Hacker News Reader

Comment by danielnaab | Hacker News Reader

It's sad and surprising how often this pattern seems to repeat itself. For another example (that's probably not well-known outside Wisconsin), Scott Walker set up a private server in the Milwaukee County office for his internal communication with staff, likely at least in part to shield himself from scrutiny as his county staff did work for his campaign for the governorship:

- http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/court-set-to-rele...

- http://host.madison.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/former-...

View on HN

The security implications of the US Secretary of State using an un-secure email seem far more problematic.

We may very well find out that the US security services were complicit in the Clinton arrangement. It would truly be absurd for a modern diplomat to be using insecure communications when things like (war, life, death) etc are the subject of the communiques.

Clearly the entire POTUS/administration infrastructure was sending her e-mails, so it seems to beggar belief that the system was not vetted by the secret service and the NSA.

On the other hand, the internal politics of mid-level burecrats in the state house are on a whole nother level of banality. The record keeping is certainly an issue, but its really an apples and banannas comparison.

Certainly, when it happens on the federal level it is of higher significance. It remains to be seen, if after scrutiny, Clinton engaged in official misdeeds by keeping her official communications private, but from the article it appears there are serious questions that need to be answered.

But that doesn't diminish my point. Scott Walker is a front-runner for the presidency, and by any reasonable account intentionally created an alternate IT system to bypass open records laws. Likewise, the Bush administration used a similar system hosted by the RNC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_White_House_email_controve...) for the same purpose. We should demand that all public servants operate in a manner accessible to public scrutiny, not just the party we personally tend to vote against.

Let me say I agree that there needs to be standards. Both on security and record retention.

I don't think those are inherently partisan issues.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com