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Latest pro-Hillary spin: E-mail Classifications are dumb, y’all
Hotair ^ | 08/19/2015 | Ed Morrissey

Posted on 08/19/2015 11:06:18 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

Old and busted: You can trust Hillary Clinton with national security. New hotness: National security protections are so overrated! With the FBI probing the data trail from Hillary’s secret e-mail server and more than 300 e-mails flagged as possibly containing classified material, the strategy now is to claim that the material was overclassified from the start. Longtime Clinton defender David Brock told Politico that he wants to push the idea that classification is “elastic,” a term that has suddenly popped up more than once in the media of late.

In another Politico piece, Matthew Miller claims that the “real Clinton e-mail scandal” is classification itself. He claims that the appearance of classified material in more than 300 e-mails out of 6,000 is “far less scandalous than the headlines make it appear,” and that the true failure is overclassification of material that should be in the public domain:

As a former Department of Justice official who regularly dealt with classified information, I am glad a team of officials from the FBI, the intelligence community and other agencies is not currently reviewing every email I sent and received while I worked in government. If they did, they would likely find arguably classified information that was transmitted over unclassified networks—and the same thing is undoubtedly true for other senior officials at the White House, the State Department and other top national security agencies.

The sheer volume of information now considered classified, as well as the extreme, and often absurd, interpretations by intelligence officials about what is and is not classified, make it nearly impossible for officials charged with operating in both the classified and unclassified worlds to do so without ever mixing the two.

From the intelligence community’s perspective, the border between these two worlds looks like a brick wall. Many intelligence officials spend their entire day working inside so-called Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities, designed to be impenetrable to eavesdropping, and using only separate, classified email systems to communicate with others in government. In these hermetically sealed environments, there is no need to ever sort through the differences between classified and unclassified information.

But for officials charged with dealing with the public, the media and other governments, the lines become much harder to draw.

This glosses over a couple of very important points. First, the proper way to reclassify material is to have the issuing authority review it. That duty does not fall to the Secretary of State or her aides, but to the agencies that produced the data, and their direct chain of command, all the way to the President. Not even Congress can declassify material, at least not directly. Users of this material have a positive responsibility to protect it, are briefed constantly on how to handle it while it remains classified, and face severe consequences for violating those protocols and laws, most definitely including prosecution when it involves willful violations or gross negligence (18 USC 793, especially in (f)(1), the application of which is not limited to classified material).

Second, while much of the e-mails flagged (so far) are classified at Confidential and Secret levels — where overclassification is a chronic issue — two e-mails contained information that the issuing agencies considered Top Secret and compartmented. That data came from the NSA and other signals intelligence operations, including satellite-gathered data. Those kinds of information carry high classifications for very substantial reasons, including the protection of our methods of collecting it.

Finally, all of this starts and ends with the exclusive use of an unsecured and unauthorized communications system located in Hillary Clinton’s house, effectively an unauthorized retention of classified material (a crime under 18 USC 1924). There is no valid reason for a federal official with compliance requirements not just for secure transmission of sensitive materials but also with the Federal Records Act to conduct official business through a home-brew server. It was a deliberate attempt to circumvent both responsibilities, and largely succeeded at the latter until the existence of the server became public. As a result, the State Department made numerous misrepresentations in courts in response to FOIA demands that involved communications from Hillary and her team that were required to be part of the public record.

Classifications are not “elastic” either, not to those who handle the material, and especially not when it comes to signals intelligence. They are required to handle it according to the markings no matter what they personally think of its necessity. If Hillary and her staff had a problem with the classification levels cited, then they should have requested a review of the material — and there is no indication that anyone ever did. Even if they had, Hillary and her team were still were required to comply with the laws and protocols while the material was still classified.

Overclassification may be a problem, but it’s not this problem. This problem is that a high-ranking public official secretly evaded legitimate constitutional oversight from Congress and the courts with this e-mail system, which recklessly endangered US national security for four years to service her own personal motives.

This is a pathetic attempt at spin, especially given the progression of defenses that have been offered over the last six months. The RNC’s James Hewitt notes the moving goalposts of Hillary defenders:

Timeline:Hillary's Shifting Story https://t.co/HooYDEpTft pic.twitter.com/ZVJal2lJtO

— James Hewitt (@JamesOHewitt) August 19, 2015

John Boehner sent out a fact check this morning by e-mail debunking this same claim:

Myth: “I had not sent classified material nor received anything mark classified.”

FACT: First, Clinton claimed in March that “I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email. There is no classified material.” Conveniently, after it was discovered that her email did, in fact, include classified information she claimed that “I did not receive anything that was marked as classified.” We know this “marked as classified” trick is a complete and total ruse, having debunked it here and here. As Clinton well knows, whether the information was marked or not matters little. Because writing classified intelligence information into an unclassified email does not make the information unclassified. It’s still classified. And it doesn’t excuse the fact that the classified information itself is still included in your emails in the first place. Those who have security clearances are responsible, and liable, for following proper procedures and the law.

Get ready for more spin down the road. Hillary’s defenders are nothing if not elastic.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: classified; emailserver; hillary
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1 posted on 08/19/2015 11:06:18 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

2 posted on 08/19/2015 11:09:44 AM PDT by Grampa Dave ( Say what you will about The Donald! He has all the right enemies!)
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To: SeekAndFind

All this spinning is making me dizzy.


3 posted on 08/19/2015 11:13:01 AM PDT by Churchillspirit (9/11/2001 and 9/11/2012: NEVER FORGET.)
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To: SeekAndFind
Just watched CNN's latest update on this.... No mention at all of any investigation, no mention of classified emails being found. This so far is strictly the Republicans trying to make an issue for political reasons. The "people trust Hillary" and she has a record of "achievement".

Unless she's actually arrested, this will never be more than a GOP witchhunt for most low info Dem voters.

4 posted on 08/19/2015 11:14:00 AM PDT by Cementjungle
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To: SeekAndFind

When I think of Hillary Clinton, “I think of a man and I take away reason and accountability.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wse_hgca220


5 posted on 08/19/2015 11:15:33 AM PDT by Jim W N
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To: SeekAndFind

If I was the Head of the CIA, DHS or State, I would figure that some of the things I was doing or commenting on should be classified information. Unless of course, I was just an incompetent figurehead that was in over my head and nothing I did or said was worth warm spit. Which one is it Hillary?


6 posted on 08/19/2015 11:21:16 AM PDT by Starstruck (I'm usually sarcastic. Deal with it.)
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To: SeekAndFind

The Progressive Bargaining
1. I didn’t do it.
2. OK, I did it but it’s not that big a deal.
3. I’ll give you Cheryl, and Huma on the little stuff, if you ...
4. But I have a child and we’re dead broke.
5. I want to choose my cell mate.


7 posted on 08/19/2015 11:22:03 AM PDT by tumblindice (America's founding fathers: all armed conservatives.)
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To: tumblindice
I didn't do it
You can't prove it
Nobody saw it...
8 posted on 08/19/2015 11:30:24 AM PDT by gov_bean_ counter (Beware the Wisconsin Weasel - GOPe Plan B)
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To: SeekAndFind
Hillary Clinton should withdraw from the race and ask for immunity from prosecution. She should ask for Gowdy and all agencies to end their email investigations of her and in return she will give them everything she knows about her rapist husband's chinagate treason.
Starting with:
Sandy Berger, Ron Brown, Vince Foster, John Huang, Johnny Chung, Charlie Trie, Ng Lap Seng, James and Mochatar Riady, the Lippo Group, Lippo Bank, Hutchison Whampoa Limited, Gen. Wang Zhen, General Liu Huaqing, Chao-ying, Chang-Lin Tienon, Li Ka-Shing, Mark Middleton, Wen-Ho and Sylvia Lee, Terry McAuliffe, Bernard Scharwtz/Loral; Mack McLarty, Wang Jun, the chairman of Poly Technologies Corp, Norma Asnes, Patsy Henderson Bowles, Mike McNulty, Elizabeth Mann, Jianwei Ding, and on and on....

These are just some of the key co-conspirators of slime bags Bill and Hillary Clinton's Chinagate treason.

The Clinton National Security Scandal and Coverup
http://www.rense.com/politics4/clintbet.htm

http://alamo-girl.com/treason.htm

The Clinton Cow in the China Shop - Part 2
http://www.dagnyd.net/hillchina2.htm

The Clinton Cow in the China Shop - Part 1 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1949811/posts

THE CLINTON CONSPIRACY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8B43JOshC4

9 posted on 08/19/2015 11:30:30 AM PDT by Mr Apple (http://www.rense.com/politics4/clintbet.htm)
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To: gov_bean_ counter

My dog doesn’t bite.
That’s not my dog.
He didn’t bite you.
He has no teeth ....


10 posted on 08/19/2015 11:32:53 AM PDT by tumblindice (America's founding fathers: all armed conservatives.)
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To: tumblindice

:)


11 posted on 08/19/2015 11:34:20 AM PDT by gov_bean_ counter (Beware the Wisconsin Weasel - GOPe Plan B)
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To: tumblindice

12 posted on 08/19/2015 11:36:26 AM PDT by SeekAndFind (qu)
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To: SeekAndFind

“My personal emails are my personal business, right?,”

No dear, not after CLASSIFIED material is found on your server!

You have forfeit all rights to privacy and your server is confiscated and the investigators will determine which items are of interest.

Once they are done with the investigation and that means all prosecutions are complete, the server will be destroyed.


13 posted on 08/19/2015 11:48:24 AM PDT by G Larry (Obama is replicating the instruments of the fall of Rome)
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To: SeekAndFind
In April 2005, Sandy Berger pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge of unauthorized removal and retention of classified material from the National Archives in Washington. According to the lead prosecutor in the case, Berger only took copies of classified information and no original material was destroyed.
Berger was fined $50,000, sentenced to serve two years of probation and 100 hours of community service, and stripped of his security clearance for 3 years. Shouldn't Hillary Clinton -at the very least- receive this same type of sentence when the time comes.
14 posted on 08/19/2015 11:59:26 AM PDT by Mr Apple (http://www.rense.com/politics4/clintbet.htm)
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To: gov_bean_ counter

15 posted on 08/19/2015 12:03:02 PM PDT by newfreep ("Evil succeeds when good men do nothting" - Edmund Burke)
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To: newfreep

HA!


16 posted on 08/19/2015 12:05:24 PM PDT by gov_bean_ counter (Beware the Wisconsin Weasel - GOPe Plan B)
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To: SeekAndFind

Classic!!!


17 posted on 08/19/2015 12:08:32 PM PDT by gov_bean_ counter (Beware the Wisconsin Weasel - GOPe Plan B)
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To: gov_bean_ counter

HELLry must have hired Bart as a campaign consultant.


18 posted on 08/19/2015 12:12:03 PM PDT by newfreep ("Evil succeeds when good men do nothting" - Edmund Burke)
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To: newfreep

No kidding. :)


19 posted on 08/19/2015 12:12:42 PM PDT by gov_bean_ counter (Beware the Wisconsin Weasel - GOPe Plan B)
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To: G Larry

“My personal emails are my personal business, right?,”

No dear, not after CLASSIFIED material is found on your server!

You have forfeit all rights to privacy and your server is confiscated and the investigators will determine which items are of interest.

Once they are done with the investigation and that means all prosecutions are complete, the server will be destroyed.


BINGO!

There is a reason you don’t commingle secret government documents and conduct government business, especially classified security related business on your private computer account.

Aside from the fact it violates US Espionage Laws, it opens ones private business into public scrutiny.

Of course, Hillary choose to commingle her public correspondence as Sec of State with her private correspondence because she was commingling her public business as Sec of State with her private business in her various pay for play, bribe schemes and Clinton Foundation shell games.


20 posted on 08/19/2015 12:49:30 PM PDT by rdcbn (Amen)
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