Hilary's Emails

[dcarrigg]

Re: Hilary's Emails

So? Standard rules for employees don't apply to top level executives in every organization. It may not be seemly. But we all know it's true.

Rules are there to keep the plebs towing the executive line and to stop them from screwing up, making executives look bad, or working against the boss.

Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell didn't sign the stupid form either.

And here we are. Arguing about who should have signed which form when. Where I knew we'd end up. Circling down the bureaucratic drain.

Are you really upset about who signed form OF-109?

[sunskyfan]

Re: Hilary's Emails

I think you are putting up a nobble defense here but the thing that is the final rub for me is that either you make private exchange of emails by public officials illegal or you make secret policies by public officials illegal. You can't have both and have a functioning check and balance on government power. Clearly, Washington would rather keep the secret policy option so our only access is the crumbs that seem to get left while making that secret policy and if that extends to their private emails then so be it. I am not sure I like the word "transparency" any more than you do. But, to me it is a newspeak word that essentially allows a debate about whether government officials should be accountable. Obviously, they should be. The question is how we do it in the modern age.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Hilary's Emails

I think you are putting up a nobble defense here but the thing that is the final rub for me is that either you make private exchange of emails by public officials illegal or you make secret policies by public officials illegal. You can't have both and have a functioning check and balance on government power. Clearly, Washington would rather keep the secret policy option so our only access is the crumbs that seem to get left while making that secret policy and if that extends to their private emails then so be it. I am not sure I like the word "transparency" any more than you do. But, to me it is a newspeak word that essentially allows a debate about whether government officials should be accountable. Obviously, they should be. The question is how we do it in the modern age.

I think that's exactly right. The problem in my mind is that just having a larger quantity of data doesn't in any way imply to me that we'll get a better quality of data. You can flood the public with a deluge of billions of e-mails, and you can ensure that nearly 100% of them will be benign and banal by making the rules such that public officials simply avoid e-mail for anything really meaningful.

I think there ought to be an open and public discussion and debate about the terms of things like TTIP and the TPP, for instance. But there will not be. And even though I'm sure there's plenty of possibility that Hillary had some hand in the early stages one way or the other, I am also pretty sure none of that would be in the e-mail dump. There's plenty that's kept secret. And there probably always will be so long as even the remotest threat of war exists. The public probably should know better information in order to hold officials accountable. It's the word "more" I take issue with. More and better aren't always the same thing. And I think that's a big problem in the modern age vis-a-vis digital data. The move now seems broadly to demand to collect absolutely everything. I'm pretty convinced in the medium term, all it will do is create a chilling effect around using the technologies for any correspondence of real value at the top, and force a new bewildering array of bureaucracy for the worker bees. There have always been information retention policies. But nobody ever moved to declare every scrap of paper with a half-baked idea on it worthy of retention back in the day. Because retaining paper is relatively expensive. With newer technologies it's not only far cheaper to retain everything, it's also far easier to send many more letters back and forth. I myself have over 20,000 unread e-mails sitting in my inbox, with double that number read and stored. And this is not the spam folder. The vast majority of them are completely inconsequential, even when they are work-related. A few really matter. Some are deeply personal. But they all sit there. Were I simply writing and receiving paper letters, I imagine I'd have 1% of the volume and every one would contain higher quality information in all domains of my life. Somewhere out there in a sea of cubicles there are millions of public employees plugging away at keyboards. And each one of them has a father that sends off-color chain e-mails, or a daughter that gets way too personal sending e-mails to work accounts. Just waiving a wand and saying "the public should know all of it," doesn't help anyone. Nor does declaring it a scandal if these employees delete those e-mails. Nor does having independent panels sift through every single one of them. And carrying around 2 phones, while being a commonplace thing, just seems kind of wasteful and silly. I did it for 3 years a few years back, and not only did I hate it, I failed many times at keeping the 2 perfectly separate. I'm not Janus. Nobody is. There has to be a better way here.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Hilary's Emails

If a foreign intelligence service was to force rank the target list of foreign leaders whose email they would wish to compromise, where would Sec State Hillary Clinton rank?

I'd say #2, behind President Obama, possibly #1 as the President is pretty insulated for political/pragmatic purposes.

Compromising the Sec State's email provides potentially great insight into a person's personality, perceptions, distractions, priorities, stance on issues, decision making cycle, etc. It can be nothing, it can be playing poker with the opposition seeing your hand.

[Milton Kuo]

Re: Hilary's Emails

If a foreign intelligence service was to force rank the target list of foreign leaders whose email they would wish to compromise, where would Sec State Hillary Clinton rank?

I'd say #2, behind President Obama, possibly #1 as the President is pretty insulated for political/pragmatic purposes.

Compromising the Sec State's email provides potentially great insight into a person's personality, perceptions, distractions, priorities, stance on issues, decision making cycle, etc. It can be nothing, it can be playing poker with the opposition seeing your hand.

This is my line of thought, too. I have no interest in seeing whatever it is that Clinton is sending back and forth using e-mail. However, being that she was Secretary of State, I would think that the information she was sending could be sensitive and should be sent using secure means. It's not clear to me what kind of condition the IT infrastructure of the state department is in but in the 2002 to 2004 (over 10 years ago!) timeframe, I was working on products (smart cards) that were intended to be sold to the U.S. military (I visited a U.S. Army facility and it's my understand that the U.S. Navy was also working on rolling out CACs.)

The military already had quite a bit of infrastructure using the CAC (Common Access Card) to encrypt e-mail messages. It was and is a trivial matter to set up and administer a secure messaging infrastructure for about one hundred key people. The technology existed then to allow someone to use a CAC to easily encrypt e-mail messages. Regardless of what one thinks about the encryption technologies, it's still far, far better than sending things in clear text.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Hilary's Emails

This is my line of thought, too. I have no interest in seeing whatever it is that Clinton is sending back and forth using e-mail. However, being that she was Secretary of State, I would think that the information she was sending could be sensitive and should be sent using secure means. It's not clear to me what kind of condition the IT infrastructure of the state department is in but in the 2002 to 2004 (over 10 years ago!) timeframe, I was working on products (smart cards) that were intended to be sold to the U.S. military (I visited a U.S. Army facility and it's my understand that the U.S. Navy was also working on rolling out CACs.)

The military already had quite a bit of infrastructure using the CAC (Common Access Card) to encrypt e-mail messages. It was and is a trivial matter to set up and administer a secure messaging infrastructure for about one hundred key people. The technology existed then to allow someone to use a CAC to easily encrypt e-mail messages. Regardless of what one thinks about the encryption technologies, it's still far, far better than sending things in clear text.

Agreed.

Another point coming from a coal face perspective:

What would happen to a junior Foreign Service Officer, junior DIA/CIA case officer, junior USAID staffer, and/or junior US military officer that commingled work/personal email on a personal email server?

Some would be fired, the rest would be lucky if all they got was fired.

It's pretty simple.

ALL work email must be constructed and communicated via secure means.

We use specific/simple protocols for secure communication as well as communication between secure and non-secure means(meaning an outside the secure network email addressee), that includes something as simple as placing UNCLASSIFIED: XXXXX in the subject line.

I've had many emails sidelined for human review after getting pinged by automated keyword search. Nothing major, most have just been enough to warrant another human to check I'm not doing anything silly/stupid.

Trust but verify.

Sounds like Hillary trusts herself, but was unwilling for that trust to be verified….on top of the aforementioned extremely high risk of her email being compromised by foreign powers.

I don't know much about secure communications, other than how to be a user of some systems. But I know folks who do….and I'm hearing the use of such a senior national executive using a private personal email server is just dangerously naive.

I've seen some headlines of potential 2016 candidates referring to both Clinton and Bush family as american royalty(rather than oligarch spokesperson), hopefully it gains traction and the usual suspects become unelectable.

[Master Shake]

Re: Hilary's Emails

Agreed.

Another point coming from a coal face perspective:

What would happen to a junior Foreign Service Officer, junior DIA/CIA case officer, junior USAID staffer, and/or junior US military officer that commingled work/personal email on a personal email server?

Some would be fired, the rest would be lucky if all they got was fired.

It's pretty simple.

ALL work email must be constructed and communicated via secure means.

We use specific/simple protocols for secure communication as well as communication between secure and non-secure means(meaning an outside the secure network email addressee), that includes something as simple as placing UNCLASSIFIED: XXXXX in the subject line.

I've had many emails sidelined for human review after getting pinged by automated keyword search. Nothing major, most have just been enough to warrant another human to check I'm not doing anything silly/stupid.

Trust but verify.

Sounds like Hillary trusts herself, but was unwilling for that trust to be verified….on top of the aforementioned extremely high risk of her email being compromised by foreign powers.

I don't know much about secure communications, other than how to be a user of some systems. But I know folks who do….and I'm hearing the use of such a senior national executive using a private personal email server is just dangerously naive.

I've seen some headlines of potential 2016 candidates referring to both Clinton and Bush family as american royalty(rather than oligarch spokesperson), hopefully it gains traction and the usual suspects become unelectable.

+1

Would love to see an Elizabeth Warren v. Rand Paul race.

[cbr]

Re: Hilary's Emails

Private individuals should have every expectation of complete privacy and full discretion to use whatever means of communication they want. Government employees can never have any expectation of privacy whatsoever, especially anyone that deals with information relevant to foreign powers. ESPECIALLY the sos!!!

Any motherfucker that works at a senior level of governement and ever attempts to hide or destroy a single email is the worst kind of criminal there is. I call it treason. But it is certainly a felony. This bitch needs to be in jail and if powell, bush, and anyone else in government set up private servers or deleted emails they need to be there too.

Without mastering data security and penetrating foreign powers' data, we would never have won ww2. And without doing that now, we will lose (are losing/have lost) the present struggle for competitiveness. Hillary's campaign is done. Hopefully every senior politician is done and we can have a election of people who are not elite politicians.

[Woodsman]

Re: Hilary's Emails

Would love to see an Elizabeth Warren v. Rand Paul race.

It's Wall Street's election and the banksters are good with either Bush III or Clinton II. So that's what we'll have.

Exclusive: Upset by Warren, U.S. banks debate halting some campaign donations

Guess What Happened When JPMorgan's CEO Visited Elizabeth Warren's Office

[lektrode]

Re: Hilary's Emails

....Any moth... r that works at a senior level of governement and ever attempts to hide or destroy a single email is the worst kind of criminal there is. I call it treason. But it is certainly a felony. ...
bitch needs to be in jail ... anyone else in government set up private servers or deleted emails they need to be there too.

Without mastering data security and penetrating foreign powers' data, we would never have won ww2. And without doing that now, we will lose (are losing/have lost) the present struggle for competitiveness. Hillary's campaign is done. Hopefully every senior politician is done and we can have a election of people who are not elite politicians.

uhhhh....
like..

ummmm...

F__K YEAH!

+1

[vt]

Re: Hilary's Emails

The Bush's and Clinton's are finished, and soon enough Wall Street will follow.

Gore vs. Rubio.

The next President will tame FIRE, hopefully not from the ashes of a ruined economy.

By the way Warren's a hypocrite. She's part of the academic mafia that has made higher education unaffordable for the middle class.

[Verrocchio]

Re: Hilary's Emails

It's Wall Street's election and the banksters are good with either Bush III or Clinton II. So that's what we'll have.

Exclusive: Upset by Warren, U.S. banks debate halting some campaign donations

Guess What Happened When JPMorgan's CEO Visited Elizabeth Warren's Office

Can't say I like what you wrote on this, Woodsman, but I find it hard to disagree.

[seanm123]

Re: Hilary's Emails

Hillary ran the State Dept during Cablegate. However it seems most references to it have been scrubbed from the internet and her Wikipedia profile. At the time it was reported "she sanctioned the collection of confidential information, including biometric data and credit card details, about U.N. leaders and foreign diplomats. The State Department cables were signed in Clinton's name, and some say this intelligence-gathering amounts to "spying" on the U.N. leadership — an act that contradicts several international laws. "

http://theweek.com/articles/488919/w...vive-cablegate

She survived Cablegate and to my best estimate will survive Emailgate.

The only thing that might keep her from running (make that winning the presidential election) is Bill Clinton. Do they have a firm grip on him or will other women come forward between now and Tuesday, November 8th, 2016?

[shiny!]

Re: Hilary's Emails

The next President will tame FIRE, hopefully not from the ashes of a ruined economy.

Based on what evidence? If you believe that, I've got a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn!

Top donors for Marco Rubio (Hint: Rubio's on FIRE, just like all the rest of the Republocrats)

By the way Warren's a hypocrite. She's part of the academic mafia that has made higher education unaffordable for the middle class.

The college tuition bubble came from government getting involved in the student loan biz, giving loans to every graduating high schooler, combined with high schools abandoning vocation education and forcing all students on a college-bound track.

The "academic mafia" as you put it might be responsible for slanting the tenor of education leftwards of what you like, but it has little if anything to do with setting tuition prices. Blaming professors for the high price of college tuition is like blaming nurses for the high price of medical care.

[Woodsman]

Re: Hilary's Emails

Based on what evidence? If you believe that, I've got a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn!..

After three decades years of witnessing the worst sort of pandering, lies and empty promises from Democrats and Republicans, it astounds me that there are still those among us who actually believe voting does anything but encourage the bastards.

Excepting VT's act of faith that the next president will tame FIRE, does anyone else have an expectation that as wholly-owned FIRE/War Party subsidiaries any of the candidates will do a thing to upset their masters and the status quo?

I keep on waiting for folks to come to the realization that they are being played for fools, but it never seems to come.