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Comment by gizmo686 | Hacker News Reader

Even before stepping down, it was wrong of here to store the emails on her personal server. I'm not sure, however, if that is criminal, civil, or legal but an OPSEC violation.

There is also concerns because these servers were used (either deliberately or through incompetence) to hide documents from FOIA requests.

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It was definitely wrong but the issue is that it wasn't unprecedented. Kerry was in fact the only Secretary of State to use the State Department email address. And with regards to FOIA under the Federal Records Act it was permissible to use a private email server so long as the requisite records were preserved which it appears they were.

Anyone who thinks this is some cut and dry issue is deluding themselves.

>storing emails on a personal server @ her house

has precedent? other Secretaries of State have done so? who?

I'd also like to know the answer to this, it seems rather unlikely to me that secretaries of state are running their own email servers, or using something like gmail for confidential emails.

The server was maintained by the Clinton's tech guy. The deceive was housed in a utility closet off the bathroom in one of their mega houses. This isn't a gmail yahoo type deal. This is a high school kids email setup. Not professional in the least.

According to the State Department, Colin Powell as well as high level aides to Condeleeza Rice handle classified info on their personal email addresses. Clinton is the only one who set up her own private server though.

Source?

The law restricting government officials to use government email was only passed in 2009. Powell or rice weren't abusing any written rules, Clinton was.

It's pretty cut and dry. Clinton was the only SoS that was legally required to maintain government email account for record keeping. Kerry is following the new laws as he should be.

Oct. 2, 2009: federal regulations on handling electronic records is updated: “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 recordkeeping system.” The responsibility for making and preserving the records is assigned to “the head of each federal agency.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/03/...

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