[gizmo]

No nefarious plot. My understanding is that it went roughly like this. Back in 2009 Clinton requested a secure smartphone from the NSA. It's a custom made device (security by obscurity?). Anyway, the president gets one. As the secretary of state she has to travel a lot, and not being able to do email on the road is highly impractical. So she thought she should get one too.

The NSA denied her request for a secure smartphone and gave her some nonsense excuse. She tried a few more times to get one, and then Clinton gave up and ordered somebody to set her up with a private email server. She used this unsecure email server for years. She used it to communicate with top level officials (including the president). That she had this server was common knowledge in the administration. She knew it wasn't secure and she's been very careful not to discuss any classified information over email at all. In a handful of cases she slipped up and some classified information ended up on email anyway.

[jflatow]

This is the best case version (for her), and what her camp wants people to believe. Its hard to see that it's true though. The IG report is pretty clear that she willfully violated recommendations and warnings about security.

I'm inclined to believe accounts like this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9149363

Perhaps she wasn't furtively planning to take over the world, but the evidence points to more than her just wanting to use a Blackberry - it really seems (to me) like she took significant measures to avoid keeping records.

[gizmo]

So she wanted the NSA to stonewall because that would give her the excuse she needed to set up a private email server? And the rest of the administration played along?

The simpler explanation is that Clinton got really annoyed with the NSA for denying her requests so she disregarded the rules and did her own thing.

[jflatow]

Who knows what she would have done if she weren't stonewalled.

Your explanation is no "simpler", you're just completely disregarding the facts. People didn't just play along, she got a lot of pushback, especially for someone in such a senior position.

In 2011, she was offered a FOIAble BlackBerry. Her team said it didn't make sense. The simple explanation is that she didn't want a FOIAble BB.

https://www.scribd.com/doc/295909737/Stephen-Mull-Emails-to-...

[stvswn]

You're acting like the NSA told her she couldn't have any smartphone, which isn't the story. The story is that the NSA said she couldn't have that smartphone.

Second, it seems to be your argument that she didn't get the IT support she wanted and so it's reasonable she did her own thing. This seems perfectly reasonable if you're trying desperately to give her the benefit of the doubt. Heck, we've all dealt with annoying IT departments!

Except, it's not like that. She was our top diplomat and 4th in line of succession to the presidency. It's a fact that classified information was discussed on the system.

I just can't believe that the best defense is "well, she didn't like the UI of Windows CE and she wanted a Blackberry, and it's not her fault the NSA wouldn't give her one -- so, she did what any of us would do -- she co-opted her husband's private server and paid a State Department employee under the table to manage it outside of the government infrastructure. She also made sure to order her subordinates to keep the email address out of the official State Dept. email registry because she didn't want to risk being forced to disclose anything. And, it's perfectly OK that when her email correspondence was subpoenaed during a FOIA lawsuit brought by Judicial Watch, the State Dept. didn't know to look on this server, and as such they didn't turn over all of the relevant materials until years later, when the private email address was made public and she felt it was OK to release hard copies of 30k emails (promising that among the 32k she deleted were only personal emails about yoga, Chelsea's wedding, etc.).

But, isn't that what we all do when the IT department is unreasonable?"

[engi_nerd]

And those slipups should open her to prosecution under the Espionage Act.

A number of security professionals (I mean security in the government, Information Assurance sense) have told me that if they or I were to do anything like what Secretary Clinton did, we would be liable to be prosecuted.

[slantedview]

The irony of Clinton having possibly violated the same law that she has used to (wrongly) advocate for the prosecution of whistleblowers is maddening, and moreover, the fact that she will likely escape prosecution is a horrible indictment of our democracy.

[at-fates-hands]

She probably won't if Trump is elected.

A lot of people are saying there's no way she gets indicted before the election. However, if Trump is elected, he's already said he's going to indict her and send her to prison. Therefore, I if you want to see her indicted, you're probably going to have to vote for Trump.

[asddddd]

I expect Obama would pardon her if necessary. Worth noting that Bill Clinton pardoned John Deutch for something remarkably similar when he left office.

[delbel]

I have no doubt he said this, but can you recall when and or link to him stating this? Interesting

[at-fates-hands]

He said it when he was on a Town Hall with Hannity on Fox:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Na7EKNUkKYM

His language was pretty measured. He didn't say he would be prosecute her, but used the phrase, "We'd have to look into it."

[csours]

At best Trump can appoint a US Attorney General who will promise to try to indict.

[csours]

/best/most/ - can't edit any more.

[karmacondon]

This is very true. But you aren't the Secretary of State. I'm sure there are people at a high enough level at wherever you work now that the normal rules don't apply to them. That's the nature of any organization. C-level executives, military generals and high level politicians can all decide not to follow certain rules if they choose, especially when it comes to IT policy. I'm not saying that what Clinton did was right or good, but this kind of thing does happen at a large number of organizations. It should not be surprising that an internationally famous figure would be treated differently than a mid level employee.

[engi_nerd]

Power has privileges. I'm not surprised by her ability to get away with this.

It happens. I don't like it, and I don't respect people who think the rules do not apply to them.

[coredog64]

David Petraeus, Director of the CIA, lost his job and had to plead guilty to a misdemeanor for inappropriately sharing classified information.

[salgernon]

Well, why aren't they? Somehow I don't believe she sat there and edited her sendmail.cf by hand. She delegates the task, it gets done crapily, then it works so why change it.

I'm currently working with a major health care center - top of the line everything - and they hand me my upcoming appointment schedule printed from "myfreecalendars.com" because their IT people haven't gotten printing working in their new scheduling program, and frankly they just need to get shit done. I'm sure it's a HIPPA violation, but frankly I'm not going to complain because I need to get shit done too.

[shkkmo]

> I'm sure it's a HIPPA violation, but frankly I'm not going to complain because I need to get shit done too.

I'm sorry, but how is "I'm to busy to follow the law" a valid excuse?

[slantedview]

This narrative doesn't address the fact that Clinton was actively opposed to FOIA requests and had sought means to keep her public work private as much as possible.

Following common sense here, her decision to ignore State Department regulations (which she lied about) and participate in classified communications (which she also lied about) on a private server immediately after she had made efforts to minimize public access to her communications, leads to the obvious conclusion that she put secrecy above transparency. If her narrative in private testimony matches the public one, then she likely perjured herself as well on the point of whether the State Department authorized the server, since they now say they did not (which again, she lied about).

[stvswn]

Not only actively opposed to FOIA requests -- unresponsive to subpoenas, including the Judicial Watch lawsuit's subpoena which requested all emails related to Benghazi and Libya.

Judicial Watch didn't get her emails about Libya with Sid Blumenthal until after the Guccifer hack made the email address public knowledge.

If it weren't for the Guccifer hack (of Sid Blumenthal's email), we wouldn't even know about the server, and she would have ignored that subpoena forever.

[snuxoll]

Forgive me, but I have only casually followed this. Perjury requires she falsify her testimony under oath, has there actually been a formal deposition from Clinton under oath?

I'll admit, I'd love to see nothing more than for her to go to prison (and I am expecting downvotes for this) - but I don't think it's going to be for perjury unless I missed something.

[Natsu]

I'm not sure about exactly where she gave all of her testimony and I won't make any claims of purjury (though I think the evidence shows many lies here), but I feel I should point out that it's also possible to purjure oneself by lying to Congress.

See also: http://time.com/3628324/torture-congress-lying-hayden/

[blhack]

Do you have any sources for that?

The story I keep hearing is that she had this set up to make FOIA requests more difficult/impossible to fulfil.

The really out there stuff is that this was to hide any cash-for-favors exchanges that happened with relation to The Clinton Foundation.

[nl]

The "wanting the NSA phone, being refused, and continuing to do what she'd always done" thing is the real story. Her staff were dumb not to make a stand at some point.

Quotes:

Mills wondered whether the department could get her an encrypted device like the one from the NSA that Obama used.

“If so, how can we get her one?” Mills wrote the group on Saturday evening, Jan. 24. ...

A request for a secure device from the NSA was rebuffed at the outset: “The current state of the art is not too user friendly, has no infrastructure at State, and is very expensive,” Reid, the security official, wrote in an email on Feb. 13, adding that “each time we asked the question ‘What was the solution for POTUS?’ we were politely told to shut up and color.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/how-clintons-e...

Never underestimate the attraction of convenience.

[gizmo]

I can't prove some of the more out-there theories aren't true, but they just don't make sense to me.

Given the sheer volume of email she sent from her blackberry (lunch meetings, when to get up, where to go, can you print this, happy birthday, etc) it's pretty clear it's her primary way of communication. So that explains her refusing to take no for an answer from the NSA.

If her motivation was to block FOIA requests, then why did she do literally all important and confidential communication on paper, which falls under FOIA? Then why did the entire administration accept her use of a private email server if she didn't have an obvious reason why she needed one? If her real motivation was to dodge FOIA, then why was the NSA stonewalling? The FOIA hypothesis raises far more questions than it answers.

[jevinskie]

> then why did she do literally all important and confidential communication on paper

This may not have always been the case.

> Part of the exchange is redacted, so the context of the emails is unknown, but at one point, Sullivan tells Clinton that aides "say they've had issues sending secure fax. They're working on it."

> Clinton responds, "If they can't, turn into nonpaper w no identifying heading and send nonsecure."

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/state-department-releases-more-c...

[jflatow]

What makes you think she did all important and confidential communication on paper? Everything I've read goes counter to that.

The administration didn't accept it - a lot of people questioned it and they were told never to speak of it again (read the IG report).

[daughart]

If the latter was the case why not just use the .gov email for state dept. business and the clintonemail.com email for international cash for favors?

[blhack]

I don't want to go too far down the conspiracy theorists' rabbit hole here, so just consider this some alternative reality fiction for a second:

Because it is easier if everything is in one place. Imagine emailing back and forth with somebody, and they accidentally send you an email to the wrong account.

It makes it easier to control everything.

[untog]

Wouldn't both sides need to be outside of FOIA for it to be worthwhile? It seems most of her emails are to staff with .gov email addresses, so surely everything is still recorded, be it in Inbox or Sent?

[at-fates-hands]

>>> The really out there stuff is that this was to hide any cash-for-favors exchanges that happened with relation to The Clinton Foundation.

It would've been a good plan if she had actually secured the server properly and had encrypted all of her stuff.

Unfortunately, there's plenty of evidence of shady stuff the foundation was doing without additional support in her private emails.

[cortesoft]

Who is the one telling that story, and what is there evidence that that was the purpose?

[drakefire]

I just don't believe that Hillary Clinton could not get an email account on a government email server and that somehow having exchange at her house with no controls was the last option she had. I can't think of a scenario where a server at her house is better than almost any other option.

[foota]

It's not according to the parent that she couldn't get an email account, but rather that she couldn't get a "secure smartphone"

[colechristensen]

To extrapolate, the assertion is that she could get the secure .gov email account but it would only have been accessible from secured computers. They wouldn't give her a mobile device to access it, so she improvised.

[gormo2]

They wouldn't give her the fancy mobile device that she wanted. They offered alternatives. She just wanted a Blackberry.

[slantedview]

If this were, say, some poor low level government worker saying they stored classified info on a private server because they just wanted to use a blackberry and anything else was too inconvenient, no doubt Hillary would call for their head on a spike. The hypocrisy of her record contrasted with this situation is strong.

Either you believe in the rule of law, or you don't. Clinton's actions have shown that she does not.

[coredog64]

J. Scott Gration, the U.S. emissary to Kenya from 2011 to 2012 (during Clinton's tenure as SoS) was in the middle of being disciplined for improper use of email (among other things) when he resigned.

[drakefire]

What she could not get was a Blackberry. So rather than use the approved device, she decided the simpler solution was to host her own email and just use a off the shelf device? Nothing about this makes any sense.

[eightysix_four]

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/03/nsa-re...

[orbitingpluto]

I never really understood why the NSA couldn't have provided her with some sort of handheld digital device that wasn't that Windows CE PDA. I also don't understand why Clinton didn't just opt to use it. Having used the WinCE devices before, they're not all that bad to do email on. They're not good, but how much worse would it have been compared to a BB? I used a UT Starcomm PP6700 (or something like that) and I even kinda liked the keypad.

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/03/this-i...

[snuxoll]

I mean, according to the deposition of one of her aides that was released today she didn't know "how" to use email on anything but her BB and wasn't comfortable with something different - which is a copout of all copouts, I'm not HAPPY that I'm still deploying .Net applications on Windows at work (which isn't going to change unless Laserfiche and IBM start supporting .Net core or my team suddenly decides to switch to Java), but it's my job and I deal with the limitations imposed on me as a result of my employment.

[Kluny]

That's the most believable version I've heard so far by a long shot.