# Stupid liberal idea of the day **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 20, 2011, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-liberal-idea-of-the-day/579086 "2011-04-20T15:35:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 160
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2015, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-liberal-idea-of-the-day/579086/3181 "2015-03-03T22:43:40Z")
> **[Hillary Email ‘Scandal’? Not So Fast](https://www.thedailybeast.com/hillary-email-scandal-not-so-fast)** > > She reportedly violated federal regulations by using private email for official business—but the report looks wrong. The Daily Beast is saying the regulations weren’t in place until after she left State. ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2015, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-liberal-idea-of-the-day/579086/3182 "2015-03-03T23:45:40Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > [http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/03/03/hillary-email-scandal-not-so-fast.html](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/03/03/hillary-email-scandal-not-so-fast.html) > > The Daily Beast is saying the regulations weren’t in place until after she left State. If the article is accurate, then maybe what she did wasn’t so stupid, if she doesn’t plan to run for President. If she does, which seems to have a probability of about 99.99%, then it was still stupid. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2015, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-liberal-idea-of-the-day/579086/3183 "2015-03-03T23:50:31Z")
> [@TonySinclair](#): > > If the article is accurate, then maybe what she did wasn’t so stupid, if she doesn’t plan to run for President. If she does, which seems to have a probability of about 99.99%, then it was still stupid. If the article is accurate, I find it hard to call not complying with a rule that doesn’t exist as stupid. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2015, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-liberal-idea-of-the-day/579086/3184 "2015-03-03T23:53:18Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > [http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/03/03/hillary-email-scandal-not-so-fast.html](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/03/03/hillary-email-scandal-not-so-fast.html) > > The Daily Beast is saying the regulations weren’t in place until after she left State. If that’s true, it mitigates the situation somewhat, but not completely. It would certainly leave her in the clear from a legal perspective, but in my view, her actions would still constitute a political and transparency impropriety. Maybe nothing that would involve any official sanction, but certainly something that would give me pause in evaluating her as a candidate. I believe that our officials should prioritize transparency in their dealings. I think a lot of the blame here must be placed on the (lack of) regulations. I am, quite frankly, astounded that it (apparently, if _The Daily Beast_ is right) took until after 2010 for the government to implement rules that senior officials’ official business must be conducted using their official government email address. That should have been put in place back before Bill Clinton ever left the White House. Also, _The Daily Beast_ says that Clinton handed over her emails, but it doesn’t dispute the NYT’s assertion that her own staffers decided which emails to hand over. This shouldn’t be something left to the “judgment” of people who might have an interest in preventing some information from becoming public. ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2015, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-liberal-idea-of-the-day/579086/3185 "2015-03-03T23:54:44Z")
> [@Askthepizzaguy](#): > > I think this is the right link, after a quick google… > > We all know our politicians are dishonest hypocritical dickwads, but there are degrees, and she meets the degree where you need to flush that particular toilet and start over with untainted toilet water. > Nancy might vote correctly more often than a Republican opponent might, but she is a tumor that needs to be removed from the body. She is a terrible leader, a terrible speaker, and she’s hollow and meaningless… > > I don’t support corrupt and empty leaders, and I don’t care if I agree with them more often than not. > > This happened a while ago, and I still remember it clear as day. Whenever I see leaders of the supposedly liberal party behave in this manner, I make a mental note that they’re steaming pieces of shit that need to be flushed, only slightly better than their Republican opponents… > > Seriously, fuck Nancy Pelosi. > > I can handle milquetoast moderate weak leaders like Harry Reid, but I can’t fucking stand openly stinky pieces of two-faced shit like Nancy Pelosi. Wow. Maybe it was the wrong link, or maybe I’m completely missing your point, but I don’t see her saying anything even half stupid, let alone something justifying your vitriol. Seems to me she just misunderstood what Stewart was saying, and defended the Dems. Nothing stupid, let alone execrable, about that. I’m a big Stewart fan, and I pretty much ignore Pelosi, but I was on her side for that debate. Stewart acted as naive as I’ve ever seen him, wondering why the Dems couldn’t pass perfect bills instead of just bills that improve things. To me, a huge difference between the Dems and Reps is that the Dems actually try to govern, while the Reps pass all these stupid bills (like the 40-whatever bills to rescind Obamacare) just for show. Of course the Dems could have passed a perfect bill when they had the majority in the House, but they knew it would face a filibuster in the Senate if they didn’t write it with the cooperation of a bunch of obstructionist Reps, and so that’s what they had to do. ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2015, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-liberal-idea-of-the-day/579086/3186 "2015-03-04T00:07:10Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > If the article is accurate, I find it hard to call not complying with a rule that doesn’t exist as stupid. I don’t find it hard at all. If she knew she was going to run for President, then she should have known that the date the right wing spin machine will use is the date the regulations were first approved, not when they were finally published. Fox News viewers are not big on nuance, and if she is forced to defend herself by beginning every sentence with “Technically…,” I can already hear Hannity and Limbaugh invoking Bubba saying “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.” Besides, what reason did she have NOT to use an official account? Jeez, I use different email accounts for different purposes, and I have slightly less motivation to keep things separate than a sitting cabinet secretary. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2015, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-liberal-idea-of-the-day/579086/3187 "2015-03-04T00:29:14Z")
Condi even said on FOX today that it was standard practice to use private email addresses. ---
**Author:** ![Randolph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Randolph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Randolph)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2015, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-liberal-idea-of-the-day/579086/3188 "2015-03-04T00:49:52Z")
Yeah, but _ **Hillary '16: Continuing Standard Practices, Complying With Existing Laws!** _ would never fit on a lapel pin. ---
**Author:** ![rsa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/839c29/32.png) [@rsa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rsa)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2015, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-liberal-idea-of-the-day/579086/3189 "2015-03-04T01:14:39Z")
[Colin Powell did the same thing](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/03/colin-powell-emails-hillary-clinton_n_6792716.html) so all of the over-the-top vitriol should apply to him as well. > [@](#): > > …an aide to Colin Powell said the Republican also used personal email for work while serving in the same position. > > “He was not aware of any restrictions nor does he recall being made aware of any over the four years he served at State,” the aide said in a statement sent to Politico. “He sent emails to his staff generally via their State Department email addresses. These emails should be on the State Department computers. He might have occasionally used personal email addresses, as he did when emailing to family and friends.” ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2015, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-liberal-idea-of-the-day/579086/3190 "2015-03-04T01:29:45Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > Condi even said on FOX today that it was standard practice to use private email addresses. If that’s true, and i’m happy to accept that it was, then it was shitty practice on the part of government as a whole. Of course, if there’s one area where Democratic and Republican politicians can often get together, it’s on the notion that transparency is for suckers, and that the public should be happy with whatever scraps our leaders choose to feed us through carefully managed press conferences, official websites, and the tame Sunday news programs. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2015, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-liberal-idea-of-the-day/579086/3191 "2015-03-04T04:57:51Z")
Condi and Powell used private e-mail, but now Hillary is being hammered? :rolleyes: One is reminded of Umbrella-gate where Obama was chastised for making a Marine hold an umbrella over him in the rain, thus disgracing the Marine. When photos of Bush-41 and Bush-43 under Marine-held umbrellas appeared, the [check forum] Americans-who-make-us-want-to-puke never explained why that wasn’t disgraceful. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Can I hijack a Pit thread to ask a sincere question? Some savvy Internet users use something like PGP to protect their e-mail from eavesdroppers. Do high officials use something similar? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2015, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-liberal-idea-of-the-day/579086/3192 "2015-03-04T19:52:37Z")
Hillary used her own private server which was (and is) apparently pretty well hardened, but I haven’t seen anything about encryption. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2015, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-liberal-idea-of-the-day/579086/3193 "2015-03-04T20:05:42Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > If that’s true, and i’m happy to accept that it was, then it was shitty practice on the part of government as a whole. I agree. Hillary should get a pass but we should now have proper procedures in place and someone to make sure they are being followed. Just like private sector. In all companies I have worked for, you would only use your personal e-mail account to let the helpdesk know that you can’t get to your business e-mail account. ---
**Author:** ![Defensive\_Indifference](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/defensive_indifference/32/6502_2.png) [@Defensive\_Indifference](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defensive_Indifference)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2015, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-liberal-idea-of-the-day/579086/3194 "2015-03-04T20:23:11Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Hillary used her own private server which was (and is) apparently pretty well hardened, but I haven’t seen anything about encryption. I haven’t seen anything describing the security controls she had in place. Can you point to a source? ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2015, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-liberal-idea-of-the-day/579086/3195 "2015-03-04T20:26:15Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Hillary used her own private server which was (and is) apparently pretty well hardened, but I haven’t seen anything about encryption. OK, but even if we accept, for the purposes of this discussion, that the server itself was secure, its very presence cuts both ways, and further suggests that personal privacy and lack of transparency were a factor here. As [this AP/WaPo story](http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/clinton-ran-own-computer-system-for-her-official-emails/2015/03/04/083c624c-c269-11e4-a188-8e4971d37a8d_story.html) notes: > [@](#): > > The unusual practice of a Cabinet-level official running her own email server would have given Clinton — who is expected to run for president in the 2016 campaign — significant control over limiting access to her message archives. > > It also would complicate the State Department’s legal responsibilities in finding and turning over official emails in response to any investigations, lawsuits or public records requests. The department would be the position of accepting Clinton’s assurances she was surrendering everything required that was in her control. There are numerous stories about people and organizations who have filed FOIA requests with the State Department over the past four or five years regarding Clinton’s time as Secretary of State, only to be told that no records can be found in relation to their inquiries. And this is because the emails that were supposed to be archived were still on Clinton’s server and had not been turned over. The State Department wasn’t hiding them; it couldn’t turn them over, because it didn’t know they existed. It’s true that previous administration figures like Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice used personal email for at least some of their communications, but from what i can tell this case is substantively different, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it’s not much of a concern with Rice because she apparently rarely used email AT ALL during her term, whereas Clinton uses email as a central component of her work. Also, if i understand the articles i’ve been reading correctly, Colin Powell was using an official email address for some of his emails, and he was also turning over emails from non-official account/s on a regular and ongoing basis, as they were created. Clinton, by contrast, kept all of her emails for an extended period of time, such that emails that should have been handed over, and should have emerged in response to FOIA requests, were only handed over in one big dump when she was pressed by the folks at NARA. Also, those emails were vetted by her own staff who, because they were doing this well after the fact, and not as an ongoing and regular process, had opportunities to make _post facto_ decisions about which emails to turn over, and therefore more opportunity to hide emails that might have seemed uncontroversial when created, but that might now prove politically damaging. Look, i don’t think this is the end of the world. If Hillary Clinton gets the Democratic nomination for President, it wouldn’t stop me supporting her, especially given the field of likely Republican opponents. But it does add just another brick to the ever-growing edifice of Clinton family hubris and self-serving political decisions. ---
**Author:** ![DinoR](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dinor/32/2821_2.png) [@DinoR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DinoR)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2015, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-liberal-idea-of-the-day/579086/3196 "2015-03-04T22:01:05Z")
I’ll work this back to the issue at hand so it’s a “hijack” that ultimately pertains… > [@septimus](#): > > Can I hijack a Pit thread to ask a sincere question? Some savvy Internet users use something like PGP to protect their e-mail from eavesdroppers. Do high officials use something similar? I can speak from uniformed service in DOD. I also once had an additional duty related to Information Assurance that required a long online class (took me longer than the single digit hours that actually got put in to related duties and was basically unnecessary for what I actually did at my most basic level). ISTR some of the key documents for the standards were DOD level so that would have applied to DOD Civilians as well as uniformed. Obviously DOD is not DOS. Systems that handled classified information were classified themselves and treated basically like a plain text paper print out of the information. Those systems passed all their information encrypted and wouldn’t talk directly to unclassified systems. There were separate email accounts for classified vs unclassified systems and never the systems would meet. You couldn’t simply send data by email between the different systems. Spillage between systems could be a BAAAAAD thing. More than cats sleeping with dogs level of mayhem but maybe less than Fox News finding actual proof that Nancy Pelosi was a Sith Lord chaos…maybe less. Encryption later found it’s was to the unclass network to handle personally identifiable information(PII) like SSNs, medical information, etc. It could and did cause issues in some ways. My government BlackBerry couldn’t handle the military required level of access control to handle that information. That was a good thing… except when people encrypted stuff that didn’t need encrypting or included PII that wasn’t central to the issue. My issued BB got a lot less useful after encryption started being used and misused. Hillary loved her BB. Unclass email obviously could and did talk to what most think of as normal internet email. We also had regulations that prevented us from bulk forwarding an official account to a private account. No just fowarding email to your own smart phone; you rated a BB to access your official account or you accessed it on a computer. Which sort of makes me question how Hillary managed all her stuff from one account especially given her love of her BB. I have to ask myself if Hillary was sending classified or otherwise sensitive information via her personal account and whether that was properly secured. That’s different than most of the recreational outrage I’ve heard. Colin Powell references using personal email sometimes for information that wasn’t sensitive. Colin Powell should have had experience to manage data based on sensitivity and using the appropraite system. That’s a big difference from routing all business through one personal account. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2015, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-liberal-idea-of-the-day/579086/3197 "2015-03-05T05:12:37Z")
The dumb part about this rather trifling scandal is that the Clintons didn’t let any of their allies know there was a problem. So you’ve got all kinds of defenses of her, most of them based on ignorance. Ben Cardin’s is particularly good for this thread: > [@](#): > > “People have different ways of communicating,” said Senator Benjamin L. Cardin, Democrat of Maryland. “I have a granddaughter who does nothing but text. You’ll never find a letter written with her. So everybody’s different.” > **[Caught Off Guard by Disclosure of Emails, Democrats Rally to Clinton’s...](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/05/us/politics/hillary-clinton-emails-catches-democrats-off-guards.html)** > > The news that Mrs. Clinton conducted business as secretary of state entirely on a private email account highlights the risks of betting on a candidate so early in the presidential nominating process. The candidate herself is still not saying anything. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2015, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-liberal-idea-of-the-day/579086/3198 "2015-03-05T05:50:55Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > The dumb part about this rather trifling scandal is that the Clintons didn’t let any of their allies know there was a problem. So you’ve got all kinds of defenses of her, most of them based on ignorance. Ben Cardin’s is particularly good for this thread: > > [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/05/us/politics/hillary-clinton-emails-catches-democrats-off-guards.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/05/us/politics/hillary-clinton-emails-catches-democrats-off-guards.html) > > The candidate herself is still not saying anything. What candidate? ---
**Author:** ![galen\_ubal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/galen_ubal/32/4440_2.png) [@galen\_ubal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/galen_ubal)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2015, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-liberal-idea-of-the-day/579086/3199 "2015-03-05T06:22:36Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > The dumb part about this rather trifling scandal is that the Clintons didn’t let any of their allies know there was a problem. So you’ve got all kinds of defenses of her, most of them based on ignorance. Ben Cardin’s is particularly good for this thread: > > [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/05/us/politics/hillary-clinton-emails-catches-democrats-off-guards.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/05/us/politics/hillary-clinton-emails-catches-democrats-off-guards.html) > > The candidate herself is still not saying anything. > [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > What candidate? What problem? It was neither required for her to do so, not was it generally done, at least by the small sample set we have. ---
**Author:** ![Truman\_Burbank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecc23a/32.png) [@Truman\_Burbank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Truman_Burbank)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2015, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-liberal-idea-of-the-day/579086/3200 "2015-03-06T01:25:02Z")
Yeeah, but it was a Clinton, so different rules apply! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-liberal-idea-of-the-day/579086.md?page=159) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-liberal-idea-of-the-day/579086.md?page=161)