# I have changed my mind about the Clinton email scandal (and so should you) **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [March 29, 2016, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-changed-my-mind-about-the-clinton-email-scandal-and-so-should-you/750514 "2016-03-29T13:31:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2016, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-changed-my-mind-about-the-clinton-email-scandal-and-so-should-you/750514/41 "2016-03-29T19:11:18Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > Perhaps I put this in the wrong forum, because I’m not suggesting you ought to change your voting behavior. > > I think an open and honest accounting for this is important regardless of whether it changes any of your personal behavior. It is simply wrong to downplay the security breach because the Secretary of State only performs ceremonial duties. > > And maybe taking the breach seriously would change your non-voting behavior. Perhaps there will come a time before or after November when the Democratic Establishment will start to characterize this as a partisan witch-hunt and call for an end to the investigation. Some posters in this thread are already championing that position. Taking this seriously means rejecting that position because you understand the importance of getting to the bottom of what kind security might have been breached and what needs to be changed to ensure it never happens again. Did the bad guys even know she had a private email server while she was in Office? If not, they wouldn’t even know to try to access her basement server. If I’m some agent in Iran, how would I even know where to start looking? I’d probably start trying to hack into the State Department server. Clinton outsmarted them. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2016, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-changed-my-mind-about-the-clinton-email-scandal-and-so-should-you/750514/42 "2016-03-29T19:12:47Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > That does not support your claim. It supports the claim that she was told by the NSA that she would not get a secure blackberry. Indeed, put that under the rug, IOW, ignore it. > [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > No, it isn’t. They reported that the NSA said no. They didn’t report anything about whether that was a reasonable decision. Your argument assumes without evidence that it wasn’t. Indeed, you go further and assume that the NSA knew Hillary lied to them about stopping using her Blackberry and that they just didn’t care. I was only reporting what the emails are telling us, and I did not say that Hillary lied, IMHO the early report points to Hillary getting a more secure one and it would only be a guess to assume that no talk in other medium took place about the blackberry. I only can make an observation, based on the reports, that she got some sort of arrangement with the security groups, that now it looks bad and the fact that so far the FBI has pointed that Clinton is not being investigated, points to what the nature of the investigation is: They are investigating if other parties got access to secret information and how to prevent that from happening again. Because I do have the feeling that some security people did not see anything wrong then. I’m already accepting that there was an error here from Clinton, but as pointed many times before, a very underwhelming one, unless it can be show that she on purpose let our enemies get information or that she had personal profit as a motive. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2016, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-changed-my-mind-about-the-clinton-email-scandal-and-so-should-you/750514/43 "2016-03-29T19:17:46Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > Perhaps I put this in the wrong forum, because I’m not suggesting you ought to change your voting behavior. > > I think an open and honest accounting for this is important regardless of whether it changes any of your personal behavior. It is simply wrong to downplay the security breach because the Secretary of State only performs ceremonial duties. … I am not downplaying the security breach. I may be downplaying the risk of what particular information might have been leaked, and you may be overplaying that same risk, and neither of us can really know. And as far an open and honest accounting of what happened, I’ve very hard-pressed to come up with _any_ examples of when that happened or about what. Maybe NTSB crash investigations? Maybe some portions of the Abu Graib and related torture scandals, but certainly not others. And even when the facts do come out, what are the consequences? Few to none, and not very serious in any case, because actual facts have become issues of partisan squabbling. ---
**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:** [March 29, 2016, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-changed-my-mind-about-the-clinton-email-scandal-and-so-should-you/750514/44 "2016-03-29T19:23:08Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > Did the bad guys even know she had a private email server while she was in Office? If not, they wouldn’t even know to try to access her basement server. If I’m some agent in Iran, how would I even know where to start looking? I’d probably start trying to hack into the State Department server. Clinton outsmarted them. I sympathize with this kind of statement, because it seems sort of intuitive and I used to share it. But that was before I had any idea how the modern communications technology works. The encryption used to protect data transmitted by a Blackberry over cell networks is very weak. Even relatively unsophisticated actors can crack it without too much trouble. Once you do so, you know what server the phone is communicating with. Indeed, since the email traffic apparently wasn’t even encrypted, once you do so, that might be the whole ballgame. The other concern was using the Blackberry itself as a listening device. AFAIK, we know that other countries have that capability and would have no way of verifying whether they used it on Clinton’s unsecured phone. > [@GIGObuster](#): > > Indeed, put that under the rug, IOW, ignore it. That’s a bizarre interpretation. They told her they could not give her a secure Blackberry and not to use an unsecured one. She agreed, but continued to use it! That’s them ignoring it? > [@GIGObuster](#): > > I’m already accepting that there was an error here from Clinton, but as pointed many times before, a very underwhelming one, unless it can be show that she on purpose let our enemies get information or that she had personal profit as a motive. She apparently chose personal convenience over national security. That’s not as bad as selling secrets or something. But it’s still pretty bad. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2016, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-changed-my-mind-about-the-clinton-email-scandal-and-so-should-you/750514/45 "2016-03-29T19:34:46Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > That’s a bizarre interpretation. They told her they could not give her a secure Blackberry and not to use an unsecured one. She agreed, but continued to use it! That’s them ignoring it? Until more info is available I have to go with the idea that someone did not see anything wrong with her solution, of course here I have to remind you that I already acknowledged that it was not a good solution but the way the investigation is going (with the FBI going on record of reporting that she is not under investigation) points to someone not minding about that solution in the past. > [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > She apparently chose personal convenience over national security. That’s not as bad as selling secrets or something. But it’s still pretty bad. Again, if my hunch is right, someone later did not mind much and so it follows that the investigation concentrates on the failures in security, not much about who is at fault as there was no ill intention; but, very likely there was also a failure of communication and not much damming as the right wing would like it to be. ---
**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:** [March 29, 2016, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-changed-my-mind-about-the-clinton-email-scandal-and-so-should-you/750514/46 "2016-03-29T19:40:58Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Until more info is available I have to go with the idea that someone did not see anything wrong with her solution… Why? Because they didn’t arrest her? I don’t get why that’s a better inference than either: (1) they didn’t know that she continued to use it despite her telling them she would; or (2) they knew and there wasn’t anything they could do about it short of trying to keep her from having access to their classified info. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2016, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-changed-my-mind-about-the-clinton-email-scandal-and-so-should-you/750514/47 "2016-03-29T19:56:53Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > She apparently chose personal convenience over national security. Funny you should say that because I was just thinking that this pretty much sums up the whole thing, whatever one wants to make of it. And statements like this one from the article … _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”_ … is one that would be very familiar to many who have to deal with government or even large institutions, and I think provides a sympathetic glimpse into the frustrations of an ambitious high-energy person just wanting to get things done and being thwarted by an intransigent unproductive bureaucracy. I’m not defending Clinton, but I think that’s a valid perspective, and I can well believe the claims that she was far from the only one who bypassed official security protocols for the sake of productivity and effectiveness. If you remove the “national” from that quoted sentence and substitute “personal” or “corporate” then the number of people to whom that transgression applies probably numbers in the millions, including probably you and me. What I guess I’m saying is that even if what she did was wrong, I’m relatively sympathetic to the reasons she may have done it, namely for reasons of effectiveness rather than some nefarious desire to “control” the information. ---
**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:** [March 29, 2016, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-changed-my-mind-about-the-clinton-email-scandal-and-so-should-you/750514/48 "2016-03-29T20:01:38Z")
I mostly agree. In fact, I think this new information makes clear that this probably wasn’t a FOIA-avoidance scheme. The part where I disagree is the empathy for the choice she made given the role she accepted. It’s one thing to compromise your business’s trade secrets in the relatively unlikely event that you are personally subject to a corporate espionage attempt. It is quite another thing to be Secretary of State of the United States–a figure who will be the target of ceaseless and sophisticated espionage with 100% certainty, and who has access to a whole wealth of sensitive information–deciding that her personal convenience is more important. Even then I would be sympathetic if she was expected to understand this on her own. Most people, myself included until recently, didn’t really understand how cybersecurity works. But she was told specifically that, for example, China could easily hack her Blackberry. And she kept using it. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2016, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-changed-my-mind-about-the-clinton-email-scandal-and-so-should-you/750514/49 "2016-03-29T20:04:38Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > You speculate that the SecState lacks access to the most sensitive stuff. I doubt that’s true. We know, for example, that she is given information about what our intelligence services know about foreign military capabilities. You don’t think it’s highly sensitive what our best guess is about Iranian or North Korean missile ranges, for example? If not, I think you’re not using your imagination. I don’t believe SecState would have any legitimate reason to be forwarding operational deployment/planning documents for upcoming military operations, or covert operative names. I don’t believe that knowing our guesses on foreign state’s military capabilities to be that sensitive because most countries probably have made very similar assessments of these sorts of things. > [@](#): > > But even if I was willing to accept your speculation that she lacks access to the most sensitive stuff, she clearly has access to a lot of the middle ground stuff. That is self-evident based on who she talks to, the meeting she attends, and what we know from things like WikiLeaks. A lot of the WikiLeaks stuff was from a low level, but was potentially more dangerous because it contained information on say, Afghans who worked with the U.S. government covertly. The thing about SecState is it’s a very high level/abstraction position, the SecState has no reason to even read that information, it’d be like the SecState being told what type of door handle they’re installing in a U.S. Consulate in Münich. > [@](#): > > As a check of your calibration of what counts are highly sensitive, is it your position that none of the stuff in Wikileaks was a damaging disclosure? Eh, it was damaging because it was public disclosure of America’s internal stances on some foreign powers. None of that was stuff they didn’t know, but because it was leaked openly the foreign power could use it for PR purposes. The most damaging aspects of what say, Bradley Manning leaked was information about people in Iraq and Afghanistan who were working with the U.S., and who might be targeted for retribution. But again–that stuff isn’t going to be on a SecStat’s desk or in her emails. It’s too low level. The Secretary of State may have access to a greater _breadth_ of information, theoretically, than a low level operative. But a low level operative is more likely to be in more regular contact with lots of information that is highly sensitive. I also think that, considering the NSA has security policies like letting one SysAdmin have full privileges on the entire network and all its machines so he could write a simple program to crawl/pull files for hours and hours suggests that the high level, mostly abstract documents that come across Hillary’s desk as SecState possibly being leaked are comparatively so unimportant as to be almost irrelevant. Like I said, she showed poor judgment, but I already knew the moment I heard she was using a private email server that a) some classified information almost certainly had made its way onto that server and b) it’d probably already been exploited by some third party. So this revelation didn’t change my reaction, and part of my reaction is based on thinking none of this is materially very important. The President doesn’t even have to deal with this stuff at all, his high level security aides do all the reading of it and then brief him–so as President she won’t be in a position like this. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2016, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-changed-my-mind-about-the-clinton-email-scandal-and-so-should-you/750514/50 "2016-03-29T20:07:50Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > I don’t understand why you would only be concerned about Hollywood movie-style secrets. > > I can imagine a whole wealth of information that as an individual unit of information might not cause imminent death, but would nevertheless make it easier for our adversaries to harm Americans or allies. Why should we be OK with releasing that kind of data? > > I mean, take the negotiations over the Iranian sanctions. It is entirely plausible that one piece of information that might be shared with Sec. Clinton is whether a given country, like France, would have been willing to carry on with international sanctions if a deal broke down. If Iran got that information, it would be critical in assessing the strength of different negotiating positions. In turn, that could lead to things like the release or non-release of hostages, or how much money they got from us (that can then be used to fund terror), or a hundred other things. Why wouldn’t you care about them getting that info? What you’re not realizing is that the people that do diplomatic negotiations and top military/intelligence types largely know what the other side is thinking anyway. Ever seen _The Lion in Winter_? Maybe not, it’s an old movie. There’s a quote from that movie that is applicable: > [@](#): > > Prince Geoffrey: I know. You know I know. I know you know I know. We know Henry knows, and Henry knows we know it. > [smiles] > Prince Geoffrey: We’re a knowledgeable family. It’s not really a game of poker because both sides know what the cards are, it’s largely about reaching an agreement on terms. ---
**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:** [March 29, 2016, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-changed-my-mind-about-the-clinton-email-scandal-and-so-should-you/750514/51 "2016-03-29T20:15:52Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > I don’t believe SecState would have any legitimate reason to be forwarding operational deployment/planning documents for upcoming military operations, or covert operative names. She wouldn’t have to forward it. Half of the security problem was that she carried around an unsecured Blackberry everywhere. If she was briefed about something outside of Mahogany Row or some other secured space, then it could have been intercepted. But that’s sort of a side point. Your main contention is that she didn’t have access to anything sensitive. Given all of the things you put in that category, then I think that might be true for your particular definition of sensitive. But for what most of us think of as sensitive, I think that claim is false. Your notion that all of our adversaries already know things like our negotiating positions is just not true. It happens, of course. But there are also countless examples in diplomatic history of countries getting a better deal because of asymmetric information about their counter-party’s plans and alternatives. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2016, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-changed-my-mind-about-the-clinton-email-scandal-and-so-should-you/750514/52 "2016-03-29T20:34:38Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > She wouldn’t have to forward it. Half of the security problem was that she carried around an unsecured Blackberry everywhere. If she was briefed about something outside of Mahogany Row or some other secured space, then it could have been intercepted. I very seriously doubt she ever received a briefing from anyone on her blackberry, or that she received emails that she read on her blackberry or elsewhere, that contained detailed military operations stuff. The SecState literally has no reason to be briefed on that stuff, and likely isn’t. Likewise she has no reason to be briefed on the identity of covert operatives, and likely isn’t. Cheney’s office had access to that because he was Vice President and due to peculiarities in the Bush administration he basically had access to everything that W. did, and actively used said access. > [@](#): > > But that’s sort of a side point. Your main contention is that she didn’t have access to anything sensitive. Given all of the things you put in that category, then I think that might be true for your particular definition of sensitive. But for what most of us think of as sensitive, I think that claim is false. Your notion that all of our adversaries already know things like our negotiating positions is just not true. It happens, of course. But there are also countless examples in diplomatic history of countries getting a better deal because of asymmetric information about their counter-party’s plans and alternatives. My opinion is that very little that government keeps secret has much utility. I think the lion’s share of the security apparatus is both absurd and pointless. ---
**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:** [March 29, 2016, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-changed-my-mind-about-the-clinton-email-scandal-and-so-should-you/750514/53 "2016-03-29T20:37:18Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > I very seriously doubt she ever received a briefing from anyone on her blackberry. That’s not the point. She was told that the microphone on her Blackberry could be used to record in-person conversations. > [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > My opinion is that very little that government keeps secret has much utility. I think the lion’s share of the security apparatus is both absurd and pointless. Right. And that’s fine. Obviously, if that’s your opinion, then you’re almost never going to be upset about an information security breach. I think with more information you would change this position, but that’s a topic for another thread. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2016, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-changed-my-mind-about-the-clinton-email-scandal-and-so-should-you/750514/54 "2016-03-29T21:25:19Z")
\ ---
**Author:** ![Stringbean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Stringbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringbean)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2016, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-changed-my-mind-about-the-clinton-email-scandal-and-so-should-you/750514/55 "2016-03-29T23:16:12Z")
There’s a wide divide between “reckless with securing important information” and “setting up a private server in your home to intentionally shield all correspondence and possibly putting highly-classified information at risk” Let’s not miss the forest for the trees. ---
**Author:** ![sleestak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/919ad9/32.png) [@sleestak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sleestak)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2016, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-changed-my-mind-about-the-clinton-email-scandal-and-so-should-you/750514/56 "2016-03-29T23:20:15Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > Did the bad guys even know she had a private email server while she was in Office? If not, they wouldn’t even know to try to access her basement server. If I’m some agent in Iran, how would I even know where to start looking? I’d probably start trying to hack into the State Department server. Clinton outsmarted them. This is a trivial thing to figure out. You simply set up [wireshark](https://www.wireshark.org/), check the destination address and there it is. If Clinton used her Blackberry (or, actually accessed any email from her cheap ass server) in any foreign country I can pretty much guarantee that the countries security staff had packet capture running on the switches attached to the nearest cell towers. And that is the hard route. If any foreign country got a hold of an email with Clintons email address on it, all that needs to be done is a [MX lookup](http://mxtoolbox.com/). Since Clinton didn’t use [encryption](http://fortune.com/2015/03/11/hillary-clinton-email-unsecure/) for three months, those foreign countries probably didn’t even need to worry about what the IP of the receiving server was during that time. After that, Clinton was using a known to be broken version of SSL and her email server failed an outside security review. So that didn’t really secure [anything](https://politics.slashdot.org/story/15/03/10/1519220/clintons-private-email-system-gets-a-security-f-rating). So it should be assumed that all communications that traversed Clinton’s email server have been seen by other countries. Period. And I just found this out. Clinton was running VNC on her server. Holy crap, that is pretty much the equivalent of handing the server over to \ along with the admin password. (Unless they were running a VPN, however with how bad the security was I doubt they did setup a VPN. Just go to the public address and use VNC, what could go wrong?) Regarding this: [QUOTE=Martin Hyde] ]My opinion is that very little that government keeps secret has much utility. I think the lion’s share of the security apparatus is both absurd and pointless. [/QUOTE] That may be. However, if the security apparatus is absurd and you are SecState, then the proper thing to do is fix the security apparatus, not sidestep it or ignore it. Slee ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2016, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-changed-my-mind-about-the-clinton-email-scandal-and-so-should-you/750514/57 "2016-03-30T00:07:41Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > Are you saying it’s only a problem if she discloses something like the names of spies, but not a big deal if she reveals our negotiating strategy for a treaty? A treaty like the TPP? Yes, that’s not a big deal. Woodrow Wilson’s "‘‘open covenants, openly arrived at’’ is fine there. The chamber of commerce types were given inside information; why not Vietnam? As far as I’m concerned, we owe Vietnam (this being a reason I favor the TPP despite bad intellectual property provisions). If it was the Iran treaty, yes, it’s a problem. Should she have done it? No. As far as I’m concerned, President of the United States is an awful job. You have all the responsibility and little power to prevent disaster. Only an arrogant person is likely to want the job. And it’s good that a few people do want the job. For this reason, I don’t judge a president, or potential president, the same way I’d judge a low level government official who acted similarly. ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2016, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-changed-my-mind-about-the-clinton-email-scandal-and-so-should-you/750514/58 "2016-03-30T00:27:09Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > It depends what the sensitive information is. Yes, it would change my mind if it is information that would genuinely endanger the country or the people in it, or US citizens abroad. But I believe that’s very unlikely. This is the problem with trying to figure out what is or isn’t “really sensitive:” even if you were handed the information, you wouldn’t be able to tell. Very often, even people on the inside can’t, even people at the top of the food chain like the SoS. This is why classification levels are set by the agency that originated the data, and others can’t change it. Very often, what’s much more important than the information itself are the sources and methods used to gather such information. Even seemingly innocuous information can in fact be highly classified because of the source. As a silly hypothetical, imagine a classified email that mentions that Hu Jiantao farts during sex. The information itself is trivial, but were the Chinese to see that mentioned in a US State department email, the odds are some woman in Beijing is going to die. And that actually is a straightforward and obvious case; much more often, the intelligence game is about putting together this tidbit of information with that tidbit along with digging deep into publically-available information. It’s easy to look at a single jugsaw puzzle piece and say that there’s no harm in anyone seeing this one piece … but you don’t know what other pieces they already have. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ace)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2016, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-changed-my-mind-about-the-clinton-email-scandal-and-so-should-you/750514/59 "2016-03-30T01:28:12Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > I’ll give you an example of some information that I believe did put American lives at risk, though I can no longer remember the details of who was responsible, or even where it was. > > You may recall some years back the news got out that American troops were coming ashore at dawn. And at the landing beach were loads of reporters with cameras and bright lights, and it was IIRC carried on live TV. I was appalled by that. That could have turned into a shooting gallery, and everybody concerned was lucky that it didn’t. > > Whoever let that out should have been prosecuted and if it was the president he should have been impeached. Sounds like something that one of the most idiotic ‘journalists’ of all time, Geraldo Rivera, did…but I don’t think it was a beach. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2016, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-changed-my-mind-about-the-clinton-email-scandal-and-so-should-you/750514/60 "2016-03-30T02:06:14Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > Getting a president with the judgment and temperament of Obama is a once in a generation thing, if we’re lucky. Only because people settle for “slightly less shit than the Republican/Democrat candidate” and demand others do the same. And Obama’s the jackass who keeps on fucking shooting the messenger whenever the government is up to no good. It speaks volumes about what kind of man Barack Obama is that John Kiriakou was sent to prison while the CIA’s rapists and torturers walked free, _explicitly_ protected by Obama’s Department of Justice. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-changed-my-mind-about-the-clinton-email-scandal-and-so-should-you/750514.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-changed-my-mind-about-the-clinton-email-scandal-and-so-should-you/750514.md?page=4)