The headers DO NOT make the document secret or top secret. The contents of the document are SECRET OR TOP SECRET. Folks with security clearences are trained to know what is classified or not. The headers are just warnings that there is clasdified info on the page. A blank page with “TOP SECRET”stamped on it is not top secret;likewise, a document with TOP SECRET info in it is top secret whether it is stamped TOP SECRET or not.
That is exactly right.
Removing the headers does not remove the security classification. In this case, Hillary and Sullivan are guilty of conspiring to and sending classified info in the open.
Right.
This is the part that the Media befogs because they're either stupid [being journalism majors, for the most part], or intentionally, because they're actors for "their side" .
Or both.
If you work for the government, you get training. Loads of training. You get thick booklets, and they train you on the booklets.
Pretending for the unwashed masses that "this information JUST came up!" is mere Progressive propaganda.
Where I work, a guy discarded some classified vugraphs in his waste can. They were run off a printer and handed to him. They were technically “working papers’, i.e., not accountable material, but still subject to proper handling. Someone else, not the janitor, notice them there and reported it. The individual got a reprimand, and a suspension without pay and the facility got tagged with an incident report. (Incident reports are bad because they trigger increased costly security inspections by the DoD and can lead to revocation of the facility’s certification to retain classified information.)
If anyone where I work had tried a stunt like what Madame Secretary pull off, they would have been fired on a rocket sled.
Generally, paragraphs, images, diagrams, charts, and the like also have individual classification markings, so you can have a document with varying levels of classification. The overall document will be classified at the same level as the highest level component. Thus, a document that contains a single paragraph classified as secret, and the remainder unclassified will have an overall secret classification.
All along, Hillary’s claim of innocence has been that the documents that were processed through her private server weren’t marked as being classified, and it was only later that investigators discovered the oversight, and added the appropriate markings.
Now we have discovered what a flat out lie that was (as if we didn’t already know that), because it was at Hillary’s request that the classification markings were stripped from the offending documents.
And even if Hillary’s minions had refused her request, she would still be guilty of a crime, merely for making that request.
“Folks with security clearences are trained to know what is classified or not.”
Not so. When classified docs are moved between entities, it is the marking that indicates to the receiver, the contents are classified at that level. Simply having a clearance is no guarantee the viewer should know a page with information on it should be a specific classification, unless it is marked as such.