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

Posted by BeauHD on from the another-day-another-email dept.

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."

40 of 229 comments (clear)

  1. Yep. by ArmoredDragon · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

    1. Re:Yep. by Feral+Nerd · · Score: 3, Funny

      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.

    2. Re:Yep. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Ah, to be 14 again. Sigh.

    3. Re:Yep. by freeze128 · · Score: 2

      This is what happens when RPG players learn about politics.

    4. Re:Yep. by Darinbob · · Score: 3, Funny

      Leeeeeerooooy Jeeeeeenkins... for President!

  2. This negates the entire email scandal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:This negates the entire email scandal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:This negates the entire email scandal by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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".

      --
      #DeleteChrome
    3. Re: This negates the entire email scandal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

    4. Re: This negates the entire email scandal by KenHansen · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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...

    5. Re: This negates the entire email scandal by Falconhell · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

    6. Re: This negates the entire email scandal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

    7. Re: This negates the entire email scandal by blindseer · · Score: 4, Interesting

      "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.

      --
      I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
    8. Re: This negates the entire email scandal by Raenex · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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.

    9. Re: This negates the entire email scandal by tranquilidad · · Score: 3, Informative

      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.

    10. Re: This negates the entire email scandal by Bartles · · Score: 2

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

    11. Re:This negates the entire email scandal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      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.

    12. Re: This negates the entire email scandal by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 2

      "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?"

    13. Re:This negates the entire email scandal by dywolf · · Score: 2

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

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
  3. Totally justified by 31415926535897 · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:Totally justified by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 4, Insightful

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

      --
      Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
    2. Re:Totally justified by arthurh3535 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

      --
      No! It's a *SIG*. Keep the Special Interest Groups away! (Con joke!)
    3. Re:Totally justified by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 2

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

      --
      Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
    4. Re:Totally justified by colin_faber · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

    5. Re:Totally justified by DaHat · · Score: 2

      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.

      --
      Help Brendan pay off his student loans
  4. Re: What, Didn't get Obama involved? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    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.

  5. Re: What, Didn't get Obama involved? by Type44Q · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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).

  6. Funny how this turned out? by cashman73 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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?

  7. Two of Three by ZipK · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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?

    1. Re:Two of Three by wvmarle · · Score: 2

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

  8. Quite the opposite by Albinoman · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

  9. Article is smoke and mirrors by steveha · · Score: 2, Informative

    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

    --
    lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
  10. Clippy, Jr. by PopeRatzo · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
    1. Re:Clippy, Jr. by thegarbz · · Score: 2

      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.

  11. It only takes one by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

  12. Re:nsa ia not so braindead afterr all by bug_hunter · · Score: 2

    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.

    --
    It's turtles all the way down.
  13. Hell hath no fury by mdsolar · · Score: 2

    NSA is gonna fry.

  14. Liar by s.petry · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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...

    --

    -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

  15. Re:I'm deadly serious by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 2

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

    --
    I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
  16. Why not use work email account? by Trachman · · Score: 2

    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.