I can't believe there's even discussion about this. The facts are clear. Hillary Clinton didn't like the onerous security rules she had to follow so she ignored them.
details: http://observer.com/2016/03/hillary-has-an-nsa-problem/
If any of you have security clearance consider for a moment what would happen if you did the same. Your access would be suspended and you'd be called to account for every piece of information you mishandled. At the end you'd be prosecuted for any beech of secrecy that was discovered and your clearance would almost certainly be revoked.
If we treat her differently because of her name and her connections we call into question the very rule of law in this country. Maybe Anarchists would rejoice in such an outcome as proof of the utter corruption and uselessness of our justice system, but people who care about law and justice certainly shouldn't applaud it.
In her defense I agree that the security policies were silly and didn't actually increase security enough to warrant the disruption. I can totally understand that someone wouldn't want to comply.
On the other hand she was the goddamned Secretary of State, the person who should be most concerned about protecting information security in the State Department. Rather than thinking like a leader and working to set a policy that is both secure and usable she simply ignored the rules she didn't like.
Aside from questions of prosecution this behavior causes me to seriously question her ability to lead. If you had to classify her behavior in this case would you put in the category of things a leader does or things a petulant child does?
Question the rule of law -- has an upper or even upper middle white male ever received the death penalty in this country? It would be a good thing if poor black males weren't being executed left and right every year.
It's hard to understand if you haven't handled classified information before. If the average DoD employee or military member did what she did (allegedly), they'd already be in prison. The only reason it's taking so long is because it's a high profile person. And, well... politics.
Note the pattern: Another attempt to trap a Clinton in a situation where it's illegal to lie (Bill to a Grand Jury, Hillary to an FBI officer).
Bill, way back in the 1990s before the testimony that caused all the problems, said that their only goal was to ask him damaging things under oath and then leak his responses or prosecute him for perjury. Remember that Bill was not testifying in a case about Lewinksy, but in an unrelated case regarding Paula Jones. But once he was under oath they just used it as a fishing expedition to achieve political ends.
Is this how we want our democracy to work? Probably law enforcement can find something to justify prosecuting or at least investigating anyone.
-----
EDIT: It turns out FBI Director Comey has a history investigating the Clintons:
Comey’s first brush with them came when Bill Clinton was president. Looking to get back into government after a stint in private practice, Comey signed on as deputy special counsel to the Senate Whitewater Committee. In 1996, after months of work, Comey came to some damning conclusions: Hillary Clinton was personally involved in mishandling documents and had ordered others to block investigators as they pursued their case. Worse, her behavior fit into a pattern of concealment: she and her husband had tried to hide their roles in two other matters under investigation by law enforcement. Taken together, the interference by White House officials, which included destruction of documents, amounted to “far more than just aggressive lawyering or political naiveté,” Comey and his fellow investigators concluded. It constituted “a highly improper pattern of deliberate misconduct.”
Comey parlayed the Whitewater job into top posts in Virginia and New York, returning to Manhattan in 2002 to be the top federal prosecutor there. One of his first cases as a line attorney in the same office 15 years earlier had been the successful prosecution of Marc Rich, a wealthy international financier, for tax evasion. But on his last day as President in 2001, Bill Clinton pardoned Rich. “I was stunned,” Comey later told Congress. As top U.S. prosecutor in New York in 2002, appointed by George W. Bush, Comey inherited the criminal probe into the Rich pardon and 175 others Clinton had made at the 11th hour.
Despite evidence that several pardon recipients, including Rich, had connections to donations to Bill Clinton’s presidential library and Hillary Clinton’s 2000 Senate campaign, Comey found no criminal wrongdoing.
It's surprising that "law enforcement officials" would be sharing details about this incredibly high profile case, but only with a reporter for AJAM, a channel that is in its last weeks on the air. And that presented with such a big scoop, Al Jazeera apparently hasn't even bothered to post an article about it to their website. So there's just an unofficial clip of what the reporter said on the air in a brief report floating around. Not saying it's false... it's just very thinly sourced.
Yes it is. There were multiple estimates. The lowest was "roughly a dozen" the highest was "less than 50". The two ends of the range use different units and have different significant figures because they came from two different calculations.
In theory the author could have tried to unify those points on the same number line with the same sig figs, but I'm not even sure what the rules are for ranges built from two separate calculations. If there even is a rule you'd get something like "range from 10 to 50" and only math geeks would have a clear picture of what those zeroes really mean, and even they would've lost the "not 50" and "quite possibly less than 10" information the existing phrasing provides.
Some have speculated that it could be an honest Q&A with the former SoS based on their findings (to get an official response). Others are speculating that it could be a chance to actually catch her in a lie, based on their findings ("Five months ago, you stated X, is that still true?" having evidence that X is no longer true).
Pure speculation, of course, but man would I like to be a fly on THAT wall...
He was wrongly charged under the CFAA which does not apply here. Sen. Ron Wyden (OR) and Rep. Zoe Lofgren (CA) have been pushing for "Aaron's Law" to curb the judicial abuse of the CFAA in cases like Aaron's and many others. They need all the support they can get to have this legislation pushed through. They are both Clinton supporters, btw.
Someone is going to take the fall for Clinton if they actually press criminal charges against anyone even if, morally and ethically, it is really on her.
Honestly, Clinton should at a minimum be banned from handling classified information in the future.
It's very important that this business is concluded before the Democratic Party's convention, beginning July 25th.
Otherwise it is a threat to democracy. The FBI would essentially choose the next president if they took down one of the two nominees. Consider that they could do that in any election, federal, state or local. Also consider that the FBI's employees are, as far as I know, overwhelmingly Republican, and that in the past the FBI has illicitly tried to influence politics (under J. Edgar Hoover, for example).
Even now they are letting this go on much too long and exercising far too much influence. Crimes should be investigated appropriately; I don't think candidates should get a pass. I do question whether the investigation is out of proportion to the crime; many use personal email for official business and many mishandle classified info (including multiple past CIA directors) with no significant penalty.
Nor should their opposition have the power to delay proceedings until such a time as it is politically advantageous to them. This should have been dealt with last year.
[+] [-] more_corn|10 years ago|reply
If we treat her differently because of her name and her connections we call into question the very rule of law in this country. Maybe Anarchists would rejoice in such an outcome as proof of the utter corruption and uselessness of our justice system, but people who care about law and justice certainly shouldn't applaud it.
In her defense I agree that the security policies were silly and didn't actually increase security enough to warrant the disruption. I can totally understand that someone wouldn't want to comply.
On the other hand she was the goddamned Secretary of State, the person who should be most concerned about protecting information security in the State Department. Rather than thinking like a leader and working to set a policy that is both secure and usable she simply ignored the rules she didn't like.
Aside from questions of prosecution this behavior causes me to seriously question her ability to lead. If you had to classify her behavior in this case would you put in the category of things a leader does or things a petulant child does?
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] cylinder|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chvid|10 years ago|reply
If I read the LA Times article (http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-clinton-email-probe-2016...) which the main article links to; running a personal email server and using it for official business was not illegal at the time for mrs. Clinton.
Yet there is "roughly a dozen" FBI agents on the case.
Why would that be if it is slamduck that nothing illegal was going on?
[+] [-] chattin35|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] maxerickson|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] mchahn|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] justncase80|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hackuser|10 years ago|reply
Bill, way back in the 1990s before the testimony that caused all the problems, said that their only goal was to ask him damaging things under oath and then leak his responses or prosecute him for perjury. Remember that Bill was not testifying in a case about Lewinksy, but in an unrelated case regarding Paula Jones. But once he was under oath they just used it as a fishing expedition to achieve political ends.
Is this how we want our democracy to work? Probably law enforcement can find something to justify prosecuting or at least investigating anyone.
-----
EDIT: It turns out FBI Director Comey has a history investigating the Clintons:
Comey’s first brush with them came when Bill Clinton was president. Looking to get back into government after a stint in private practice, Comey signed on as deputy special counsel to the Senate Whitewater Committee. In 1996, after months of work, Comey came to some damning conclusions: Hillary Clinton was personally involved in mishandling documents and had ordered others to block investigators as they pursued their case. Worse, her behavior fit into a pattern of concealment: she and her husband had tried to hide their roles in two other matters under investigation by law enforcement. Taken together, the interference by White House officials, which included destruction of documents, amounted to “far more than just aggressive lawyering or political naiveté,” Comey and his fellow investigators concluded. It constituted “a highly improper pattern of deliberate misconduct.”
Comey parlayed the Whitewater job into top posts in Virginia and New York, returning to Manhattan in 2002 to be the top federal prosecutor there. One of his first cases as a line attorney in the same office 15 years earlier had been the successful prosecution of Marc Rich, a wealthy international financier, for tax evasion. But on his last day as President in 2001, Bill Clinton pardoned Rich. “I was stunned,” Comey later told Congress. As top U.S. prosecutor in New York in 2002, appointed by George W. Bush, Comey inherited the criminal probe into the Rich pardon and 175 others Clinton had made at the 11th hour.
Despite evidence that several pardon recipients, including Rich, had connections to donations to Bill Clinton’s presidential library and Hillary Clinton’s 2000 Senate campaign, Comey found no criminal wrongdoing.
http://time.com/4276988/jim-comey-hillary-clinton/
[+] [-] Mithaldu|10 years ago|reply
If that is not what you're saying, please phrase it clearly and directly, and not by implying.
[+] [-] rbcgerard|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eli|10 years ago|reply
It's surprising that "law enforcement officials" would be sharing details about this incredibly high profile case, but only with a reporter for AJAM, a channel that is in its last weeks on the air. And that presented with such a big scoop, Al Jazeera apparently hasn't even bothered to post an article about it to their website. So there's just an unofficial clip of what the reporter said on the air in a brief report floating around. Not saying it's false... it's just very thinly sourced.
[+] [-] ianferrel|10 years ago|reply
That's not a range.
[+] [-] erikpukinskis|10 years ago|reply
In theory the author could have tried to unify those points on the same number line with the same sig figs, but I'm not even sure what the rules are for ranges built from two separate calculations. If there even is a rule you'd get something like "range from 10 to 50" and only math geeks would have a clear picture of what those zeroes really mean, and even they would've lost the "not 50" and "quite possibly less than 10" information the existing phrasing provides.
[+] [-] flashman|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] retbull|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] j79|10 years ago|reply
Pure speculation, of course, but man would I like to be a fly on THAT wall...
[+] [-] irixusr|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] meritt|10 years ago|reply
[1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/04/aarons-law-reintroduce...
[+] [-] eli|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fweespee_ch|10 years ago|reply
Honestly, Clinton should at a minimum be banned from handling classified information in the future.
[+] [-] jakub_h|10 years ago|reply
That sounds like a good idea for many more politicians of this world.
[+] [-] hackuser|10 years ago|reply
Otherwise it is a threat to democracy. The FBI would essentially choose the next president if they took down one of the two nominees. Consider that they could do that in any election, federal, state or local. Also consider that the FBI's employees are, as far as I know, overwhelmingly Republican, and that in the past the FBI has illicitly tried to influence politics (under J. Edgar Hoover, for example).
Even now they are letting this go on much too long and exercising far too much influence. Crimes should be investigated appropriately; I don't think candidates should get a pass. I do question whether the investigation is out of proportion to the crime; many use personal email for official business and many mishandle classified info (including multiple past CIA directors) with no significant penalty.
[+] [-] kevin_thibedeau|10 years ago|reply
Nor should their opposition have the power to delay proceedings until such a time as it is politically advantageous to them. This should have been dealt with last year.