Posted on 02/06/2016 4:33:29 PM PST by COUNTrecount
For alumni of U.S. national-security departments and agencies, Clinton’s email saga is mind-numbing. The publicly available information makes clear she and her aides violated so many elementary security prohibitions that alumni are speechless. They wonder, had they done what she did, how quickly they would have lost their clearances and jobs and how extensive the criminal indictments against them would be.
By contrast, many who have never served in government or dealt with classified information see the affair as opaque, even overblown. Certainly Clinton has worked hard to foster that impression. Leaving political spin aside, without delving into arcane legal analysis, which is it? What did Clinton and her entourage actually do day-to-day, and what does it mean?
In hopes of making things a little clearer, herewith the observations of one State Department alumnus, who has pondered how he would look in an orange jumpsuit were he in Clinton's shoes.
State, like other national-security agencies, has both classified and unclassified ways for its employees, especially the most senior, to communicate. Clinton erred in two separate but often confused ways. First, she used private channels for official government business, and second, she used unclassified channels to send and receive classified information.
Her first error violates basic common sense, familiar to any private business: Business channels should be used for business purposes and personal channels for personal purposes. Obviously, there can be ambiguity between business and personal communications, such as one spouse asking another, "When will you be home for dinner?" But in Clinton's case, there seems to be no ambiguity: She simply did not use government channels for her electronic communications. Her motive was almost certainly to put information she alone deemed personal beyond government access, which is impermissible even for the most junior clerk, let alone the secretary of state.
(Excerpt) Read more at weeklystandard.com ...
If you ask 100 people in the military what would happen if they handled classified material the way Hillary did, all of them (even democrats) would say that they would end up in prison for a long time. You would get the same result with NSA, CIA, and even government contractors. Jonathan Pollard could tell you what happens even if you allow our allies access to classified information. Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden (if we ever catch him) could elaborate on what happens when classified information is mishandled. Hillary was the worst of them all, and she may get promoted for her crimes.
Yep. My husband and I both had clearances and we are amazed at what has happened. It’s bad.
I would like to see a body count. The Arab spring, Libya, Benghazi, undercover agents,...this is beyond criminal, it is satanic
The publicly available information makes clear she and her aides violated so many elementary security prohibitions that alumni are speechless. They wonder, had they done what she did, how quickly they would have lost their clearances and jobs and how extensive the criminal indictments against them would be.
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It is doubtful that Hillary's people had security clearances. Ask the FBI agents in charge of trying to get them all to comply with the law.
Hillary joked about how she was able to keep Huma from having to meet with the people conducting them.
So, what does that say?
They were handling Top Secret and Uber Top Secret information and sharing it all without even having the credentials to do so.
We take it for granted that they all had security clearances, but did they?
Will Hillary be able to convince a court of law that she really didn't know what ''Top Secret'' was, therefore she should be acquitted?
One reason is that she wanted to freely share information when and to whom she saw fit.
After all, laws and cumbersome government restrictions are made for the little people.
First she will have to explain this:Like other sensitive government agencies the State Department was frequently target and increasingly sophisticated phishing attempts. When we first arrived at State, these attempts were similar to the fraudulent emails many Americans experience at home on their personal computers. The often sloppy early attempts to penetrate our secure systems were easy to spot. But by 2012, the sophistication and fluency had advanced considerably, with the attackers impersonating State Department officials in an attempt to dupe their colleagues into opening legitimate looking attachments.When we traveled to sensitive places like Russia, we often received warnings from the Department security officials to leave our BlackBerries, laptops—anything that communicated with the outside world—on the plane, with their batteries removed to prevent foreign intelligence services from compromising them. Even in friendly settings we conducted business under strict security precautions, taking care where and how we read secret material and used our technology. One means of protecting material was to read it inside an opaque tent in a hotel room. In less well equipped settings we were told to improvise by reading sensitive material with a blanket over our head. I felt like I was 10 years old again, reading covertly by flashlight under the covers after bedtime. On more than one occasion I was cautioned not to speak freely in my own hotel room.
And it wasn't just US government agencies and officials who were targets. American companies were also in the crosshairs. I fielded calls from frustrated CEOs complaining about aggressive theft of an intellectual property and trade secrets, even breaches of their home computers. To better focus our efforts against this increasingly serious threat, I appointed the Department’s first Coordinator for Cyber Issues in February 2011. - Hard Choices by Hillary Rodham Clinton
Huma actually had Top Secret clearance via douments obtained by Judicial Watch. I would think Cheryl Mills had the same.
Very nice find.
Who was directly responsible for monitoring State Department communications and security? Does that person, or those people, still have a job? If so, WHY?
BTTT
Good to know. Then they knew full well what they were doing which makes it all even worse.
Extraordinarily clear and concise explanation of the Clinton Email problem.
Devastating indictment of Clinton’s arrogance and wanton disregard for the security and safety of the United States.
Typical Clinton dodge: "It depends on what the meaning of 'Classified' is." All reality is based on their subjective interpretation.
If the State Department employees, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, think that they work for the Democrat Party, then they should repay all the money the U.S. Taxpayers paid them to work for us.
And no retirement. The Democrat Party can pay that.
I am so damn tired of seeing US taxpayer-paid federal employees who are loyal to the Democrat Party but not the US taxpayers.
Make ‘em pay!
SO....WHO was this Coordinator of Cyber Issues that Hillary put in??? HUMA, CHERYL?? WHO??
Yes, I thought exceedingly so. The tip came from the dead-tree Wall St. Journal, which led me first to post a skimpy extract here, http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3333682/posts. . . and then to get Hillary’s book out of the library and post the relevant extract here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3334472/posts
Ah, the research hunt. More thrilling than those who don’t practice it can possibly understand. Well done!
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