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Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn Had 'Forbidden' Internet Connection At the Pentagon, Says Report (businessinsider.com)
According to The New Yorker, President-elect Donald Trump's national security advisor, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, installed a secret internet connection into his office at the Pentagon even though it was "forbidden." Business Insider reports: The network connection was among other rules the former chief of the Defense Intelligence Agency broke because he found them to be "stupid," including sometimes sneaking out of a CIA station in Iraq without authorization and sharing classified information with NATO allies without approval, according to The New Yorker. While Flynn -- who was recently tapped to be President-elect Donald Trump's national security adviser -- apparently had his own private connection, the New Yorker profile doesn't provide a clear picture as to why. It's likely his Pentagon office already had an authorized, unclassified connection to the internet called NIPRNet, which is separate from classified networks such as SIPRNet and JWICS, a former DIA analyst told Business Insider. All of those networks are monitored in some way. A separate, unknown network would not have had the same -- or possibly any -- level of monitoring. If it were implemented in secret, it would also not have the same protections from hackers that a known connection would have. It's also possible that Flynn's Pentagon office was known as a SCIF, or sensitive compartmented information facility -- a secure facility in which intelligence can be discussed without fear of it being compromised. Network connections in SCIFs are closely controlled, and outside electronics such as mobile phones are not allowed inside.
We sure can trust this choice better than the one Ms. Clinton would have made.
BTW, I have some bridges for sale...
Hillary using email doesn't sound so bad in comparison now does it?
Yes I know Hillary is old news and did far worse things than her email server, but I could not resist a smug "I told you so".
That's actually more serious than Snowden's leak to reporters who are US citizens.
He may as well get direct deposit from FSB and no one will touch him (because he isn't a "lib" - so, of course, nothing to see here)
However, if you think Clinton shouldn't be in jail, then don't act like this guy should be either. You either think both parties should be in jail when they do something corrupt, or you're an asshole.
More Fake News. Somehow a military officer violated security rules by the dozen with impunity. I wonder who their "source" is? Putin?
The network connection was among other rules the former chief of the Defense Intelligence Agency broke because he found them to be "stupid," including sometimes sneaking out of a CIA station in Iraq without authorization and sharing classified information with NATO allies without approval, ...
If I had a nickel for every rule or person I thought was stupid but had to follow anyway I could retire by now, but, like it or not, that's the job. Sure, at a certain level, it's also your responsibility to point things out and make recommendations, but if they are ignored, declined or overruled then you gotta live with it.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
The Bubble
Progressivism: Parasites helping parasites to help themselves - to other people's stuff.
Will it ever end?
Here's the relevant parts of the summary.
According to ... according to ... apparently ... doesn't provide a clear picture as to why... It's likely ... or possibly ... If ... It's also possible ...
Everything else in the summary is conjecture.
lucm, indeed.
that Hillary allowed into her SCIF room. Since she was an Original Classification Authority (OCA), she had every right to appoint others that could see classified materials including the FAXes she picked-up. Republicans are complaining about nothing again.
I bet $100 that it was for porn. Seriously, government work is often so boring people have no choice but to sidestep security/monitoring so they can jerk off to relieve the boredom.
Exactly. By definition she couldn't have done anything wrong wrt classified materials.
I doubt it was a wired network. I suspect that an unauthorized hardware line would be very difficult to install unnoticed. Probably wireless Internet over a cellular network. Which raises the question: How does someone operate a cellular phone/modem/router in a SCIF without getting caught by periodic RF scans?
Politics aside: I'm going to call bullshit on this until someone has a reasonable idea as to how it was done.
Have gnu, will travel.
Do exactly what their rank can handle.
You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
Build the fence! Drain the pond! Lock her in a room and complement her!
Seriously? He had a non-DoD internet connection installed in his office at The Pentagon, and nobody noticed.
What happened? Some guy in a Comcast van showed up to do the install and security just waved them on thru to do whatever they felt like?
Democrats have not only recently rediscovered the virtues of limit government, but also the virtues of following rules?
There are some serious machiavellian games afoot to prevent people from understanding how powerful technology is. The situation is this- Neither this instance (as far as I can tell from the summary), nor Hillary Clinton's home email server were things that surprised anyone with any technical proficiency. The powers that be understand better than the masses just how powerful each and every mobile phone and personal computer are along with the internet. Hillary blew it I think when it was discovered that amongst the thousands of emails she was reluctant to release for records keeping purposes, were thousands related to her work that were legally required to be archived by the state, and not withheld. If she had done a more perfect job of seperating the two sets, she wouldn't have been as damaged by the issue. This case however (again, just from the summary) doesn't appear to have any justifiable corner case for the existence of this non-organizational IT subversion. However just as Trump gets away with 'post-truth' flip-flops and such, I don't see his support base as being terribly bothered by this style breach of national IT security by 'one of their own'. Hypocrisy- Jesus taught me to get used to it.
Those paying attention knew that Colin Powell had done something similar long ago. I explained that in comments way back here with many sources I don't want to retype. So in that vein, if Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn really did this, then by all means, drop the hammer on him, Hillary, and Powell in accordance with the rules.
For as many people who worry about Russian hackers, we should really hammer the self-important luddites who insist on compromising our government's opsec.
And no, I won't excuse this kind of nonsense from anyone. I don't care what team he's on, he should play be the rules, and you can see above that I said the same damned thing about Powell weeks ago. I do wonder, though--does anyone know if they bothered to report on the doc showing Colin Powell doing this?
A secret network in the Pentagon? And no one would notice its existence, much less its installation? This one doesn't pass the laugh test.
It seems Trumps new advisor is willing to call out stupid rules and even refuse to follow them (no idea if these were laws or internal policy). He seems to have done this stuff during the presidencies of Bush and Obama, and eventually got fired but not criminally prosecuted. I'm not familiar enough with the rules he broke to know whether they are laws, nor whether they are stupid. But he does seem like a good match for Trump.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Here's the relevant parts of the summary.
According to ... according to ... apparently ... doesn't provide a clear picture as to why... It's likely ... or possibly ... If ... It's also possible ...
Everything else in the summary is conjecture.
Good stuff. I'd only try to cast a little more light toward the squirrelly quotes around "forbidden". That was when I knew this must be top quality journalism (sarcasm).
Yaaa lets reopen that conversation. So an insecure net line into the pentagon what could go WRONG there? Seems like the Donald is counting lip prints on his ass for staff qualifications. Now lets see if Romney will kiss and makeup or tell Trump to fuck off, I'm betting on the kiss.
Our new idiot in chief just hired this jerk. So will the right wing protest like madmen? One set of rules for the left and no rules at all for the right wing. With little liberty and no justice for all.
Or isn't it obvious by now?
It is not against the rules to have an assistant check your email or pickup faxes.
He's a pro-Russian General who ignores the advice of his intelligence people. He's visited Russia repeatedly, sometimes on official duty (e.g. give intelligence briefings), other times not. He was a paid speaker for RT, and insists there's nothing wrong with that.
He has this weird view on Iran, which is a Russia's allied puppet in the region. Iran is totally evil, and yet Russia is good, and proposes choices which would drive Iran further towards Russia.
He once suggested giving access to 5 eyes surveillance to Russia to help fight the threat of Islamic extremism. At the time he was pushing a book, but he's since talked up the Russian alliance as means of tackling muslim extremism since, even after being appointed by Trump:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2016/08/15/trump-adviser-michael-t-flynn-on-his-dinner-with-putin-and-why-russia-today-is-just-like-cnn/
And wants to undermine NATO:
"FLYNN: It’s like NATO. Why do three-quarters of NATO [countries] get away with not paying anything? They have to pay their bills. We’ve done a lot, for the better part of half a century, for these countries."
None of them pay *nothing*, they pay their NATO funding, quite a few have low defense spending which is presumably what he's complaining about in a 'Fox News' sort of hyperbole way, e.g. Germany only spends 1.2% of GDP on defense, France 1.8% of GDP.
They still can't get over that Trump has won. I love it! Cry babies gonna cry.
/. is an international safe space for pro-Hilary crybabies, so please keep your micro-aggression out of here, or at least send trigger warnings before you post such things
Clinton didn't go to jail for insecure email sending top secret material?
Then I don't know why I should care anyone was using insecure internet at the pentagon.
Either you have laws or you don't When you say that you laws don't apply then why should anyone care when they are broken by anyone else?
If you send Clinton to jail, then I can start caring about what someone does wth an insecure internet connection at the pentagon, which I would say is treason if we are actually starting to enforce laws.
Until Clinton goes to jail, I see no reason for anyone to treat the law with any respect whatsoever.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Just how hypocritical/stupid do you have to be to nominate someone who blatantly compromised security at the DOD after the Republican House spent years hounding Hillary Clinton about email security as the Secretary of State?
It's actually quite clever to nominate someone who would not have passed otherwise when you can just use Hillary's actions for cover.
Just like when Trump signs off on some executive orders you really despise, well perhaps you should have brought up that problem during Obama. No? Guess you threw away any right to complain then.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I didn't vote for Trump... but I'm tired of seeing this drivel on Slashdot.
I've been here a LONG time (~15 years). I've seen tons of _crap_ come through this site in that time... but this stupid political stuff takes the absolute cake.
This is supposed to be a damn technology site! I come here to get away from the normal news cycle and talk about technology with others who are interested in it.
I hate to give it up... but I'm out for now. I'm sure I'll check back in a few months... but maybe not.
Bye guys, it's been fun (mostly).
(Cue people telling me I won't be missed... which I won't be)
I think you already know this, but for the benefit of others that may be inclined to believe your statement, you could not be more incorrect in your reasoning both legally and morally.
Michael Flynn, a level headed thinker that actually might make it to Trump's staff. Yes let us stop this now, for such egregious offenses as having a dial-up AOL connection, sneaking out for a drink, & sharing intel w/ our allies. Please all marines on slashdot, stand up and be heard. (yes i am an army puke but sneaking off site for a drink is a time honored tradition, getting caught is the only taboo).
The 'Fear of Muslims is RATIONAL' is something that's easy to trace back, having done it so often since 9/11. It's the term 'Islamophobia'. Whenever anybody says anything against either Islam or Muslims, they are accused of being 'Islamophobes', which is the term used for anti-Muslim bigots.
And here is what the rebuttal is. A phobia is an irrational fear of something. Like if one is scared of a butterfly or a spider, that's a phobia, since those 2 things are harmless. But if one is scared of a scorpion or a wasp, that's not a phobia. It's the same here. If one is scared of a Buddhist or Jew or Hindu or even a Christian, it would be a phobia, since none of these groups are out to destroy all other religions in favor of their own. But if one is scared of a Muslim doing this, it's legit.
And that's not just based on one's prejudices, but rather, a combination of observing events around the world since 9/11, and then comparing them to what Islamic texts advocate. Since 9/11, there have been close to 30,000 jihadist attacks worldwide - be it the 7/7 attacks in London, the massacre of schoolkids in Beslan, the massacre last year in Paris, the attack in Nice, San Bernardino, Boston, Orlando, Minneapolis, Salt Lake City, Chattanooga, Israel, Mumbai, Yala (Thailand), Bali bombings, the list goes on & on & on. While the attackers in all these places came from different places of the world - be it Afghanistan, Algeria, Pakistan, Chechnya, Bosnia, Kuwait, as well as being Westerners recruited by al Qaeda or ISIS, one thing that was common to all of them - they were all Muslim! Some of them were born Muslims, and some of them, like Westerners such as John Walker Lindh, Adam Gadahn, Jose Padilla, Richard Reid, Steven Vikas Chand, et al were converts. But all of them shared one thing in common - a fanatical belief in Islam. While some screamed 'allahu-akbar' while committing their carnage, others did it more quietly but were later found to be Islamically motivated.
What does one do when the evidence on this is so overwhelming? One is to review the sermons that come out of mosques anywhere, and one finds that the imams/mullahs/whatever are the ones who preach this bigotry. What's the next step? That would be to find out how do so many people, whose only job is reading and interpreting Islamic texts, from the Quran to Hadiths to Siras to Tafseers - come to the same conclusion? Solution then is to either read these works in the original - a rather cumbersome exercise - or check out various non-Muslims who've studied these things from something other than a devotional approach, and see what they say. People like Ali Sina, Ibn Warraq, Wafa Sultan, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Walid Shoebat, Bat Yeor, Robert Spencer, Hugh Fitzgerald, Raymond Ibrahim and so on. A combination of all this would reveal the frightening truth - that Islam indeed does endorse and advocate the destruction of all non-Islamic civilization.
The question that then follows is: if this is indeed what Islam states and preaches, is it also what all 1.8 billion Muslims believe? B'cos it would be pretty scary if they do! That's pretty right. Unfortunately, it's impossible to know. However, Pew Research polls taken in various countries of Muslims does reveal that a high percentage of them - maybe under 50%, but still, nowhere as low as 10% - believe in a lot of things, such as honor killings. Also, Muslims have a practice known as taquiyya, which allows them to lie to anybody in defense of, or in furtherance of Islam and Islamic interests. As a result, short of genuine psychic powers, it's impossible to know which ones are genuine and which ones are Jihadists in secular clothing.
So Michael Flynn linked to a claim that stated that Islam wants 80% of humanity enslaved or exterminated? That's pretty much accurate - read
NO ONE sneaks a cable guy along with his cable installers into THE EFFING PENTAGON to do some wiring without people knowing.
Even if Romney gets a job, it can't be the Secretary of State job. Trump believes in getting along w/ Russia, whereas Romney believes that they are a greater threat than Islam. Even if Trump forgives everything that happened this year, he can't overlook that factoid. Have Romney run the VA or something, if he has to be in the cabinet
./ editor troll just putting out OMG Trump stories. How long is going to take BeauHD to get over the butt hurt of the election?
We got the OMG Trump appointments, OMG Trump is bringing back coal, OMG Trump global warming stories, OMG Trump ponies.
FYI his twitter feed, "Trump is a saggy sack of shit. If any one of you is even remotely considering voting for him this November, please unfollow me. "
"That sack of shit next to Hillary is attracting flies! #debate"
"Clinton wiped the floor with Trump tonight. Say hello to your next president, America!"
" It's only a story because it has the 'Trump' buzzword. Stupid media is stupid."
"I bet Trump hired the climber for publicity."
She was proven guilty, the FBI said so. They just said it was too much trouble to prosecute her.
Whatever happened to "punishment for being found guilty".
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The New Yorker is a fake news publication. Every single one of their published predictions and polls during the presidential race was dead wrong. All of the Trump accusers that the New Yorker and the rest of the fake-stream news media unveiled during the campaign disappeared into the woodworks after Trump won the election.
You Big Brother propagandists do not fool us. We know who you are and we're coming after you. LOL
You are sort of right. Its not hillary's position to give clearances to uncleared persons.
But... (1) all the stuff about her maid is assumptions based on a common first name (maria) and (2) nobody has said the maid did not have clearance. When I worked in a SCIF the janitors had clearance so nobody would have to escort them as they did their jobs. It is entirely possible that her maid was cleared. It would be make sense that her maid would have been investigated no matter what because she's working for the secretary of state. So if she passed a comprehensive background check anyway, getting her full clearance wouldn't be a huge deal.
OK, how the heck did he get an "unsecured" internet connection in the Pentagon? It's not like Comcast could just have pulled up in front, dug a trench through the ground, concrete, walls, and tore up the floor, then put in a hidden ethernet cable. this sounds a lot like the 'fake news' liberals have been screaming about.
If he did, in fact, break the law, the FBI will thoroughly investigate him. He will be indicted and the DOJ will then hold him accountable. Right? RIGHT? That's how it works, right?
sig: sauer
Read the article he had an OFFICIAL provided internet. This was an extra one.
"He had technicians secretly install an Internet connection in his Pentagon office, even though it was forbidden."
Ever wonder just what those 100 emails with classified information might have contained? How it would have destroyed our country if those secrets had been compromised?
Take a look other classified information that has leaked. What you see are the things our own government is required to tell us, but won't, and if not that, then things that make politicians and bureaucrats look bad.
No, the state department does not get OPSEC, OPLAN, or SCI materials. They get stuff like whose diplomats are vulnerable to being compromised, who they are having affairs with. They do not get things like troop strength. They do not get operational security information. They do not get a lot because they are diplomats - people that get paid to talk a lot. Like anyone is going to give a bunch of gas bags a lot of hot security information.
Another telling point is that there is no criminal prosecution of Hillary Clinton, nor will there ever be. See? Total red herring and it fooled one hell of a lot of people.
The trick of politics isn't to tell the truth. The trick is to tell your voters what they want to hear regardless of fact.
It really doesn't matter to me who "won". None of them are going to make my life any easier and none of them have the least interest in increasing my paycheck. I found this to be true for several decades now.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
Maybe he didn't mean to do it.
After all, if you don't intend to jeopardize national security, you're still in the clear.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
Cut the poor guy a break here folks. Maybe, just maybe, all he wanted was to download John Podesta's risotto recipe.
For christ's sake, this is a dumb article.
If Flynn had an unfiltered Internet connection, good on him. They exist all over the place and for good reason. The NIPR connections are so sanitized, you can't get anywhere interesting or useful on them. Essentially, nowadays they are whitelisted to protect the stupid office staff from malware and to stop them from whacking off to porn in the office. SIPR/JWICS/etc connections obviously won't have any kind of net access, they are airgapped networks.
It's really easy to see why the head of the NSA would have a justification for an unfiltered connection at times.
As long as the TEMPEST rules are followed, the presence of another network connection is an irrelevancy. If you can't handle classification correctly, you belong in jail and out of the role of handling it (looking at you HIllary).
If some asshat came up with a rule preventing an unfiltered unclass net connection - which would be by its nature a local rule - that person was an asshat and should have been ignored. There are a lot of those in the government as well, sadly.
In terms of sharing classified information with other nations, there have been many ad hoc methods of transferring information to close allies over time to get around shitty procedures. When friendly lives are of concern, sometimes even foreign nationals get access to US-only networks and by definition, US-only intel.
I'd be more likely to judge based on the actual circumstances of the transfer than on what amounts to innuendo, which is all this article has to offer.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Good thing he doesn't have a viagina or this would be a really big deal
Waiting for the chants of Trump supporters to 'Lock him up!'
Nothing but crickets.
More like a safe space for hordes of ACs who can't make up their minds whether their stiffies are for Trump or Putin, you mean?
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
He "installed a forbidden internet connection" in the FUCKING PENTAGON? Excuse me? Either he had his very own cat6 ran through the building just for him, in secret (fucking impossible) or he tethered his fucking smartphone (big fucking deal.) Talk about a tempest in a teapot.
Probably when the time comes for Trump to ask for his resignation (and it will happen within a year or two in my estimation), Trump himself will cite this as one of the reasons. Of course, it won't matter that he's ignoring it now.
I was called in to help debug a problem with a server running on the NIPR. It seemed several out of every 100 TCP connections it made to the Internet failed inexplicably. An application level retry would immediately succeed but if you let the original TCP socket retry it kept on failing to connect.
So I investigated and it turned out about 2% of TCP -source- ports in the ephemeral range were blocked. Any TCP packet using those originating ports simply failed to arrive at the other side.
So, tracked down the firewall admin at Pearl and she explained that yes, they blocked those ports because they were commonly used by malware. Ports like 1234.
Okay, so even if I buy that that's reasonable, it would only apply to TCP -destination- ports, not TCP source ports. Went back and forth, back and forth. Eventually gave up and hacked the server to avoid the filtered TCP source ports.
And that level of incompetence is why I totally understand anyone who wants a direct Internet connection.
Then again, as someone involved in the Intelligence community he might just have wanted a commercial connection whose IP address wasn't associated with the military for some of his communications. You know, basic opsec.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
I know, it's all Obama's fault... fuck you.
Dude, read a fucking dictionary. "fake news" does not simply mean news you don't like, reflects badly on your tribe or hurts your precious feelings. If means fake. As in did not actually happen. Like Obama not being a US citizen, or pizzagate or that quote about Trump saying he'd run as a republican because republicans are idiots. All those are fake because they're about things which never happened.
Actual news you don't like which might actually challenge some blindly held misconceptions of yours is not fake.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
The article is VERY vague about what this "secret internet connection" was, but I will give 10 to 1 odds that it was just a Wifi AP. While an unauthorized AP is a bad thing, the post makes it sound like he had Comcast set up cable service in his office or something. Also, if he had "technicians" set it up, they would have secured it etc, so while it was unauthorized and shouldn't have been done, it isn't like he is running an email server that is easily hacked.
You're both wrong. It's a safe place for anyone, anonymous or only relatively so, to spout whatever bullshit they want. My experience is that roughly 2% of comments are worth reading and the moderation system doesn't quite filter out all the noise (which includes my parent post).
Most posts are registered users trying to out-maneuver each other using flawed arguments and then then counter-attacks pointing out the logical fallacies in those arguments. (Amusingly enough, the assertion that the poster is WRONG AND STUPID because they have used a flawed argument is itself an ad hominem attack.)
Fairy rarely, someone posts something interesting or informative and an actual conversation breaks out which is the only useful kind of discussion here... or really anywhere. It would be nice if that were to happen more often.
Is there any evidence for this outside the New York Post?
Play Command HQ online
Lock him up! Lock him up! Lock him up! Lock him up! Lock him up! Lock him up! Lock him up! Lock him up! Lock him up! Lock him up! Lock him up! Lock him up! The contards only need to cross out one word on their posters and signs.
"fake news" does not simply mean news you don't like, reflects badly on your tribe or hurts your precious feelings.
What, like the Clinton emails?
All these flavors, and you chose salty.
When they actually start an investigation (criminal) into Flynn....THEN you can say FUCK YOUR PARTISAN BULLSHIT.
Until that - you're a god-damn ass....because the two ain't equivalent (yet).
So...an article by Business Insider, which relies on an article in the New Yorker, wherein a reporter makes these claims.
No proof, no official findings, no investigations, just, "he told me" from a reporter and magazine that are unquestionably anti-everything that is not Democrat.
This shows all the hallmarks of Fake News as they have been explained to us by the media.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
A "forbidden" connection could be something as simple as using the wrong color network cable when setting up the NIPR machine. There are pages of rules on setting NIPR and SIPR connected machines near one another. Also it wouldn't be "secret" either because the network guys would have to actually set it up and give it access top to the network.
This is completely different than say setting up a personal civilian server in your bathroom and then totally ignoring the NIPR and SIPR machines the tech guys set up for you because you couldn't be bothered with remembering your password or encrypting your email traffic.
The days are gone when there were real journalists that made sure of their facts before reporting. We live in the Dan Rather era where we get news that if it fits the bias of the reporter is barely vetted. I've gotten to the point where I barely believe anything I read and only half of what I see. I just want to ask you, honestly now, do you believe that a military general office got caught doing all the crazy things this report says? It sounds like the bullshit stories we used to come up with when I was in the Air Force. Actually it doesn't, it's crazier than those. If we had passed on any of this shit at the NCO club bar we'd have been laughed out of the place. One thing you don't fuck with in the military is classified material. The paranoia and rigorous rules surrounding that subject makes me shudder to this day almost 30 years later. The very idea this guy had a private internet connection installed in the Pentagon is idiocy. Any of the people involved could go to jail for years. Only people at the cabinet level could possibly get away with that kind of crazy shit and then only if they had the AG in their pocket.
That would be a sensible perception if it weren't for the fact that you left out the hugely relevant fact that the United States Secret Service was involved with this (at least knowledgeable of it) every step of the way. If you really believe you can prosecute (even if only in some fantasy of a non-corrupt court) those SS agents that were aware of the server as well as Hillary...
If in fact the SS made no efforts to ensure the server was as secure as anything else she would have used, then yeah, we've got even more problems with the SS than those drunk driving incidents.
One thing you don't fuck with in the military is classified material.
What a load of rubbish. Go ask any hapless DoE employee who has to coordinate with the military on classified stuff. You won't hear the end of it on how awful the military are to deal with since they seem to neither know nor care about the rules.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Whether we like to admit it or not, this is pretty much always true....
Look at the police, as one example. They enforce all of the traffic rules about obeying speed limits, not passing someone without signaling first, etc. Yet you can watch any patrol car for an hour or so and witness multiple infractions. I've even seen them turn on the lights to get through some traffic, only to turn in to a shopping center parking lot where they killed the lights again and proceeded to go in to a restaurant to meet with their friends for lunch.
By virtue of having the job of enforcing the rules, they feel they earned the privilege of optionally ignoring them when they "know it won't hurt anyone else".
I'm sure this happens all the time in situations where "Internet access is banned" or "heavily monitored". People in situations where they think they can circumvent those rules are going to do so, because it kind of sucks working in the place 8 hours every day under those restrictions.
The rules aren't "stupid", necessarily. But they may well be heavy-handed tactics that amount to swatting flies with sledgehammers.
Stupid attracts stupid.
I have it on good authority from Hillary Clinton supporters that this should be no big deal....
Surely it is now time to engage in a feeding frenzy and rip him apart? After all, if Clinton is a traitor for having her own mail server, and therefore guilty of mass murder and all the other accusations, then of course the same goes here? And so on... I expect we are now going to see intense scrutiny of this guy and his family - let's dig up all the dirt on him, why not? (Exercise for the reader: see if you can spot the sarcasm)