What advantage was there to Hilary Clinton in putting e-mails on her own server?

Quora ^ | Nov 14, 2016 | Gordon Miller

[annalex]

Q: I’m not wanting to start a political thing (though it no doubt will) but has she ever explained why it was benefit to her to use a personal server rather than the State Departments’. (I’m a Brit by the the way)

A: Gordon Miller, works at G3i Ventures LLC

Ironically, I am uniquely qualified to answer this question. From 2004–2005, I was the lead functional architect for the State Messaging Archive Retrieval Toolset (SMART), the official e-mail system of the US Department of State.

When I started on the team, it was under the leadership of Sec. Powell. He had his own e-mail server, but it was in the server room owned by the State Department. When Sec. Rice took over she too had her own server, but it was again on site in the server room. Neither had servers in their own residences or at a 3rd party location. Powell did use his AOL account, but not for classified e-mails.

When I designed the workflow for the official e-mail system, I insisted that there be two features that were not negotiable.

1. All e-mails had to be cleared by 2 people, even the ones from the Sec State. That didn’t go over well since the SecState wanted authority to clear and approve their own message. I said NO.
2. Every message, approved or not, had a copy routed to a lock box where no access was possible by anyone except for audit or law enforcement purposes.

Both of these features were not popular, but it was the only way that I was going to design the system. Finally, they agreed and I handed off the designs to the engineering team and they implemented it.

The reason that Hillary Clinton had her own e-mail servers was because there was no way around the safeguards that I insisted be put into place to prevent just this type of problem from happening. Hillary didn’t want her Pay for Play e-mails and Clinton Foundation e-mails to be forever in the system of record for the US Dept of State. So, the advantage that you asked about is so that she could run amuck unchecked by the checks and balances that were put in place to avoid such corruption.

It is worth noting that the system went live January 1, 2009, 3 weeks before Obama was sworn in and would have been required for Sec. Clinton to use when she took office. When Sec. Powell and Sec. Rice were there, an official system didn’t exist yet, so that is the difference that the mainstream media refused to report accurately.

[jjotto]

To allow access by her paymasters to classified material without her having to transfer it. They could ‘hack’ (wink, wink) her server and she could have plausible deniability.

[Chewbarkah]

You guys don’t know nuthin’. Hillary already told us why: convenience. Because it’s darned convenient to buy server equipment and software, find a location for the server, hire and pay IT folks to set it up, register, and maintain it, select, install, and maintain top-end cybersecurity measures, etc., compared to telling an administrative assistant at work to get you an official State Department email address. Duh.

[rlmorel]

That is one of the things about this email server that makes me grit my teeth.

Did we not hear from the mouths of not only Clinton’s supporters, but the FBI Director that she was not guilty of a crime, she was just unintentionally careless.

Intentionally setting up and operating a private email server to bypass FOIA is not carelessness. It is criminal.

It makes me pretty angry to hear people who obviously know the truth say that.

[bitt]

PING

[Whenifhow]

PING!!!!

Article and comments, esp #7, #11

Thanks, bitt

[The Westerner]

Thank you. The definitive reason why Hillary placed the server far away from the State Dept IT security team. The procedure put in place by this gentleman is no different than email security in private corporations. The need for tight control over all email became part of the business landscape in the Bush II era. Hillary doesn’t let rules or laws stand in her way e.g., the reason she was thrown off the Watergate legal team prosecuting Nixon.

[grey_whiskers]

One wonders if she received some of the unmasked intercepts of Trump?

[MHGinTN]

Only the NSA knows for sure ... and I understand that Mike Rogers is aiding the Barr investigations.

[liberalh8ter]

Interesting...thanks for posting this. I remember there was a video taken of Hillary before she was ever SOS...the video was shot from her right and they are seated at a long table. In the video she makes a comment about not wanting to ever have her email available (or something to that effect). I just tried to look for it and can’t find it.