When it was originally reported, my view of the scandal was that it was not properly a national security scandal but instead a scandal over the effort to hide emails from FOIA access. I believed that it was unlikely that she sent any truly sensitive information, as distinct from technically classified stuff like the existence of the drone program. I also believed that the security for the home server was likely good enough for these purposes.
In retrospect, I was incredibly naive about the level of security necessary to protect an email server from foreign governments, and the level of security employed for officials like SecState. I was also naive about Clinton’s understanding of what information is sensitive. As it turns out, Clinton had people telling her how vulnerable this made her communications, and she continued to do it anyway–and sent highly sensitive information over a server without even using any form of encryption.
Here’s what was reported last week in the Washington Post (and has previously been reported elsewhere):
That’s pretty damning. If security people were telling her to knock it off for good reason, she acknowledged those concerns, and then essentially ignored them, then this is a justified national security scandal. I still doubt that a crime was committed, given the scope of the criminal law. But it has caused me to downgrade my estimation of Clinton’s judgment by a good notch. I’m not sure she has worse judgment than her competitors, but it’s now a closer call in my book.
As I understand it, it isn’t so much that Blackberry is uniquely vulnerable. I suspect they would have said the same thing about her using an iPhone. The vulnerability is not the device, but the device’s connection with a homebrew server that didn’t even use encryption for the first few months.
There is often a spectrum of exploits ranging from possible but difficult and expensive to one-click easy-peasy. Often the access sought by foreign governments is to make their lives easier and to enable mass surveillance, and not because it is the only possible way in. When you’re talking about targeting one high-profile individual, that’s a whole different story.
If she knowingly discussed classified things on the BlackBerry, then that’s a big problem. But were the security people really telling her she couldn’t use a BlackBerry ever, for any reason? Or just not for classified information, and in secure spaces in which classified discussions take place?
One issue is that the Blackberry could be hacked to transform it into a listening device. This was apparently one of the concerns expressed to her. It is why they would not let her take it into the SCIF. But if she was carrying it on her during all kinds of other official business, presumably some of that involved highly sensitive conversations.
The other issue is what information she sent using the device. Based on the reporting, it looks like at least some of it was indeed sensitive information, whether it was classified or not. In the context of knowing how vulnerable her security was, it strikes me as scandalous to send sensitive information regardless of whether it is classified.
I’m not sure that she violated any laws. But her own preference to keep things like she wanted them without thinking about potential security threats even after being told shows an arrogance and lack of judgment that is extremely concerning.
It wouldn’t shock me to learn that a majority of conservatives think Clinton has better judgment than Trump. That’s about as low as a bar gets.
The comment at the end of my OP was mostly about Bernie and Jill Stein. And while I recognize that the Democratic primary is basically over, so forcing me to vote for Bernie doesn’t mean much, I do feel less enthusiastic about volunteering for and donating to Hillary in the fall.
I just see it like this: This is a moot point since she will not be able to do that anymore and there will be many others at the behest of the conservatives keeping an eye at her future communications, regardless if there was any “scandal”.
Donald Trump still should not be let to control the CIA (Trump is worse than Nixon on “the enemies list” front) The CDC (Trump is anti-vaccine) NOAA (Trump is climate change denier) and we also should not allow him to be closer to the nuclear football.
You’re right, electorally. She is lucky that the only obstacles to her presidency are a 74-year-old atheist socialist and a wildly bigoted reality show character who singlehandedly proves David Dunning and Justin Kruger to be correct. But notwithstanding the forum choice of my OP, I think criticism is important even when it doesn’t cause one to change one’s voting behavior.
Getting a president with the judgment and temperament of Obama is a once in a generation thing, if we’re lucky. Hillary Clinton will be an adequate President. I don’t need her to be perfect. If there were qualified alternatives (with a chance of winning) this all might be more relevant
Yes, Hillary didn’t pay attention to security protocols. Neither has half the officials in Washington in the last twenty years, it seems. Dang this newfangled internet anyway.
Have Hillary and Colin and Condoleeza and the Bush administration secretaries and anybody else who couldn’t read the directions, hold out their hands and then slap the back of them with the Sister Mary Elephant Memorial Ruler.
It’s hard for me to get excited about this “scandal”. I think if the Chinese want to hack something bad enough, they have the expertise and the resources to do it regardless of how secure we think our systems are. Not the best idea to use devices that are more hackable, but I’m not really seeing a scenario where anything intercepted would adversely affect national security.
Your choice this fall will be between someone with a clear head but capable of making minor errors and someone compulsively ignorant and mentally unstable. It shouldn’t take too long to figure out the right choice.
Thing is that I read the article and it strikes me as yet another rehash of what was reported before with very little new details and omitting a few things to keep the “scandal” going.
Of course it is, and Clinton already admitted that it was a mistake, in the end the issue of the intention (No secrets were intended to be sent to enemies or for personal gain) is what makes this “scandal” underwhelming. What I do think is going is that a lot of members of the media do have to make the contest a horse race, after all they still have to get all those millions from Trump and the supporters of Hillary. If Clinton gets too high on the polls she must be taken a few pegs down by any means necessary. To make this a race worth covering and that also benefits their bottom line.
Also, it’s hard to take seriously a government security classification system that retains “top secret” coding for information published in the New York Times. As I understand it, truly sensitive stuff, like the names of spies, would never be emailed around in the first place. If the Chinese hack in and find out the Secretary is planning on raising a particular issue in her talks with the Prime Minister of India next month, I doubt they’d be surprised or have any “actionable intelligence.” Remember, the NSA listened in to phone conversations of some European leaders a while back, and I don’t recall any of them getting in hot water for lax security precautions.
This is quite an understatement. You don’t think it’s a good idea to keep sensitive information secret from foreign governments?
This is naive. It could very easily harm national security for a foreign power to listen in on a private conversation between Clinton and a foreign leader, or intercept trip reports sent by Clinton back to the White House.
That’s the whole point. It would be one thing if this were just ignorance about security. But what’s being reported now (among the new details you hand-wave away based on your conspiracy theory about the media) is that she was specifically warned, acknowledged the problem, and then ignored the warning.
This is half-correct. Yes, over-classification is rampant and a problem. But no, it’s not true that “truly sensitive stuff” is never communicated electronically.
Actually the NSA ignored the warning, but once again, she already admitted her mistake.
And yes, after many back eyes the media got by exaggerating and even lying (they had to backtrack several reports already) I will be happy to continue to hand wave away, it is not done just on a whim.
Even if your claim were true, that the NSA ignored the warning, that would only mean they both ignored it. Not that the NSA “actually” ignored it. But I don’t see that your claim is based on any evidence anyway.
As for her mea culpa. She has generally admitted making a mistake. She has denied that she did anything to compromise national security.
Yes it is. According to NPR anyway, when the Pentagon plays cyber-warfare games, there has not yet been an instance when the “bad guy team” was not able to compromise the Pentagon’s networks. Everything we have is, apparently, hackable.