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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."
from tfa:
Vice President Mike Pence used a personal AOL email account to conduct sensitive state business -- including issues related to homeland security
not illegal? sounds illegal to me.
"but, his emails!"
let 'em fly. douse the R's in the same shit they gave hillary.
DROWN them in it. let them realize that any weaspon you use, the other side will use, when its THEIR turn.
assholes.
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
The Department of Homeland Security is a federal department and communications with them are subject to federal laws, not just state laws.
I have seen Bernie Goldberg make the argument that what media organizations do is simple bias, while fake news is stuff like Pizzagate. Except that media organizations make up stuff out of whole cloth, like the report about trannie suicides going thru the roof since Trump became president.
I'm actually glad that by slamming the MSM as fake news, Trump has blurred the lines b/w your average Michael Moore type of guy manufacturing stories out of whole cloth, vs the MSM doing it. Both have intentions to mislead, and both due to the same reason: their bias.
A total of 3 emails which contained classified information at the time. However, the "classfied" markings were non-standard which could explain why Clinton did not notice them.
Here is Comey himself testifying that they were incorrectly marked:
Director Comey: No, there were three e-mails. The “c” was in the body in the text, but there was no header on the email or in the text.
Rep. Cartwright: So if Secretary Clinton really were an expert at what's classified and what’s not classified and we're following the manual, the absence of a header would tell her immediately that those three documents were not classified. Am I correct in that?
Director Comey: That would be a reasonable inference.
In addition, they had already been declassified at that time (which explains why the headers were removed):
“Generally speaking, there’s a standard process for developing call sheets for the Secretary of State. Call sheets are often marked – it’s not untypical at all for them to be marked at the confidential level - prior to a decision by the Secretary that he or she will make that call. Oftentimes, once it is clear that the Secretary intends to make a call, the department will then consider the call sheet SBU, sensitive but unclassified, or unclassified altogether, and then mark it appropriately and prepare it for the secretary’s use in actually making the call. The classification of a call sheet therefore is not necessarily fixed in time, and staffers in the Secretary’s office who are involved in preparing and finalizing these call sheets, they understand that. Those markings were a human error. They didn’t need to be there.”
Source: FBI Director Comey: Emails Were Not Properly Marked as Classified
I'm convinced a lot of people using this site lately, especially who post in the comments on articles related to politics, don't work in tech or do so in the most basic way, like monitoring a computer lab. It's hard to believe there are this many rabid Republican/Trump fanatics in tech, something I have not experienced in my years in the field. Of course there are always some right leaning types, but they tend to be more Libertarian and not dumbo nationalists and Republican party fanatics. Some support Trump on his position with H1B visas, but that's one specific policy, not something that justifies becoming a diehard fanatic for the guy over. I can see it more with upper management in companies or Sales bros.
You said the FBI's recommendation not to prosecute "flew in the face of the law . . . because . . . the very crime he specified has no intent requirement." You are wrong. A plain reading of the statute shows a clear mens rearequirement.
This is the crime in question: "Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document [or other] information, relating to the national defense, . . . through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust . . . shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both." 18 U.S.C. 793(f) (emphasis added). In turn, gross negligence is "[a] conscious, voluntary act or omission in reckless disregard of a legal duty and of the consequences to another party." Black's Law Dictionary (9th ed. 2009) (emphasis added).
If storing the classified material on her private server was not a "conscious, voluntary act," then the mens rea requirement here is not met, meaning the crime was not committed.
- Hilary deleted some 33k emails of hers, after being subpoena'ed to preserve them, including any emails about the Clinton Foundation.
In other words, no cover up attempt in one case, vs a desperate cover up attempt in the other
FBI found no evidence of an attempted coverup, or malicious intent, after their investigation. And it wasn't Clinton who deleted them, either. So no, no cover up attempt.
It's plain weird how people get all over Clinton for doing the same things everyone else does too; I haven't seen any mention here of Trump discussing national security policy (i.e. highly classified information) IN PUBLIC. You know, the THREAT of which was the reason that Clinton's email server was so "reckless" or "criminal", depending on how angry the accuser is?