I still don’t see it. Let’s say she goes off to Germany. In her hotel she fires off a summary to the White House. What’s the worst that can happen? She lets on that we weren’t ready to go to war if the Ukraine was invaded? Hell, everybody already knew that.
The Pentagon being able to hack some unspecified part of its own network is different from claiming that “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.”
Indeed, it’s not even relevant to that claim. We know that some of our systems are not well secured. It does not follow that none of our systems are–especially not when we’re talking about protecting the communications of a single high-level official.
I already did link to the Mashable report, that quotes BTW messages obtained by Judicial Watch.
You just inserted the link, but didn’t characterize it at all. Looking at it now, I don’t see where it supports your thesis. Perhaps you could favor me with a quote?
When somebody tells me I SHOULD think something, I immediately look at that with a jaundiced eye.
Just the next in the series of molehills that conservatives will do their utmost to make into mountains. Sounds familiar, huh?
I would say it still WAS ignorance, not about the vulnerability of the equipment, but about the probability that someone was actively trying to hack it or listen through it. If her Blackberry tree falls in the forest but no one is there to hear it, has it made a sound?
Or perhaps she didn’t care if someone was listening because she didn’t believe that what she was discussing posed a risk even if it was intercepted. In fact I would be much more concerned if lower level people did what she did, such as people on various treaty negotiating teams. I think when someone at her level steps in the room, she’s more likely there to put in an appearance, sign a document, and add some political weight to a situation, not to discuss the terms in depth in advance.
However, if she genuinely broke a law, she should be held accountable. I would love to see Bernie as the Democratic nominee.
So if you were to learn that, contrary to your expectation, the Secretary of State routinely discusses sensitive matters and doesn’t just do ceremonial bullshit, would that change your mind?
Again, the point was that the NSA IMHO were acting like cads. But IIUC then a more secure Blackberry was provided, as it is clear that other email accounts can not be added as this exchange in the news (yes, this is not as new an issue as implied in the article on the OP) showed:
Your initial claim was that the NSA knew about and ignored the problem. Nothing in the quoted matter supports that claim.
Your new claim is that the NSA was bad for refusing to give Hillary the same secured communications device that Obama received. I don’t see how you can reach that conclusion without knowing how much it cost, how difficult it would be, etc.
I do think Hillary’s judgment was poor here. But I don’t view this as changing the degree to which I view it as poor–anyone that knows what the State Department and the SecState do already knew that she was privy to sensitive information, and to be frank as loose as high political officials have been with such information since basically forever it’d be shocking if none of it made its way into email like it wasn’t supposed to.
I will say this though–there’s a big difference between information that the government would like secret and information that if disclosed would genuinely hurt national security. The former is a huge portion of all information the government holds, the latter is almost none of it. I mean our enemies know how to make nuclear weapons. Let that sink in. What exactly are they going to get from us that’s worse than that on a strategic scale?
The answer is really very little. Specifications for U.S. military hardware? They largely have that already. Sure, it’s classified, but they can analyze things based on performance in the real world that is harder to keep secret.
Probably the most sensitive information would be information on imminently occurring U.S. military actions, specific targets for troop deployments and etc–because that information will put troops in harm’s way. Once an operation is over, that information is of almost no value. Additionally things like the identity of covert operatives overseas (which if leaked could endanger their lives)–note that a Republican leaked some of that deliberately just to hurt a political opponent. The SecState has access to information we’d like to not have leaked, but almost no access to genuinely important national security info–most of which is very time sensitive (i.e. it’s only really important for a few weeks/days.)
“we were politely told to shut up and color.”
That is what Juditial Watch and then Mashable reported. IMHO it should had prevented all her poor decisions, (It is looking as if the refusal of the secure blackberry at the beginning was the main reason for setting the personal e-mail server)
Obviously there is a spectrum of the sensitivity of information, ranging from technically classified but well-known (e.g., the CIA drone program) to critically sensitive (say, troop movements or which biological attacks we have not prepared well for).
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
So what’s an example? 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?
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.
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 are you looking for? I agree that it shows bad judgment. Is that not enough? Are you personally going to vote for a Republican candidate because of this, or a third party candidate, or stay home and not vote at all? What do you think is an appropriate level of response from a concerned American?
Our primary is Tuesday. I will be voting for Bernie Sanders, which I would have done whether this news came to light or not. And if Hilary wins the Dem nomination, I will be (reluctantly) voting for her in the general election over any Republican candidate now in the running. Again, true whether these new facts came to light or not.
How should I change my behavior?
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.
The example I chose might or might not have been “Hollywood movie-style”, but it happened in the real world, and it involved the release of information that might have genuinely put lives at risk.