If it was a two star general who did this, he'd be in jail.
If conversations in social settings with former colleagues in the IC / DoD are indicative of sentiment throughout these communities, there will be a tremendous amount of discontent if she is not prosecuted for her decision to conduct official communications as one of the most senior members of the USG over an unsecured personal email server starting in 2009.
It's unclear (IMHO unlikely) that Hillary did anything illegal. She has not been charged with a crime. She has not, so far as we know, been investigated for any crime. And there's no evidence any classified information was leaked, intentionally or not.
> "Petraeus then lied to the FBI about it, the court papers said."
source: http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/former-cia-director-petr...
Clinton choosing to use a private email server was a big mistake, but Petraeus' actions are MUCH worse. Not even in the same category. He's lucky he did not end up in jail.
Always great to hear from people who know how open investigations will be resolved.
To be clear: HRC is accused not only of conducting official business in a manner that was completely unauthorized from an infosec perspective and in direct violation of both IC standards and a Presidential Executive Order; she also apparently ordered a subordinate who needed to send her classified materials to "turn into nonpaper w no identifying heading and send nonsecure" [0]. To me this sounds like her giving a direct order to mishandle classified information.
It sounds like you're on Team Hillary and that's fine, we all have our political opinions. I do not think that your characterization of Petraeus' actions as "MUCH worse" than HRC's is accurate, either in terms of a reasonable-person evaluation of the severity of each respective (alleged in HRC's case) infraction or in terms of how the IC punishes these kinds of transgressions. They are normally merciless when it comes to people intentionally violating the integrity of classified information systems. Merciless.
[0]: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/state-department-releases-more-c...
No accusations have been leveled at Clinton, except in the press. That is, she has not been indicted, arrested, or charged.
That's not a "Team Hillary" thing, that is the literal truth of the legal situation.
Petraeus was charged and convicted.
That's your definition of "accusation"? By that standard, O.J. Simpson has no remaining accusations of homicide.
You go to jail if you anger someone powerful and/or are disloyal, e.g., by leaking something without authorization or whistleblowing. Everyone else gets a slap on the wrist at most, afaict. General and CIA Director Petraeus gave classified information to his mistress; CIA Director John Deutch kept classified information unsecured on his home computer. Neither received significant punishment.
Anyway, all that is to say that the underlings are subjected to the rules, but up at the top it's more a matter of shuffling people away, often with minimal fanfare.
Those emails would still be safer on gmail than in some small IT firm's bathroom closet.
It was just sitting in an office. A single person could have literally kicked in the door and waltzed off with a huge cache of state secrets, and we probably wouldn't even have a video tape of the theft.
The server was not secure enough to be storing state secrets. There's no arguing against this.
Isn't it far more likely that she instructed someone on her staff to instruct someone in the back office to instruct some underpaid admin to just "make crap work so I can stop using dialup?"
I know we cannot prove a negative, but I'd bet $100 she couldn't edit an /etc/sendmail.cf without bricking it. (I know that's not your point, I just find it an amusing thought.)
Edit: parent was edited and my reply appears nonsensical. The parent stated that the server was set up to avoid oversight, which I do not believe has been established as true.
Still does.
> I do not believe has been established as true
The only reason for someone in her position to set up a private email server is to avoid oversight - it's bizarre that anyone could think otherwise - the burden of proof is on her at this point.