Posted on 08/13/2015 4:57:12 PM PDT by grey_whiskers
The ratchets have been turning lately on Nurse Ratched Hillary Clinton, over allegations of classified emails having been left on a private server.
The Hillary camp is claiming this is a big bunch of nothing, that the server has been wiped clean, and that, besides, the emails were not marked as classified at the time she sent them.
So, what's the big deal?
Let's take a step back: outside of the election year, outside of partisan politics, and into the world of classified material.
Some of the material itself is classified Top Secret. What's that mean? It sounds like James Bond, or the old Mad Magazine's Spy vs. Spy cartoon. Nope. The government itself takes a different view.
Here's a definition from the Federation of American Scientists (note that their webpage has all kinds of spiffy photos of nuclear explosions and stuff -- which is close as you're going to get to a layman's impression of "Top Secret):
The U.S. classification of information system has three classification levels -- Top Secret, Secret, and Confidential -- which are defined in EO 12356.2 Those levels are used both for NSI and atomic energy information (RD and FRD). Section 1.1(a) of EO 12356 states that:
(a) National Security Information (hereinafter "classified information") shall be classified at one of the following three levels:
((1) "Top Secret" shall be applied to information, the unauthorized disclosure of which reasonably could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security.
((2) "Secret" shall be applied to information, the unauthorized disclosure of which reasonably could be expected to cause serious damage to the national security.
((3) "Confidential" shall be applied to information, the unauthorized disclosure of which reasonably could be expected to cause damage to the national security.
(Section 1.1(b) of EO 12356 states that "except as otherwise provided by statute, no other terms shall be used to identify classified information."
...further down the page, it says:
The last EO to provide examples of Top Secret information whose disclosure "could reasonably be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security" was EO 11652 of March 1972.5 Examples of "exceptionally grave damage" included in that EO were "armed hostilities against the United States or its allies; disruption of foreign relations vitally affecting the national security; the compromise of vital defense plans or complex cryptologic and communications intelligence systems; the revelation of sensitive intelligence operations; and the disclosure of scientific or technical developments vital to national security."6 Subsequent EOs have not provided examples of what constitutes Top Secret information.
In other words, this is more than some Senator getting her panties in a wad over a co-ed dragging a mattress around campus.
So -- as to the Clinton's claim that 'the material was unclassified at the time it was sent'.
BZZZZZZT.
For two reasons; or, even more, three.
First, Hillary was the Secretary of State: someone with the training and authority to *assign* classifications. Ever notice how she's the smartest woman who ever lived, except when she gets in trouble? Then, she morphs into Luddite Barbie. She bears the ultimate responsibility.
Second, some of the emails were classified "Top Keyhole". As the name hints, this is satellite data: and that tends to be not just Top Secret, but compartmentalized on a need to know basis. It's the kind of thing where it goes without saying that it is classified.
By comparison, General Petraeus -- *so* ironically referred to as "General Betrayus" in that old political ad (in the New York Slimes, was it?) -- was fired for bringing *his personal calendar* home. NOT classified satellite data.
Third: Hillary allegedly had this stuff on a PRIVATE SERVER. Not behind govt. firewalls; sending or receiving things (as it were) into the cloud. What kind of encryption was used? What assurances against bots or sniffers hiding on nodes between her and the intended recipients, or vice versa? This is the equivalent of breaking the US codes. And given that the Chinese have hacked into the OPM and stolen up to 21 million personnel records (up to and including *fingerprints* !!), that Russia has hacked into the Pentagon non-classified email system (a simple phishing scam from getting into the classified networks?)...is it that much of a stretch to envisage the following conversation between Hillary and the Department of Justice in the near future:
DOJ: Mrs. Clinton, we insist that you turn over your emails in their entirety.
Hillary: I'd love to, but they've been deleted. I don't have any copies to turn over.
Red Chinese: Wanna (ahem) buy some?
Peking Duck behind bars PING!
Nope. It's Talent Keyhole. But yes it is Spy Satellite images and the associated analyses.
The NSA has every one of those emails, always has. They may not want to give them up, but they have them. It would be ludicrous to think otherwise.
It’s not that complex. They have her dead to rights on Spoliation of Evidence. That just by itself is enough to convict her for the same breaches that Petraeus was convicted of.
I was going from memory rather than looking it up.
Nasty habit, not proofreading.
I'd like to know how many different ways they've tried to disrupt that server.
If it were me I would put a new hard drive in, reset the clock, and copy the inane emails back on. Erase them as an idiot would. Then set the clock to today and let it time stamp some things.
....someone had to copy the files to an external portable drive ...
In the DoD system, flash drives or any USB port drives will automatically block you out as soon as they are detected by the computer. So if the State Dept is the same, they probably used a cd and burned the info on to it.
Still who would have access to that level of info, other than Hillary.
Of Hillary, Emails, and National Security
Thanks, grey_whiskers.
Poor thing. She’s just like Charlie Brown.
“Why’s everybody always pickin’ on me?”
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