said that idea "doesn't make a whole lot of sense." But the article did spend several paragraphs talking about how well she is doing in the primaries.

Problems with Hillary Clinton's claims that no material was marked classified:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/8/28/1416309/-Hillary-Clinton-s-Felony-The-federal-laws-violated-by-the-private-server
http://hotair.com/archives/2016/02/09/judicial-watch-hillary-e-mailed-classified-info-to-get-printout-without-any-identifiers/
http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/19/politics/hillary-clinton-emails-server-classified-ig-report/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/clinton-on-her-private-server-wrote-104-emails-the-government-says-are-classified/2016/03/05/11e2ee06-dbd6-11e5-81ae-7491b9b9e7df_story.html

Names of spies discussed in insecure email, lives probably lost:
http://observer.com/2016/02/breaking-hillary-clinton-put-spies-lives-at-risk/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3413033/Hillary-s-emails-contained-classified-information-HUMAN-SPYING-State-Department-says-won-t-meet-deadline-publish-emails.html

Satellite data discussed in emails:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3196774/Hillary-s-emails-contained-secret-CIA-intelligence-satellite-info-panic-hits-Democrats-campaign-issues-4-000-word-explanation-s-innocent.html

7% of emails classified... 2079 out of about 30,000:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2016/02/new-email-release-brings-final-total-of-classified-clinton-emails-to-2079.php

"doesn't make a whole lot of sense":
http://hotair.com/archives/2016/01/18/state-to-huma-in-2011-your-boss-better-get-an-official-e-mail-account/

P.S. So Hillary Clinton wanted a mobile device that could be used for secure communications, and was told "nope, that's not secure, you can visit the SCIF just like everyone else has to do." So naturally she just used her own insecure server to send and receive classified information, so she could use her mobile device. Great.

If President Obama doesn't pardon Hillary Clinton, she will have problems fr

Clippy, Jr.

[PopeRatzo]

The best part of this story is that the device the NSA wanted to give Hillary uses Windows CE.

I am not shitting you.

http://arstechnica.com/informa...

Despite $18 million in development contracts for each of the vendors selected to build the competing SME PED phones (or perhaps because of it), the resulting devices were far from user-friendly. The phones—General Dynamics' Sectéra Edge and L3 Communications' Guardian—were not technically "smart phones," but instead were handheld personal digital assistants with phone capability, derived from late 1990s and early 2000s technology that had been hardened for security purposes—specifically, Windows CE technology.

Re:Clippy, Jr.

[dbIII]

As a bonus if this huge thing is carried in a handbag it makes an effective club for personal protection.

Re:Clippy, Jr.

[phantomfive]

In 2008 Windows CE had 27% of the smartphone marketshare, believe it or not.

Re:Clippy, Jr.

[thegarbz]

The best part of this story is that the device the NSA wanted to give Hillary uses Windows CE.

I am not shitting you.

As opposed to what? You'd do well to remember what life was like in 2009. The iPhone was a second gen toy for nerds that would never take off and was laughably late to the 3G party, Android was just released and no one noticed, and the most advanced devices of the time ran Windows CE where the alternative was a toy based on SymbianOS with even less development than the appstore or a device where the most advanced feature was T9 predictive text.

This is like saying back in 1996 someone tried to sell me a computer with Windows 95 on it, I am shitting you not.

Re:Clippy, Jr.

[wvmarle]

And who had the rest? Symbian and iOS?

It's not that hard to believe considering there was nothing decent out there at the time. iOS was pretty much the first purpose built, user friendly smart phone OS out there - and it was pretty new in 2008.

Re:Clippy, Jr.

[PopeRatzo]

As opposed to what?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Clippy, Jr.

[phantomfive]

Android was already gaining marketshare by 2008

Re:Clippy, Jr.

[thegarbz]

I'm still struggling to see what it is you think that makes a specific model of phone magically superior to a generic embedded OS.

Also I actually had a Blackberry back then. Was thoroughly unimpressed. I remember the bitter sweet feeling of using a device that to me felt not much progress had been made since the R380 was released 7 years earlier.

So, in other words...

[Anonymous Coward]

...The Clinton interprets NSA obstinance as damage and routes around it.

At one level, my reaction is "You Go Girl!" When faced with IT brain damage, I recommend ignoring them and doing whatever it takes to get your job done.

At another level, "routing around brain damaged IT" may be the good plan in general, but is probably a Very Bad Idea for SecState.

(The NSA also comes out of this looking like idiots. It was 2009, and they didn't have a mobile EMAIL solution for "sensitive, but non-classified" information? WTF!)

It only takes one

[Anonymous Coward]

classified document to jail the non-elite.

I recall an incident upon a ship I served upon where the officer in charge of the radio room went to jail because a single TS document went into the trash instead of the burn bag.

One. Single. Page.

Jail.

I seriously tire of the elites getting a free pass on the laws everyone else is forced to abide by.

Re:It only takes one

[Anonymous Coward]

And if you write a post with a bunch of references about it you get moderated -1, Troll on Slashdot

Well I guess Hillary fans get mod points sometimes

This does not conform to my pre-conceived notions

[Snotnose]

Therefore I reject it. / why isn't she rotting in jail instead of running for prez?

Motorola/Verizon still haven't fixed my phone

[PeterM from Berkeley]

From the first Stagefright issue.

I have MMS disabled. I'll never buy another Motorola phone again. I'll never buy another phone from Verizon again.

--PeterM

Re:This does not conform to my pre-conceived notio

[colin_faber]

Soft corruption, resulting in slow walking everything in this investigation. To be honest, I'm very surprised she hasn't been indicted yet.

Hell hath no fury

[mdsolar]

NSA is gonna fry.

Anyone getting a little desperate?

[frovingslosh]

Well, the person being investigated by the FBI is now finger pointing at the FBI. Her problems are always the fault of someone else. But how do we know it is the NSA this time and not the vast right wing conspiracy?

Re:Anyone getting a little desperate?

[DaHat]

Sounds rather like the guy whose job she's trying to take at the end of the contract.

Never is it his fault, it's always the weather, republicans, ATMs, or foreign leaders who don't recognize his greatness.

Sneakers

[irving47]

Sidney Poitier- "...they [The NSA] don't want to share with the other children"

iPhone?

[msauve]

Why didn't she just get an iPhone? The government has openly admitted that they're so secure that even they can't crack them.

Re:iPhone?

[dbIII]

That was then this is now. Back in 2009 Nokia had better phones than Apple.

Re:iPhone?

[ooloorie]

Why didn't she just get an iPhone? The government has openly admitted that they're so secure that even they can't crack them.

You really are gullible and naive, aren't you.

Re:iPhone?

[msauve]

So it's true what they say - Aspie kids can't recognize sarcasm.

Re:iPhone?

[ooloorie]

Actually, it's just that poor attempts at sarcasm are often indistinguishable from stupidity. Try doing better next time.

Re:I'm deadly serious

[tgrigsby]

Nope, he's right. You're a knuckle-dragger.

Putin isn't strong, he's just good at acting like it while being a total dick, like Trump, and clearly he's your role model if you think women and homosexuals damage the military. You managed to leave out welfare queens and minorities in your regressive rant. The Ikes and Roosevelts would have told you to stuff it. And you blame it on the sexual revolution? I think I sense someone was unable to get caught up in the sexual revolution and feels cheated...

"we were politely told to shut up and color."

[Vinegar Joe]

Maybe you should have done what you were told. Dumb ass.

Re:This does not conform to my pre-conceived notio

[DaHat]

There are multiple layers of political appointees who will need to approve such a thing... no doubt that has slowed things down a bit.

Who missed the point?

[s.petry]

Do not attempt to convince us that it's okay for her to break the law because she could not get what she _WANTED_. I really hope that you and the people up modding you are sock puppets and not really that foolish.

Liar

[s.petry]

Please take your shilling elsewhere, or even better, don't. I have way too much experience with security at the National level for this trash to fly, and several others on this site have similar backgrounds.

Details: It is against the law to store classified documents on non-classified servers. Every politician working with classified data swears an oath to follow the law or be in violation of US Laws up to the crime of Treason. A red rubber stamp is not required for a message to be considered classified, a person entrusted with an office knows that questionable data is treated as classified until the appropriate intelligence agency determines otherwise and provides instruction. An elected official claiming "i did not know" is bullshit, because if they did not know the classification they must treat the document as the highest level of classification available to them.

Those rules were in place _before_ email was being used by political offices and have never been revoked, removed, or changed. Simply put, Hillary is a Liar just like you are a Liar.

References: NISP, DSS, and NISPOM, for starters. All standards are available from http://www.dss.mil/ for free. Further reading and standards can be found at NSA.GOV, US DOJ, FBI, and CIA. Also see DISA, and JF/AN which contains information for elected officials, NATO members, foreign nationals, etc...

Re:I'm deadly serious

[TechyImmigrant]

I'm in the 98th percentile for neanderthal DNA. I feel qualified to comment, but I won't, I have to pluck my unibrow.

Re:To shut up and color?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's apparently military speak. Go Google it.

“Shut up and color!” This endearing term has been long used by Air Force leaders and supervisors to help motivate their Airmen to put the mission first and get their tasks completed. This statement reminds them to focus on the bigger picture, and how they fit into the Air Force as a whole. It is not intended to offend, but rather to encourage Airmen to reevaluate themselves as leaders and followers. - See more at: http://airforcelive.dodlive.mi...

More info here: http://www.lajes.af.mil/news/s...

Why not use work email account?

[Trachman]

I have never understood simple aspect of this email scandal: why did the secretary did not use her own official email account?

Had she used official email account, then you might play ignorance, saying that those techies did not get it right.Getting your own server in the basement of your home immediately transfers all responsibility to ms Secretary.

I still do not understand, why there is a debate on the issue? 99.9% of us would be disciplined for using personal accounts for work purposes.

Last attempt to externalize the mistake is just another attempt to rationalize. First there were no private emails, then there were no secret emails, then there were no top secret emails, then there were no attempts to destroy the evidence, now HRC is saying that it is somebody's else fault.

I understand HRC need for convenience and technological ignorance, but decisions and consequences need to be owned up.

Who's really in charge here?

[JDG1980]

I'm no fan of Hillary Clinton by any means, but I find it very disturbing that the NSA apparently outranks the Secretary of State. WTF?

More Secure than a BB

[Dr. Evil]

That phone is a very special phone.

The PDA capabilities were hardened from the phone, and the phone has encrypted voice communications (not GSM crypto... actual crypto). Notice the "trusted display" and the classified and non-classified sides of the phone... even multiple USB ports.

How *did* she handle secret and top-secret classified information without it?

http://www.ruggedpcreview.com/3_handhelds_gd_sectera_edge.html

Hmmm

[Casualposter]

So maybe this is not about anything more than intergovernmental agency bullshit politics? The Pres can have one, but the State Dept can't because the NSA don't like them this week? I mean the last 16 years have been a buffet of petty bullshit politics from the enormous hogs at the public tax trough. So it would figure that cooperation between agencies might not be high on the priority list.

Don't you people understand?

[HexaByte]

Don't you people understand? Rules are for the little people, not the govt bureaucrats. If Hill can't get what she wants under the rules, then screw the rules!

Off the Record

[pebear]

She created her own email server so that she could thwart FOIA Requests. That is the long short of it all. If she took that secure blackberry device and not used her own blackberry device she would be forced onto government owned email servers. Like everything Hillary does it's all shrouded in corruption. She is a one woman crime spree. She runs the Democrat party like a mafia don. She has a vast intelligence network that will take down people much better than Trump could ever dream of. If I were a democrat I would be voting for Sanders. Not because I agree with Bernie's politics but because in this presidential race Bernie is the only honest man standing. We will have a choice between a thoroughly corrupt Hillary or a bad acting Trump for president. I guess I will go for Trump as I don't think he is quite as bad as Hillary.