If you are elected to a high office in the US, IMHO you should not be allowed to have any secret communications that are not accessible to archiving and oversight. None. Most of us, I believe, have probably thought that the idea of doing something subversive in office is protected against by the oversight of patriots in our intelligence agencies. We now know that this probably isn’t true, and it appears more than possible to have a ‘shadow’ government within our own, operating outside of the confines of oversight. That is of major, major concern.
The sanctity of our system is predicated very much on built in checks and balances. When you decide to ‘serve’ the US in any capacity that allows you to do harm as well as good, it should be definitively accepted that you are concomitantly giving up your right to the type of privacy we should have as individual private citizens. Ironically, it seems that private citizens now have fewer rights to privacy than do those who have higher order access to our nations secrets. That’s very disturbing.
I’m not saying that those serving in office or working for government don’t have a right to a private life, or that anyone in the general public should be made privy to the details of their personal lives. I am saying, however, that all government communication should be behind the most secure of firewalls, and should be archived for potential monitoring and oversight.
It’s a sticky issue, as we also have to protect against this information being used for extortion etc., and have to protect the ability to politically strategize without the political opposition having access to that information.
At any rate, having a private email account on which you communicate with others regarding any official government business is not acceptable, at any level. If Hillary skates on this it is a big step in a dangerous direction for the US.
There is a lot of truth to what you are saying. Let me put it this way...
Your financial advisor, entrusted to act as a fiduciary for a few dozen clients and few million dollars of assets is required by federal law to use only his company’s e-mail to communicate with his clients and supervisors. Anyone in the securities or investment advisory business would be looking at a bar (end of career, go deliver pizzas for the rest of your life) for using an off-book e-mail in a systematic manner like this. That is a completely separate issue from the content problems.
It appears because it exists!
The rules already require what you demand.
That set of rules includes law, regulation, and policy.
The issue here is not the need for more rules, but the need for enforcement of existing rules.
... much like our border ...