Slashdot Mirror
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.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
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.