Clinton's server had classified material beyond 'top secret'

[LaCroix]

So by red tape you mean the security protocols for handling classified communications?

was this a trick or

[Admiral Yi]

was this a trick or

Or.  Definitely or.

[LaCroix]

Or.  Definitely or.

okay, should have said perceived red tape

[Razgovory]

I don't think it shows an incredible lack of judgment. if she did it as a workaround, it shows that she's willing to bend the rules to get something done in a (perceived) easier way. people can disagree on whether this is OK, but I don't have a problem with it. last semester as a board member, I pulled an "act first, seek forgiveness later" because waiting for board approval would have taken too long. some people just have a personality where they want to get shit done. this controversy doesn't prove anything about hillary's behavior or what she will do as president, because frankly after all this mess... she's definitely learned her lesson and won't pull it again.

I think people who are seriously concerned about this are either 1) looking for support for their existing negative opinions on Clinton, 2) hard core "the rules must be followed at all times" types, or 3) have a strong IT background and thus consider IT policies very important.

I think we can cut out 2 and 3.  When you get comments like "I'm surprised no one has made a connection yet to that Clinton NSA dude who was caught stuffing papers into his underwear at the National Archives.", I think we can count on option 1 all the way.  I don't see how Sandy Berger (the dude), is in anyway relevant.  It's a bit like bring up Ollie North's office destroying documents.  What does it have to do with anything?

[Admiral Yi]

okay, should have said perceived red tape

Still don't know what you're talking about.  Maybe that image you mentioned would be helpful.

[LaCroix]

Still don't know what you're talking about.  Maybe that image you mentioned would be helpful.

that hillary felt this was typical government red tape that made it more difficult to communicate, so she created a workaround.

the image
http://legalinsurrection.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Hillary-Email-Remove-Markings-From-Fax-e1452276100869.jpg

I've no idea where this image fits in the controversy. like I said, I don't know the details of this controversy. maybe this has nothing to do with it

[CountDeMoney]

I don't think it shows an incredible lack of judgment. if she did it as a workaround, it shows that she's willing to bend the rules to get something done in a (perceived) easier way. people can disagree on whether this is OK, but I don't have a problem with it. last semester as a board member, I pulled an "act first, seek forgiveness later" because waiting for board approval would have taken too long. some people just have a personality where they want to get shit done. this controversy doesn't prove anything about hillary's behavior or what she will do as president, because frankly after all this mess... she's definitely learned her lesson and won't pull it again.

I think people who are seriously concerned about this are either 1) looking for support for their existing negative opinions on Clinton, 2) hard core "the rules must be followed at all times" types, or 3) have a strong IT background and thus consider IT policies very important.

You forgot 4) understanding the nature of Muckity Mucks.

When I was with the state, I saw our cabinet-level department, after migrating from Novell GroupWise to Microsoft, go right back to GroupWise within a couple months just because the newly-appointed Secretary was too used to GroupWise, taxpayer costs be damned.  And when I was with Shareholder Value Inc., I saw our Fortune 200 company completely reconfigure its email and smartphone systems to accommodate the brand new iPad, all because the CFO wanted to get his Sarbanes-Oxley regulated email on his new toy instead of his Blackberry's RIM security features that met established compliance standards. Thousands of Blackberrys earned their angel wings at substantial shareholder expense.

People like these, and people like Clinton, do not believe the rules apply to them when it comes to things like convenience;  they are too busy Doing Important Stuff and Thinking Big Things to worry about such worker bee annoyances like IT policy thingies.  They don't bend to process; the processes bend to them.  Just like countless other business executives, government leaders and other assorted muckity mucks in this world, Hillary Clinton was simply too busy being Hillary Clinton to be bothered with the requirements of a second device, not when I only want to carry one device, and besides, the one I have already has all my contacts in it, and they automatically pop up when I type in the first couple characters, see?

You know exactly how this played out:  when she was appointed Secretary of State, they told her want she needed to do regarding secure devices, she didn't want to do it for convenience, so she had her aides deal with it for her--which is why we see headlines like "Hillary's team copied intel off top-secret server to email" today.

Completely and totally predictable, because that's just how these people are: entitled and out of touch.  It's not malicious, it's not even intentional; it just doesn't register on their radars. 

[LaCroix]

 

see, that makes way more sense than anything nefarious. I know that feeling (not with this particular subject, granted), and I'm not important at all

[Jacob]

Yeah for sure. Though I don't think people in group 4) are particularly up in arms about it.

I think every IT department I'm aware of (except Microsofts, natch) had to put up with bullshit to support iDevices to executives f.ex. in spite of the headaches and breaches of established security policies. It's just how it is. To somehow make that out to be a critical lapse of judgement when it's clearly been dredged up after a decade long effort to make something-anything stick and when it's just how people (including the people who dredged it up) operate seems pretty inane.

[Jacob]

It's my understanding that Clinton didn't violate any security protocols that were implemented at the time. Her private server was neither expressly permitted nor prohibited, but at a later time such servers were prohibited. Is that incorrect?

I don't know.

Well in that case I'll assume it's an accurate memory of an accurate accounting of facts

In fact, I'm pretty sure if there were actual breaches of security policy or illegal acts committed, we'd hear that trumpeted incessantly.

Yes, she had beyond top secret documents on her server. But if that had been in direct contravention of policy or even worse, downright illegal, then then the stories would include that information. They don't, because it wasn't, and instead we're left with insinuations and uninformed tut-tutting.

[Admiral Yi]

That's a strange rule for deciding when something is true.

[garbon]

It is what I had noted with citations earlier in the thread.

[DGuller]

That's a strange rule for deciding when something is true.

You have to admit that the credibility of anti-Clinton attacks by this point is pretty much automatically near-zero.  Cry wolf enough times, and people stop listening.  It is a shame, because public accountability doesn't work when someone is scandal-proof, but blame the people who were never able to accept voters' choice when that choice was to elect a Democrat.

[grumbler]

I must admit that I am enjoying this effort by the Clinton-bashers to tie themselves into pretzels to "prove" that Clinton "revealed classified information" much more than I enjoyed the pretzel-making in Benghazigate.  I know a lot more about this stuff.

I think Seedy hit the nail on the head:  this server stuff wasn't even on Clinton's radar.  And the assumption that State's unclassified email system was more secure than Clinton's private server is hilariously ill-informed.

The best part, though, is the idea that retroactive security classifications create security breaches for those who shared the info before it was classified.  All this retroactive classification is designed to do is to embarrass Clinton; if this was real info the security guys would just be serving to inform the enemies of the US where to look for classified information.  Real security guys protecting read codeword stuff would never say stuff like this.  When I worked on Sea Shadow (now declassified) we couldn't even acknowledge that there was a program, and never publicly responded to breaches of security.

[grumbler]

Yes, she had beyond top secret documents on her server.

There is, by the way, no such thin such as "beyond top secret documents."  That's one of the clues that this story is phony.