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Mike Pence Used His AOL Email For Indiana State Business -- and It Got Hacked (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Vice President Mike Pence used a personal AOL email account to conduct sensitive state business -- including issues related to homeland security -- as the governor of Indiana, according to a report from The Indianapolis Star. Not only that, but Pence's email account was also compromised last year, the report reveals. Because personal email accounts are not subject to same types of public transparency laws, it's up to the official and his or her transition staff to hand over any sensitive state-related messages for archiving. Emails from a state account are automatically stored on state servers and subject to public records requests. Pence's office claims the contents of his personal AOL account used for state business are in fact in the process of being archived. A larger concern, however, is security. By using a private AOL account to conduct sensitive state matters, Pence could have exposed sensitive state business. In the hacking incident last year, Pence's email account was compromised by a scammer who used it to try and extort money from members of his contact list by claiming Pence and his wife were stranded in the Philippines, The Indianapolis Star reports. This hack didn't appear to have had been designed specifically to breach Pence's office, which made clear that his AOL account could be compromised by relatively benign breaching techniques designed by spammers and low-level hackers. It is not illegal in Indiana to own and use a personal account while in office, nor is it against the law to handle work-related matters from a personal account -- so long as those emails are in some way archived. However, the Star reports that Pence made no efforts to preserve his AOL emails under after he left office and is only just now doing months after public records requests were first made. "Similar to previous governors, during his time as governor of Indiana, Mike Pence maintained a state email account and a personal email account," reads a statement given to the The Indianapolis Star. "As governor, Mr. Pence fully complied with Indiana law regarding email use and retention. Government emails involving his state and personal accounts are being archived by the state consistent with Indiana law, and are being managed according to Indiana's Access to Public Records Act."
What did he do wrong? He broke no law (unlike Hillary) He's hired an outside law firm to review all emails to ensure the state gets all relevant emails (as opposed to her firm trying to hide and destroy emails). Yes he was phished, but so far no evidence he transmitted classified information over this account.
In other words, it's not an issue because he didn't break the law. Catch him in an illegal act and then we can talk.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
Did Mike say or do anything particularly damning in his emails (pizza anyone)? No.
Pizza? PIZZA?
Thanks - at least we know not to take you seriously.
Was Pence sending Indiana classified emails? Oh right, Indiana does not have a Secretary of state. Was the Indiana gov trading money for state favors?The "fake news"channels humor me.
I'm glad we didn't put Satan in office. A vote for Hitlery would have been disastrous for our country.
Its not illegal, but frankly its immoral to do government business on a private account. The ONLY fucking purpose of that is to hide shit from review.
Depends on the content of the email. "Honey, I'm going to be late to dinner because I'm in this meeting for the XYZ bill." Oh no, there's now details of a government meeting in a private email!
Also, Pence is complying with the records-keeping laws of Indiana by having his AOL account archived. That's the only reason you even know about this story...because he was already doing the right thing. I'm wondering if maybe your outrage over Pence's email is not because you're a real stickler for email practices but because you're opposed to him politically, so anything you can maybe infer isn't perfect turns out to be proof of absolute depravity. Maybe?
That said, I think governments at all levels should review their email records-keeping practices. Government doesn't move that fast, and technology has changed the way we communicate rapidly over the last two decades. I doubt any government agency outside of classified systems has policies in place that Slashdotters would agree are "best practices." And it gets trickier when we start bringing cell phones, texting, and twitter accounts into the mix. If a government agency deletes a tweet (even for a typo), does that count as "destroying government records?" Are they government records, or do they belong to twitter? Interesting, interesting.
When the administration gets into the office on the promise of "draining the swamp" it is not crazy to point out the fact that the water has only gotten deeper under his watch.
"Draining the swamp" was from a specific policy speech about government lobbying with five specific actions he pledged to take. The 2 involving the Executive Branch he's already fulfilled, and the other 3 require congress, which can't get to the legislative agenda until cabinet/executive/judicial appointments are finished and the Dems are dragging their feet, merely delaying the inevitable. If he does those things, he will have "drained the swamp." You're changing the definition to whatever you want (something about government record keeping...retroactive for Indiana governors? I guess?) so you can claim whatever that is he's not doing it. When the fact is no matter what Trump does ("OH MY GOD he didn't appoint a left-handed lesbian eskimo transmidget to the Supreme Court! So much for 'draining the swamp', huh Trumpkins?!?!") you're never going to give him credit for "draining the swamp" because you've simply defined it as "the opposite of whatever Trump's doing."
Anyway, stay mad. It's fun.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.