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State Dept. IT Staff Told To Keep Quiet About Clinton's Server (computerworld.com)

dcblogs writes this report from Computerworld: Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's decision to use a private email server ran afoul of the government's IT security and record retention requirements, according to a report by the department's inspector general released today. This use of a private email server did not go unnoticed within the Department of State's IT department. Two IT staff members who raised concerns about Clinton's use of a private server were told not to speak of it. Clinton was secretary of state from 2009 to 2013 and during that period she used a private email server in her New York home. This report by the Department of State's Inspector General about Clinton's use of a private server makes clear that rules and regulations were not followed. It says that Clinton would not have received approval for this server had she sought it. According to the current CIO, the report said, "Secretary Clinton had an obligation to discuss using her personal email account to conduct official business with their offices, who in turn would have attempted to provide her with approved and secured means that met her business needs." However, the report notes, according to these officials, The Bureau of Diplomatic Security and IRM (Bureau of Information Resource Management) "did not -- and would not -- approve her exclusive reliance on a personal email account to conduct Department business, because of the restrictions in the FAM [Foreign Affairs Manual] and the security risks in doing so."

5 of 371 comments (clear)

  1. Re:But everyone else was doing it? by macsimcon · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm a total lefty, but Kerry, Albright, Rice, and Powell weren't running their own insecure servers which were hacked at least once that we know of. And none of those Secretaries of State claimed that they had done everything right in setting up such a server, and that it had been approved by the department, which the department subsequently denied.

    Hillary Clinton either lied about this, or she was lied to by her staff. That the government has granted immunity to the staffer who set up the mail server leads me to believe that they've got her cold if she tries to claim she had no idea. I've been in IT for 25 years, and I've always protected myself by making my recommendations or warnings in writing to prevent just this sort of shifting of blame.

    The Salon article today suggested that she just didn't follow State Department procedure, without ever mentioning that the department never sanctioned her server, or that her server had been hacked as a result of poor security. The article implies that other Secretaries did it too, so that makes it acceptable. Just absurd.

  2. Re:And they knew it was hacked since at least 2011 by Kobun · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Slight correction to your post, from the article you linked: "But officials told Bloomberg that the FBI had managed to salvage some of the emails deleted by her staff, raising the prospect that Clinton's correspondence could eventually become public." SOME of the emails - no assurance that it was all of them. Other reports continue to turn up work-related emails in the wild from her server that were never turned over.

  3. Re:Laws are only for the little people silly! by rahvin112 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Guilty of what?

    People keep saying that but I've not heard a single person quote a law she appears to be guilty of other than being a bitch. (which isn't against the law). It was stupid, it violated department policy and in my opinion nothing bad came of it, she was technically in charge of state and could set whatever policy she wanted. It would be like accusing the president of releasing classified information when he can at his will classify/unclassify anything he wants and the very act of releasing the information would be official declassification. Sometimes the boss does stupid stuff, but that's one of the advantages of being the boss.

  4. Re:Ugh.. by Mike+Van+Pelt · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I think a Trump administration might cause the left to re-think the whole "Every issue great and small should be decided in Washington DC" thing, and seriously support genuine Federalism.

    For possible positives of a Trump administration... that's about all I can think of.

  5. Re:Ugh.. by Alaska+Jack · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Respectfully, Fascism is a *collectivist* ideology. It has far more in common with communism, socialism, and progressivism than it does with a fundamentally individualist ideology like true "classical" liberalism.

    I always suggest that people who try to deny this watch Triumph of the Will. It helps explain how the Nazis *saw themselves*. They were absolutely a progressive, collectivist ideology.