# Clinton's email and Iranian Spys. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 8, 2016, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clintons-email-and-iranian-spys/762179 "2016-08-08T19:55:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![drewder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clintons-email-and-iranian-spys/762179/1 "2016-08-08T19:55:03Z")
So apparently discussion about an Iranian spy/defector who is now dead was on Clinton’s private email server. I don’t know if it had anything to do with the man’s death but I do know that the secretary of state should be smart enough to realize that discussions about international spying and ongoing operations to extract people from dangerous situations is definitely classified regardless of marking. > **[Shahram Amiri Executed by Iran, Sen. Tom Cotton Cites Clinton E-Mail Leak](https://www.snopes.com/news/2016/08/08/shahram-amiri/)** > > Shahram Amiri was hanged by Iran, and Sen. Tom Cotton claimed in an interview that the nuclear scientist was mentioned in Hillary Clinton's published e-mails. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clintons-email-and-iranian-spys/762179/2 "2016-08-08T20:08:42Z")
> [@drewder](#): > > So apparently discussion about an Iranian spy/defector who is now dead was on Clinton’s private email server. I don’t know if it had anything to do with the man’s death but I do know that the secretary of state should be smart enough to realize that discussions about international spying and ongoing operations to extract people from dangerous situations is definitely classified regardless of marking. > > [http://www.snopes.com/2016/08/08/shahram-amiri/](http://www.snopes.com/2016/08/08/shahram-amiri/) Possibly, though there are no allusions to Amiri by name in the emails. And, obviously, Hillary did not release these emails to the public – she only released them to investigators. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clintons-email-and-iranian-spys/762179/3 "2016-08-08T21:04:20Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Possibly, though there are no allusions to Amiri by name in the emails. [This email](https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/1739) specifically refers to Amiri by name and by his appearance at his country’s interests section of the Pakistani embassy wanting to depart the country in an “unhelpful” news story. [This email](https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/2350) refers to a man who appeared at his country’s interests section wanting to depart the country, and fears of “problematic news stories”. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to conclude that they may be one and the same. This means that if the Iranians then found anything in Hillary Clinton’s emails to Bill Burns that they didn’t like, or in emails about those emails, they would know it was about Amiri. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clintons-email-and-iranian-spys/762179/4 "2016-08-08T21:16:36Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > [This email](https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/1739) specifically refers to Amiri by name and by his appearance at his country’s interests section of the Pakistani embassy wanting to depart the country in an “unhelpful” news story. > > [This email](https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/2350) refers to a man who appeared at his country’s interests section wanting to depart the country, and fears of “problematic news stories”. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to conclude that they may be one and the same. This means that if the Iranians then found anything in Hillary Clinton’s emails to Bill Burns that they didn’t like, or in emails about those emails, they would know it was about Amiri. That was a cut and paste from a news story… No one in the email referred to him by name. Still foolish, probably, but again, Hillary didn’t release these emails. If this email was part of the man’s death, then whoever released the email publicly is to blame. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clintons-email-and-iranian-spys/762179/5 "2016-08-08T21:38:54Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > That was a cut and paste from a news story… No one in the email referred to him by name. No, they just referred to him by the initial of his first name and by multiple things he did in correspondence with Iran and the dates on which he did them, and included a news article about him. But no, obviously they were talking about a _different_ S who went to his country’s interests section because he wanted out of the country on the 12th of July, 2010 and talked with the Sultan on the 17th of September, 2010, and the news article was only included because they thought it was such a strange coincidence. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clintons-email-and-iranian-spys/762179/6 "2016-08-08T21:47:54Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > No, they just referred to him by the initial of his first name and by multiple things he did in correspondence with Iran and the dates on which he did them, and included a news article about him. > > But no, obviously they were talking about a _different_ S who went to his country’s interests section because he wanted out of the country on the 12th of July, 2010 and talked with the Sultan on the 17th of September, 2010, and the news article was only included because they thought it was such a strange coincidence. Maybe foolish, but Hillary and her team didn’t make the emails public. If the emails caused his death, then shame on those who made the emails public. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clintons-email-and-iranian-spys/762179/7 "2016-08-08T21:56:35Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Maybe foolish, but Hillary and her team didn’t make the emails public. If the emails caused his death, then shame on those who made the emails public. Unless you missed it, the whole controversy over Clinton’s emails is that they were just one level removed from “public” and basically in full view of other nations’ spy organizations. ---
**Author:** ![drewder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clintons-email-and-iranian-spys/762179/8 "2016-08-08T22:17:01Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > That was a cut and paste from a news story… No one in the email referred to him by name. > > Still foolish, probably, but again, Hillary didn’t release these emails. If this email was part of the man’s death, then whoever released the email publicly is to blame. The question of “releasing” the email is immaterial. The email should never have existed on that server. There is also every reason to believe that her server was hacked. If you were a foreign intelligence office and didn’t try to hack into the US secretary of state’s private email server you’d be pretty bad intelligence service. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clintons-email-and-iranian-spys/762179/9 "2016-08-08T22:17:09Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Unless you missed it, the whole controversy over Clinton’s emails is that they were just one level removed from “public” and basically in full view of other nations’ spy organizations. They weren’t. They were potentially in view, but the time to capture them is rather short–essentially the amount of time it takes the email to go from her to the server to the other person’s email server. It is possible to monitor for them if you know about the server ahead of time, or if you’re doing some really broad email sweeps. But, so far, we’ve not seen any evidence that this happened. These emails were leaked because of a Freedom of Information act request, as stated in the Snopes article. They were received from the FBI search, who got them from saved emails from the recipients, In short, they were NOT made public because of the lack of encryption of Clinton’s email servers. They were made public due to Wikileaks. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clintons-email-and-iranian-spys/762179/10 "2016-08-08T22:38:42Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > They weren’t. They were potentially in view, but the time to capture them is rather short–essentially the amount of time it takes the email to go from her to the server to the other person’s email server. It is possible to monitor for them if you know about the server ahead of time, or if you’re doing some really broad email sweeps. But, so far, we’ve not seen any evidence that this happened. > **[FBI Hints That Hillary Clinton’s Private Server Got Hacked](https://www.thedailybeast.com/fbi-hints-that-hillary-clintons-private-server-got-hacked)** > > Whatever secrets Hillary Clinton had on her email system, they’re now possibly in the hands of hackers, FBI director Jim Comey said in an extraordinary press conference. Everything I have seen has also said that the emails were stored on the server, not just passing through temporarily. That’s how they were assembled and analyzed, after all. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clintons-email-and-iranian-spys/762179/11 "2016-08-08T22:46:19Z")
Well then, shame on whoever made the information about Clinton’s e-mail server public. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clintons-email-and-iranian-spys/762179/12 "2016-08-08T22:47:56Z")
No condemnation for Senator Cotton for saying, “I’m not saying this guy was a spy, but emails about him should have been highly classified!” Very clever, Mr. Cotton. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clintons-email-and-iranian-spys/762179/13 "2016-08-08T22:53:19Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > Well then, shame on whoever made the information about Clinton’s e-mail server public. E-mail headers contain a lot of information about their origin. After she sent her first email to someone in Russia, China, Germany, Iran, etc. or their embassies they would have known how to lookup her mail server. ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2016, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clintons-email-and-iranian-spys/762179/14 "2016-08-09T01:11:25Z")
> [@drewder](#): > > There is also every reason to believe that her server was hacked. Except for any evidence that it actually was hacked. Even the Republicans have fallen back on the “you can’t prove it\* wasn’t \*hacked!” argument. ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2016, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clintons-email-and-iranian-spys/762179/15 "2016-08-09T01:13:48Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > In short, they were NOT made public because of the lack of encryption of Clinton’s email servers. They were made public due to Wikileaks. Which is funny, because Wikileaks getting hold of official government documents held on an FBI server seems like a pretty goddamn good reason to make your own private email server. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2016, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clintons-email-and-iranian-spys/762179/16 "2016-08-09T01:23:38Z")
> [@Mosier](#): > > Except for any evidence that it actually was hacked. Even the Republicans have fallen back on the “you can’t prove it\* wasn’t \*hacked!” argument. This is a bad argument because there isn’t normally any such evidence unless the server is well-secured and monitored, which it wasn’t. As to the OP, the scientists identity was leaked to the NYT before this email existed. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2016, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clintons-email-and-iranian-spys/762179/17 "2016-08-09T21:29:59Z")
Well, shame on the New York Times. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2016, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clintons-email-and-iranian-spys/762179/18 "2016-08-09T21:39:38Z")
[Many people are saying Trump spreads claims by citing 'many people'](https://www.yahoo.com/news/many-people-saying-trump-tweet-000000450.html) [Emphasis mine]: > [@](#): > > Donald Trump took to Twitter Monday night to suggest that Iran executed Shahram Amiri — a nuclear scientist accused of providing the United States with information on Tehran’s nuclear program — because he was apparently referenced in emails on the private server Hillary Clinton used for official State Department business. > > \ > > But critics quickly pushed back to debunk the Trump’s claim. > > “Despite what you might read on Donald Trump’s twitter feed,” the Washington Post’s Josh Rogin wrote, “the Iranian execution of a nuclear scientist who defected to the United States and then changed his mind was not caused by Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server. **The scientist outed himself** ; it wasn’t Clinton’s fault.” > > On Sunday, an Iranian judiciary spokesman said Amiri, who defected to the United States in 2009 but returned to Iran, had been executed for treason. But there is no evidence that his execution was related to Clinton’s emails. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2016, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clintons-email-and-iranian-spys/762179/19 "2016-08-09T22:28:54Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > Well, shame on the New York Times. yes, shame on everybody except the clownfuck who deliberately set up an unsecured server to avoid the FOIA. ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2016, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clintons-email-and-iranian-spys/762179/20 "2016-08-10T00:19:40Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > yes, shame on everybody except the clownfuck who deliberately set up an unsecured server to avoid the FOIA. You mean the one who didn’t leak the dude’s name? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clintons-email-and-iranian-spys/762179.md?page=2)