Fox News and NBC are reporting that Congress has been informed that Hillary Clinton’s unsecure home server contained information classified at levels higher than previously known, including classified Top Secret/Special Access. That would represent some of the most sensitive information to U.S. intelligence. I have held a TSSCI clearance since the Reagan Administration and I am again astonished by the remarkably bad judgment in the use of this server. In dealing with this type of information, it is generally restricted to SCIF and other highly restrictive access rules. Indeed, the limitations impose restrictions that have many of us grumbling constantly about the time and travel needed to deal with such documents in a safe and secure manner. CNN is reporting that “several dozen” new emails have been identified at the high classification level.
The Special Access material does not appear to be the same two Top Secret emails identified earlier among the hundreds of classified emails found on the server.
Charles McCullough, the intelligence community’s inspector general, said in a letter to the chairmen of the Senate intelligence and foreign affairs committees that he has received sworn declarations that cover “several dozen emails containing classified information determined by the IC element to be at the CONFIDENTIAL, SECRET and TOP SECRET/SAP information.”
Now here is the kicker. NBC says that one official involved in the investigation said that the special access program in question was so sensitive that McCullough and some of his aides had to receive clearance to be read in on it before viewing the sworn declaration about the Clinton emails.
Clinton has insisted that “I never sent classified material on my email, and I never received any that was marked classified.” The key of this spin is again the word “marked.” I have previously discussed why that explanation is less than compelling, particularly for anyone who has handled sensitive or classified material. As I discussed earlier, virtually anything coming out of the office of the Secretary of State would be considered classified as a matter of course. I have had a TS/SCI clearance since Reagan due to my national security work and have lived under the restrictions imposed on email and other systems. The defense is that this material was not technically classified at the time that it was sent. Thus it was not “classified” information. The problem is that it was not reviewed and classified because it was kept out of the State Department system. Moreover, most high-level communications are treated as classified and only individually marked as classified when there is a request for disclosure. You do not generate material as the Secretary of State and assume that it is unclassified. You are supposed to assume and treat it as presumptively classified. Otherwise, there would be massive exposure of classified material and willful blindness as to the implications of the actions of persons disregarding precautions. For example, there is not a person standing next to the President with a classification stamp in the Oval Office. However, those communications are deemed as presumptively classified and are not disclosed absent review. Under the same logic, the President could use a personal email system because his text messages by definition are not marked as classified. This is the whole reason that Clinton and others were told to use the protected email system run by the State Department. We have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to secure such systems.
The fact that an email was not marked classified could be a defense to a criminal charge but it does nothing to address horrendous judgment shown in using a private email system exclusively as one of the top government officials (and a chief target of foreign intelligence).
The presence of the highest classified material on the server would magnify the scandal further for Clinton, who has run on her experience and judgment in the national security area.
Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon responded to the story with the same point that nothing was actually marked classified: “This is the same interagency dispute that has been playing out for months, and it does not change the fact that these emails were not classified at the time they were sent or received. It is alarming that the intelligence community IG, working with Republicans in Congress, continues to selectively leak materials in order to resurface the same allegations and try to hurt Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
I expect increasing noncompliance, slow compliance, work-to-the-rule, falsified information, hypercompliance (to overburden the system), and black market activities given the flouting of the law by HRC and Obama (et al).
The leaders have set the tone.
Why should we average schmucks do any different?
Whether or not she broke the law, whether or not she did any “real” harm, the very stupidity of not following the rules and guidelines about email accounts should disqualify her from being president. She and Bill have been under incredible scrutiny for more than 20 years. Insane accusations, Star Chambers, a vast right wing conspiracy as she herself said. Knowing that, and not having anyone by her side to tell her NOT to do this? Totally stupid move.
If nothing is done, if Hillary is not indicted for this, the American public can conclude that the rule of law is dead, especially given Obama’s anti-Constitutional actions.
Put more simply, why should the average Joe comply with our numberless laws?
Any civilized nation depends on daily compliance with the law by its populace.
What will the government do when millions of people refuse to comply?
You can’t put everyone in jail.
This way lies anarchy or revolution.
“This way lies anarchy or revolution.”
I think the word you are reaching for is Oligarchy. Relax, some people are just more equal and deserving than others.
It seems we are living in a new age distinguished by the divine right of Hillary. What could possibly go wrong?
BamBam made a comment at 2:12 a.m.- I was thinking the same line of reasoning.
Until I see what the so called secret information was then I will never convict Hillary. Since they will never reveal the exact nature of the top secret information that we will never be able to judge. It is kind of like when the government says that Erdogan killed a Kurd. We do not really know that. Or when we kill some human with no boot on over in Afghanistan by a drone. We in American will never get confirmation as to just who was killed and by whose drone. Then there is the Ben Gazi incident. I have asked Ben several times if he knows anything about it and he denies it. He was in his workshop here in America during that so called incident, not in the Libya home of his ancestors.
And on the other hand, if the food in the Saudi Embassy is so bad then the world needs to know it.
Secret, secret, bo becrit.
p.s. a penetrating glimpse into the obvious:
If anyone else had done any of what Hillary has done, they’d already be in the dock and probably already have had their trial. They certainly wouldn’t be running for President.
Fudd’s First Law of Opposition states: “If you push something hard enough, it will fall over”. Will there be enough to topple Hillary?
Where the hell are the indictments?
People die when this sort of information gets disclosed, or a means of intelligence gathering is permanently closed off from future use.
The transport or holding of such data on an unapproved network by someone who agreed to keep said data in confidence demands indictment.
Where is it?
Oh, I see, the corruption is so deep that Team O feels free to resist.
She must feel quite confident that nothing will happen to her. She and the democrat aristocracy keep plugging away as the candidate to beat. They are looking to take away a star from Gen. Patraeus and this witch and hubby skate free all their misdeeds! Our government and representatives are way to corrupt, something must be done to save this once great nation.
And, as great professional observers have commented, she wears pant suits. Line up all the options and yeah, pick the Trump/Palin circus.
This may all blow over
The Science Geek
http://www.thesciencegeek.org
The most Googled question during the Democrats debate was: “Will Hillary be arrested?”
I too have worked under a ‘done of silence’ beit years ago. Unless the rules have changed, the fact that classified information was on an unclassified server is, in itself, a breach. If someone accidentally left a document, which required to be in a safe, out overnight at the facility I worked, in a locked office and at a double-guarded facility, our security considered that document compromised. Simply because not all personnel are cleared to that top level. It was our responsibility to inform security of that fact. Although most of those incidents did not necessarily result in any punishment being handed out, they always resulted in a slap on the wrist and a briefing update. The parent agency of those TSSA documents on Clinton’s unclassified server must consider them compromised if they operate under the same ground rules. Not saying they do because some agencies may be more strict than others. But just as important, a person (HRC or someone on the other end) with that clearance level would know the information was classified after reading its content and would have the responsibility to report the TSSA information was unmarked. The FBI is supposedly a nonpolitical agency. They have their guideline to follow and I’m sure they will. Maybe.
“She had an IT expert build a private server for her home, which, BTW, has never been hacked by the Chinese, unlike the State Dept’s supposedly secure computer system. ”
What is the source for the claim that the email server was never hacked? A quick google reveals numerous news stories claiming indications that her email server was hacked.
Any script kitty can find instructions on the web to put up an email server. Putting up an email server requires little IT skill. There are also web pages offering advice to secure the server. But despite the best advice available, even the highest levels of government get hacked far too often.
A completely different kind of problem relates to intrusion detection. Determining whether a server has been breached may be obvious – depending on the skill of the hacker. But the best hackers may find ways to breach a server and leave no indications – that depends on the skill of the server administrators and the skill of the hackers.
Finally it is inconceivable to me that SOS would not have been a target for surveillance by any number of groups and foreign powers. I cannot believe that her use of a personal email server would have gone unnoticed by all that might want to intercept high level government messages. If foreign hackers can compromise the best DOD servers then what chance does a small IT consulting firm have?
We may never know for sure. But unless Hillary is using telepathy it is a safe bet her messages have been hacked, and that could have happened without leaving a trace.
It takes a great deal of arrogance to believe that a private consultant can implement better security than the combined efforts of the best in the US government. Maybe – but do you really want to bet your fortune, you life, or the safety of your family on that?
Classified materials are one of the products of a society driven by psychopaths. To quote Orwell ….. ‘All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.’ And some information as well.
Hillary Clinton must expect us to believe that no foreign intelligence agency would even think of discovering CLINTONEMAIL.COM and watch network traffic to and from that domain, much less hack into it, to find all the State Department’s secrets.
Let’s employ Occam’s Razor. Did Mrs. Clinton use a State Department email address for all her state business? Second, is it a course of business to send classified information using email at State? If she rarely if ever used the State email system it is only logical that sensitive information went through to her home brew email server. It is obvious that she violated protocol with regard to sensitive information.
Maybe we could ask the Russians for the missing emails.
I suspect that this is all happening to ole Hillary, and not fading away as a distant memory, to ultimately make room for Biden, the I-Can’t-Bear-to-Run-for-President guy, to charge in, on his white horse, and save the Democratic party in the 11th hour. Don’t count Mr. Chicklets-Teeth out so fast. He’s hiding in the wings, patiently waiting to be begged to run for office, much like the fat wallflower at the junior high dance, who waits, quietly, in the corner, for some pimple-faced boy to notice her and ask for a dance.
Lets think about how this goes. A criminal jury trial. The accusation is that there was highly classified information in one of her emails. She says it was not highly classified. Lets skip the ALL CAPS here put out by JT– all that “confidential, top secret ” wordage. If the person who determined that the information was of such a highly secret level, had to be given special clearance to make that judgment, then how is the jury going to decide the case unless each juror is given special clearance to see the information? It is not going to happen.
One comment above says that Obama is behind all this. Possibly. He could have killed this investigation and all this drama.
So, maybe you folks on the blog do not care just what it was in the information which is supposed to be highly secret, but I do. So do the voters. If this is all that itShay about how bad the food was at the Saudi Embassy at dinner then it is just itShay.
Here is a sentence by JT from above which is disjointed: “I have held a TSSCI clearance since the Reagan Administration that such information is generally restricted to SCIF and other highly restrictive access rules.” There is something missing here. Perhaps there needs to be some segment after the words “Reagan Administration”. Is there an exception to “generally restricted to..” There might be.
I am not suggesting that the itShay might not hit the fan and that Hillary won’t be prosecuted. What I am suggesting is that we may never know the content of the so called secret itShay. itShay is Pig Latin. Had her emails been coded in Pig Latin then they might be legal.
The FBI is part of the DOJ. The head of the DOJ, whether Eric Holder or Loretta Lynch, are appointed by Obama and report to him. Thus the fact that the FBI is continuing this investigation at all suggests that Obama wants to undermine Hillary’s campaign based on his long-standing enmity towards the Clintons. I’m not saying that HC didn’t use very poor judgment, but I see her actions more as a product of convenience and arrogance than criminal cunning. She had an IT expert build a private server for her home, which, BTW, has never been hacked by the Chinese, unlike the State Dept’s supposedly secure computer system. So really, I see this investigation as a political strategy by Obama to get back at the Clintons because they labeled him a lightweight during his initial campaign for President. Which he is. Most assuredly, the most unqualified president in recent U.S. history. He was elected because he was perceived as a non-black black guy who would heal racial wounds. Well, we can see how far that got us……
Let’s not forget that she is being investigated by the FBI, congress has nothing to do with that investigation. Hello!
I do not see those three letters in this story, so you can say it was a selective spin piece!
Anyone who would trust her for that “3AM phone call” is seriously lacking in judgement.
There is NO defense for her acts. . . . none.