THE SCANDAL OVER CLINTON’S EMAILS STILL ISN’T A SCANDAL

[OKNancy]

http://www.newsweek.com/hillary-clinton-email-scandal-not-scandal-464414

Long article. Read the whole thing if you are really interested.

big snip

Does anyone truly think that the first thing the person charged with managing all foreign relations for the United States will do is spend a few months reading the equivalent of an encyclopedia for administrative and technical rules, rather than expecting the staff members charged with those responsibilities to handle it? (Also note that because of the amount of information involved, those duties are divided up among a large number of offices in the department.) Do people believe these officials are sophisticated enough to know anything about email other than how to type? (Clinton is a notorious technological imbecile, and Powell still has an AOL email account.) The absurdity of this belief—which Democrats seem to believe only applies to a Republican and Republicans seem to believe only applies to a Democrat—is so self-evident that it is astonishing there are people who espouse it with such vehemence.

Second, does anyone really believe voters will base their decisions at the ballot box on whether the documents in question were preserved strictly following the mandated procedures? Will anyone except partisans really care about a technical error that created no harm and had no nefarious motive? Would this column or an article declaring the email imbroglio to be a massive scandal actually change a vote?

Third, does anyone—including the inspector general—read the many documents that have already been released regarding this topic? A lot of the information in the new report was disclosed in a February letter by the IG—a fact not mentioned in most of the current news articles—and answers to questions the IG said it could not resolve are in documents disclosed by congressional investigators last year.

snip

Then there is the issue of security. The one thing that seems clear from the report is that Clinton’s email system was more secure than the one at the State Department. Before delving into that, though, one of the biggest misconceptions about this email “scandal” has to be dispelled: Neither Clinton nor any other senior official cleared for dealing with classified information has only one email system. One is used for workaday business—memos, drafts, information to department employees, questions and answers between individuals—and that is the type used by Clinton, Powell, and Rice’s senior staff that has been reviewed by the inspector general. The second email system, for materials designated as classified, has nothing to do with this controversy. It uses a highly restricted, compartmented information facility, or what is known in intelligence circles as a SCIF. Most senior officials who deal with classified information have a SCIF in their offices and their homes guarded 24 hours a day by physical and technical security teams. In other words, this widely held belief that Clinton and Powell were emailing information classified as top-secret on personal accounts is hooey. (Yes, some emails not marked as classified have been retroactively deemed as such; this happens all the time.)

As for the department’s unclassified system, the inspector general's report demonstrates that it was horribly insecure, and that hackers obtained terabytes worth of documents out of it; on the other hand, Clinton’s email system was quite secure and, when evidence emerged that someone was trying to hack in, the security officer overseeing the server immediately shut it down, then notified the relevant officials at State. In other words, while boxcars of documents were digitally pulled out of the agency, there is no evidence a single email was snagged out of Clinton’s server. So it could be the Clinton arrangement didn’t follow the security procedures laid out in the federal regulations—the inspector general did not reach a conclusion as to whether it did or not—but, as often happens, private security contractors did a better job than the government.

much more at the link

[ffr]

1. I just like reading all the capitalized headlines about this

UNCOVERED!
GOTCHA!

[hertopos]

2. Thank you and K&R

Wow, finally I understand how ridiculous this entire email thing is.

Thank you Newsweek

Hertopos

[Her Sister]

3. Bookmarking! Thanks! THE SCANDAL OVER CLINTON’S EMAILS STILL ISN’T A SCANDAL

http://www.newsweek.com/hillary-clinton-email-scandal-not-scandal-464414

[Thinkingabout]

4. There has been a lot of hope only to have it shot down. Just as the GOP has tried

To develop something on Benghazi this too will pass. Setting one's self up for failure on a false hope and then complaining about lost hope hurts but the truth is better.

[SunSeeker]

5. I think this paragraph is key:

 

The inspector general writes that Clinton never sought permission from legal counsel for the email arrangement, nor did Powell or Rice's senior staff. After all, when you go to a new job and the technology specialists set up your systems, do you then run to the company’s lawyers to make sure what they are doing complies with the rules? Or do you depend on them to tell you if there is a problem with the system?

[rock]

6. Technically, ALL of Hillary's 'scandals'

Should be referred to as 'alleged scandals'. You know to be accused of upwards of a couple of hundred bad things yet have none of them advance to even charged shows a pretty pathetic attempt on the part of the anti-Clinton cartel. The true scandal is the cartel gets away with the crimes of false testimony. And if you join in braying the same accusations, then you too are a criminal. Of course not being under oath, you probably get a way with it.

[LAS14]

7. Enthusiastic k & r!!!!! nt

[Cha]

8. Thank you, Nancy!

[anotherproletariat]

9. Yup, another made up scandal. The other thing people fail to remember, is that technology was quite

different 8 years ago. Many people didn't have email addresses back then, and it certainly wasn't nearly as universal as it is today. We also didn't worry as much about hackers, whistleblowers and other security risks because groups and people like Snowden, Guccifer, Anonymous (whose first big hack was in 2008 on the Church of Scientology) had not yet happened. All of this information needs to be seen in the proper context, not viewed retrospectively.

[Her Sister]

11. I read this newsweek article earlier! Really great! But now the link isn't working?

Reaaly wish to have access to it again since it explained so well this being a non scandal/big issue!