This story just keeps getting better. There is either a grand nefarious plot, or worse, horrific incompetence. I just can't find a third possibility.
The NSA denied her request for a secure smartphone and gave her some nonsense excuse. She tried a few more times to get one, and then Clinton gave up and ordered somebody to set her up with a private email server. She used this unsecure email server for years. She used it to communicate with top level officials (including the president). That she had this server was common knowledge in the administration. She knew it wasn't secure and she's been very careful not to discuss any classified information over email at all. In a handful of cases she slipped up and some classified information ended up on email anyway.
The story I keep hearing is that she had this set up to make FOIA requests more difficult/impossible to fulfil.
The really out there stuff is that this was to hide any cash-for-favors exchanges that happened with relation to The Clinton Foundation.
Because it is easier if everything is in one place. Imagine emailing back and forth with somebody, and they accidentally send you an email to the wrong account.
It makes it easier to control everything.
Given the sheer volume of email she sent from her blackberry (lunch meetings, when to get up, where to go, can you print this, happy birthday, etc) it's pretty clear it's her primary way of communication. So that explains her refusing to take no for an answer from the NSA.
If her motivation was to block FOIA requests, then why did she do literally all important and confidential communication on paper, which falls under FOIA? Then why did the entire administration accept her use of a private email server if she didn't have an obvious reason why she needed one? If her real motivation was to dodge FOIA, then why was the NSA stonewalling? The FOIA hypothesis raises far more questions than it answers.
The administration didn't accept it - a lot of people questioned it and they were told never to speak of it again (read the IG report).
This may not have always been the case.
> Part of the exchange is redacted, so the context of the emails is unknown, but at one point, Sullivan tells Clinton that aides "say they've had issues sending secure fax. They're working on it."
> Clinton responds, "If they can't, turn into nonpaper w no identifying heading and send nonsecure."
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/state-department-releases-more-c...
Quotes:
Mills wondered whether the department could get her an encrypted device like the one from the NSA that Obama used.
“If so, how can we get her one?” Mills wrote the group on Saturday evening, Jan. 24. ...
A request for a secure device from the NSA was rebuffed at the outset: “The current state of the art is not too user friendly, has no infrastructure at State, and is very expensive,” Reid, the security official, wrote in an email on Feb. 13, adding that “each time we asked the question ‘What was the solution for POTUS?’ we were politely told to shut up and color.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/how-clintons-e...
Never underestimate the attraction of convenience.
It would've been a good plan if she had actually secured the server properly and had encrypted all of her stuff.
Unfortunately, there's plenty of evidence of shady stuff the foundation was doing without additional support in her private emails.
A number of security professionals (I mean security in the government, Information Assurance sense) have told me that if they or I were to do anything like what Secretary Clinton did, we would be liable to be prosecuted.
A lot of people are saying there's no way she gets indicted before the election. However, if Trump is elected, he's already said he's going to indict her and send her to prison. Therefore, I if you want to see her indicted, you're probably going to have to vote for Trump.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Na7EKNUkKYM
His language was pretty measured. He didn't say he would be prosecute her, but used the phrase, "We'd have to look into it."
I'm currently working with a major health care center - top of the line everything - and they hand me my upcoming appointment schedule printed from "myfreecalendars.com" because their IT people haven't gotten printing working in their new scheduling program, and frankly they just need to get shit done. I'm sure it's a HIPPA violation, but frankly I'm not going to complain because I need to get shit done too.
I'm sorry, but how is "I'm to busy to follow the law" a valid excuse?
It happens. I don't like it, and I don't respect people who think the rules do not apply to them.
Either you believe in the rule of law, or you don't. Clinton's actions have shown that she does not.
I'm inclined to believe accounts like this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9149363
Perhaps she wasn't furtively planning to take over the world, but the evidence points to more than her just wanting to use a Blackberry - it really seems (to me) like she took significant measures to avoid keeping records.
The simpler explanation is that Clinton got really annoyed with the NSA for denying her requests so she disregarded the rules and did her own thing.
Your explanation is no "simpler", you're just completely disregarding the facts. People didn't just play along, she got a lot of pushback, especially for someone in such a senior position.
In 2011, she was offered a FOIAble BlackBerry. Her team said it didn't make sense. The simple explanation is that she didn't want a FOIAble BB.
https://www.scribd.com/doc/295909737/Stephen-Mull-Emails-to-...
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/03/this-i...
Following common sense here, her decision to ignore State Department regulations (which she lied about) and participate in classified communications (which she also lied about) on a private server immediately after she had made efforts to minimize public access to her communications, leads to the obvious conclusion that she put secrecy above transparency. If her narrative in private testimony matches the public one, then she likely perjured herself as well on the point of whether the State Department authorized the server, since they now say they did not (which again, she lied about).
Judicial Watch didn't get her emails about Libya with Sid Blumenthal until after the Guccifer hack made the email address public knowledge.
If it weren't for the Guccifer hack (of Sid Blumenthal's email), we wouldn't even know about the server, and she would have ignored that subpoena forever.
I'll admit, I'd love to see nothing more than for her to go to prison (and I am expecting downvotes for this) - but I don't think it's going to be for perjury unless I missed something.
See also: http://time.com/3628324/torture-congress-lying-hayden/
Second, it seems to be your argument that she didn't get the IT support she wanted and so it's reasonable she did her own thing. This seems perfectly reasonable if you're trying desperately to give her the benefit of the doubt. Heck, we've all dealt with annoying IT departments!
Except, it's not like that. She was our top diplomat and 4th in line of succession to the presidency. It's a fact that classified information was discussed on the system.
I just can't believe that the best defense is "well, she didn't like the UI of Windows CE and she wanted a Blackberry, and it's not her fault the NSA wouldn't give her one -- so, she did what any of us would do -- she co-opted her husband's private server and paid a State Department employee under the table to manage it outside of the government infrastructure. She also made sure to order her subordinates to keep the email address out of the official State Dept. email registry because she didn't want to risk being forced to disclose anything. And, it's perfectly OK that when her email correspondence was subpoenaed during a FOIA lawsuit brought by Judicial Watch, the State Dept. didn't know to look on this server, and as such they didn't turn over all of the relevant materials until years later, when the private email address was made public and she felt it was OK to release hard copies of 30k emails (promising that among the 32k she deleted were only personal emails about yoga, Chelsea's wedding, etc.).
But, isn't that what we all do when the IT department is unreasonable?"
The level of misinterpretation of FOIA among FOIA officers, lack of domain knowledge, intentional delays and reject-if-possible mentality makes these things very difficult. Total incompetence.
Though, if you find yourself close to something juicy, you can bet your ass a lawyer will swoop in and find something technically wrong to prevent information from being released. Chicago did that to me eight months in by saying "We don't use VoIP, so your request is void." after the state's attorney general's office told Chicago to give me the info. I'd consider this mildly nefarious.
[0] As far as I'm concerned, "unduly burdensome" is just another way of saying "we're not clever enough to get that information, so you're going to have to come up with a clever way on your own, with 1% of the information we have".
Never underestimate the incompetence even by the largest of organizations.
In a sense I am sympathetic with her - this is the type of hacking the system we at HN tend to admire. Clinton is "Uber for Email" before it was cool - dislike the rules and current infrastructure - build your own.
Frankly, she doesn't sound any more incompetent than even a typical old company c. 2010: think Target, Sony, etc. It would be sad, given that her opponent will likely be Trump, if this scandal sinks her candidacy.
Donald won't catch a break from ANYONE, it will be good to have nearly every group riding the Administrations ass every single day. Let alone he really isn't bound to one party or another and likely will go down the middle and get more things fixed than a party centric politician.
tl;dr the real threat Clinton poses over Trump is that press, Congress, and activist, will be silent against her.
You are overestimating Trump and underestimating Hillary.