Comment by zaroth
9 years ago
The emails themselves sent from Clinton's server were unencrypted for several months, so unencrypted printing is just more of the same.
There's no reasonable question anymore that laws on handling classified data were broken, the only question is will charges actually be brought?
What laws regarding handling classified information were broken?
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-0330-mcmanus-clin...
Here are the two obvious one, and another one that's well. . . more in the vein of the Clinton's being the Clinton's IMHO.
http://www.ijreview.com/2015/03/264655-3-federal-laws-hillar...
- Executive Order 13526 and 18 U.S.C Sec. 793(f) of the federal code make it unlawful to send of store classified information on personal email.
- Section 1236.22 of the 2009 National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) requirements states that:
“Agencies that allow employees to send and receive official electronic mail messages using a system not operated by the agency must ensure that Federal records sent or received on such systems are preserved in the appropriate agency record keeping system.”
- MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell believes that the use of a personal emails server appears to be a preemptive move, specifically designed to circumvent FOIA:
Nothing that links to the daily caller is a serious news source.
Plus the article is a pile of stupid innuendo that conflates what Hillary did with Petraeus providing contemporaneously classified documents to his journalist fuckbuddy.
Further, clearly nobody in government had a contemporaneous problem with it since they saw the email address every time they communicated with Hillary Clinton. Whenever they sent her an email, they saw
show up in the email composition window, which certainly cannot be mistaken for a state department email...
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It's quite possible the law discussed in that article was broken. The author lists the three cases of relevance: (1) whether Clinton knew she was putting classified information into an unclassified system, (2) did she willfully communicate classified information to anyone not authorized to receive it, and (3) did she remove classified information with the intent to retain such documents or materials at an unauthorized location. None of those are settled yet. The headline that "Hillary Clinton didn't break the law" is an opinion, not settled. The author is only citing what Clinton's aides and one government lawyer have said -- those are far from unbiased or conclusive. And after the state department IG's report from yesterday, it is pretty clear the violation was intentional.
And the article lists various reasons why none of those would likely apply to her.
The IG's report only shows incompetence on her part, not criminal intent.
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It depends your perspective and who you ask. The State Department was directed to draft regulations, as is common, as the result of law. The State Department says that Clinton broke those regulations. By extension, it could be argued that she broke the law.
Assuming the data was classified (HRC has stated that it was not), what laws were broken?
Department of State employees are supposed to treat any material that even could be classified as extremely sensitive, and not to leave the building. On top of the flagrant disregard for security procedure detailed in this commentary, Clinton routinely shared material with private citizens like Sid Blumenthal, who had no security clearance whatsoever.
For answers to most of your questions about the Clinton email scandal, http://www.thompsontimeline.com/ breaks all the factors in play here down in excruciating detail.
Got through most of the short version and didn't see anything about broken laws.
That server was for only unclassified data though. Some stuff was later called "Classified", but many innocuous things are classified.
Part of the whole security clearance process is instruction on detecting misclassification, so the :%s/SECRET/SUCRETS/g defense doesn't work. At least 22 emails where later classified as top secret, there is no way to mistake top secret material for uncontrolled information. There were at least 22 chances to take a step back and wonder about the wisdom of the thing.
Lets not forget the handful (I don't recall the exact number) of emails that Colin Powell sent from his personal account and had clearance adjustments later on. Or the number of Rice's staff who received emails to their personal accounts that were deemed classified after the fact. Lots of chances for many individuals in the IC to step back and develop better procedures. Lets not put ALL the blame on Hillary.
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What do you mean "that server was for only unclassified data"? There was no other server. Clinton had a .gov account but entirely refused to use it. Meaning 100% of the email Clinton sent was sent through her insecure personal server.
Do you believe 100% of her email was entirely unclassified at the time it was sent?
As for innocuous, it's reported that her emails (unsurprisingly) included intelligence from "special access programs" which are actually classified beyond top secret.
There was another server for truly classified info + hard copies were used for sensitive stuff. Also, the official non-classified state department server was confirmed hacked during her tenure.
Excerpt:
How did Clinton receive and consume classified information?
The Secretary's office was located in a secure area. Classified information was viewed in hard copy by Clinton while in the office. While on travel, the State Department had rigorous protocols for her and traveling staff to receive and transmit information of all types.
A separate, closed email system was used by the State Department for the purpose of handling classified communications, which was designed to prevent such information from being transmitted anywhere other than within that system.
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I was unaware the clintonemail.com email server could differentiate between unclassified and classified content.
She still had a .gov e-mail address. It isn't difficult to imagine there was a "confidential to @gov, all else to @clintonemail.com" rule.
I'm not defending the practise, but let's not be glib.
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There are numerous more egregious cases of senior US political officials breaking the law and/or violating their constitution with no consequences.
If charges are pressed in this case it'll be because of her gender.
I would say that the "3 Felonies a Day" theory applies equally if not even more-so to someone like the Secretary of State. It's probably very hard if not impossible to actually do your job as a high ranking government official and not end up breaking a few laws.
The problem is once said law-breaking becomes widely reported and results in State Department and FBI inquiries, where do you go from there? How can they come back with a recommendation not to prosecute Clinton, but yet they vigorously prosecute people like Aaron Swartz?
However, I do disagree strongly with you that if charges are pressed it has anything to do with her gender. If it were John Kerry who had been SoS when Clinton was, operating kerryemail.com, and he was now running for President, I think we would be in exactly the same position.
Because of her gender? No way.
Because she's unpopular with a large segment of the population, and therefore has less political cover than some of those other people? Maybe.
Because we're getting less tolerant of "senior officials" who can ignore the rules? Hopefully that.
Does Poe's law apply here?