Comment by GVIrish

That's because in the federal government the average employee simply doesn't have the same amount of power nor leeway that a cabinet level executive would. For one, several cabinet level appointees have original classifying authority. No regular employee has that power.

A rank and file employee obviously could not direct anyone to set up a private email server for their correspondence or request that the NSA provide them with a secure blackberry.

> I find it hard to believe that in Washington DC, surrounded by people with security clearances, this was unintentional and just an accident. It's like Hillary had to look far afield to find people without security clearances so that they would set this up for her.

Clinton certainly was wrong here and people certainly told her not to do this. But I don't think it requires malicious intent, just someone not taking the rules/guidelines seriously and/or thinking they have more power than they do.

NARA compliance is something that many people either don't know about or are confused about at State department so I could see how some might not take it as seriously as they should.

I'm sure she and her inner circle rationalized away the security risk because classified materials are not supposed to be sent to public email addresses, there's a separate network for that.