[abraca]

For me, Hillary being let off changed how I view the Snowden affair. Before Hillary was let off without penalty, I thought that exposing or acting carelessly with classified information was a really big deal, that it seriously put American lives at risk - AND that others were doing a good job keeping that information under wraps, so breaches would be meaningful. Now it seems more like a political game. Hillary put us in more danger than Snowden. Punishing snowden is more about keeping info out of eyes of American public (i.e., Hillary's emails still need to be redacted, even though her server was likely hacked and info is almost certainly out there and America's ememies have it.) I hope that Hillary skating will set a precedent that will allow more whistleblowers to come forward to the public with information when needed without being penalized. Perhaps whistleblowers might use the strategy of releasing information 'unintentionally' and then use the Hillary defense.

[philwelch]

Hillary stored classified information on a privately owned email server. Snowden collected a cache of classified documents and gave them to foreign journalists. There's really no comparison between the two. One is an instance of careless information security by someone who found the official systems inconvenient to use and the other is deliberately disclosing classified information.

[nostromo]

I find Hillary's actions to be worse, personally.

Hillary's actions very likely gave secret information to America's enemies. Snowden's actions gave secret information to the public.

Hillary's intentions were to circumvent FOIA rules and break the law. Snowden's intentions were to be end unconstitutional spying and uphold the law.

[DoofusOfDeath]

Agreed - two very different things.

HRC risked giving away the identities of clandestine agents.

Snowden proved that some of them committed war crimes, and that the NSA and CIA routinely betray our trust.

[pastProlog]

> classified documents and gave them to foreign journalists

What the "classified documents" said were that the government is secretly violating the constitutional "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures". Innocent citizens are routinely having their e-mails and phone calls watched, and recorded in archives permanently.

The "classified information" you keep referring to is that the government is violating its own constitution.

[Pinckney]

The more apt comparison, IMHO, is John Deutch, who did virtually the same thing, but was pardoned by Bill Clinton before his plea deal could be filed.

[dlitz]

Foreign journalists? Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras are both American.

[adrenalinelol]

Leaking classified material was sacrilege in Washington... Until someone of privilege (HRC) did it... Now the the obvious hypocrisy has been exposed, we can stop pretending there were intractable operational risks created be Edward Snowden and pardon him. Before the leaks, anyone who claimed we were turning into a police state was branded a conspiracy theorist, now it's part of the public record. Had it remained in the shadows it'd be a far scarier monstrosity than we have today.

[jonknee]

> Leaking classified material was sacrilege in Washington

Umm, more like it was standard operating procedure. How else do you think all the anonymously sourced articles in the NYT/WaPo/WSJ happen?

[tasty_freeze]

This is not to excuse Clinton's email policy.

Let's agree that Clinton ran a private email server and it had a high risk of being compromised.

Let's agree that Clinton turned over a subset of the emails when it was requested, under the grounds that those were personal emails which aren't related to her actions as secretary of state. Let's agree that there is no clear boundary where to draw that line, so people will argue in good faith that the line was drawn in the wrong spot.

Now, let's imagine that instead of the above scenario, not just Clinton but most of the white house positions including the secretary of state used the DNC email server explicitly to avoid freedom of information act requests. Imagine that when this came to light, the Obama administration claimed to have lost over 5 million emails. When asked to produce the backup tapes, they said, shoot! The backup tapes are corrupted.

Do you agree that that scenario would have been far worse? And how many investigations and calls for impeachment would have happened by now? How many special committees would have called?

Well, the above isn't a hypothetical. The previous administration did exactly what I described, except that they used the RNC mail server of course. All the people who are outraged (outraged!) and think that Clinton committed what amounts to an act of treason didn't say a peep back then. And unlike the perpetual train of special investigations that are brandished for political ends, that whole affair didn't result garner even one tenth the amount of press Hillary has.

Let me be clear: I'm not saying what Hillary did was OK. I'm saying that if the previous administration did something far worse and nobody got body slammed for it, why would you be surprised that Clinton got off the hook too?

You should also read the juicy contents of the Secretary of State's emails. The vast majority were of the form "Can you contact so and so and see if we can put off the meeting until later." There are very few truly top secret things that crossed her desk.

[tanderson92]

Many nonpartisans as well as leftist Democrats (ordinary liberals are too much of institutionalist authoritarians to be too outraged) criticized both of these instances of direct evasion of transparency. The Bush administration was a disaster on transparency. I find it shameful that that is where the bar is set. It's embarrassing not just politically but institutionally.

Elected Republicans, of course, acted in bad faith, as you mention. Make no mistake, however, there are many who find the lapses of both administrations disturbing for a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people".

[slg]

Snowden and Clinton are apples and oranges. There is a reason why we don't have the same punishments for if someone is at fault in a car accident that kills someone versus if they purchase a gun and immediately use it to kill someone.

[dredmorbius]

While there's a point buried in there, it's poorly made and analogised.

You've got two people taking deliberate actions which could expose or at least violate handling rules for classified information. One was seeking to retain it personally persuant to her job, the other was exposing it to the world, under the guidance of his conscience and loyalty to his Constitution.

Both broke rules.

How they did so, to what ends, and to what effect are hugely different.

Drawing comparisons between Snowden and Clinton as GP did is far too muddled to really be useful, IMO.

(Disclaimers: I think Snowden should be a national hero to Americans, and is a global hero. Clinton rather grudgingly gets my nod to occupy the Oval Office, though given current contenders, that's very much a lesser evil option, with an enormous gulf between her and the greater evil not tempering the fact that she's damaged goods and quite probably not the leadership the US needs at present. She seems to be what they'll get. I rather hope that she does, actually. Trump would be a disaster for the planet, and any plausible GOP alternate would be nearly as bad. Not that the GOP have been constrained by plausibility of late.)

[morganvachon]

Are you seriously comparing his actions to first degree murder? I think you're a bit biased here.

[comex]

Believing there to be a meaningful difference between being somewhat careless with information on one hand, and intentionally leaking it to the press on the other, is not playing a "political game". You can believe Snowden to be a hero or a traitor - I lean towards the former, personally - but his behavior was in a completely different category from Clinton's.

[rplst8]

Yes. One was courageous. The other was cowardly.

[pbreit]

If Hillary's emails got out I think we almost certainly would have found out by now.

Also, if we're talking Snowden, you could make the argument Hillary's emails were more secure since they weren't accessible to...Snowden.

[massysett]

The Russians will wait until the right moment to leak them. Maybe a week or two before the election.

[jeffdavis]

An interesting perspective, but I think the "Hillary Defense" is only available to a select few.

[pdkl95]

This isn't about a defense. The problem is that those "select few" are supposed to be subject to the same laws as the rest of us.

When we see clear evidence that "rule of law" no longer applies, why should anybody respect the law?

[2close4comfort]

What about Petraeus. For Snowden's acts to be still considered criminal is just hypocritical.

[jonknee]

> Hillary put us in more danger than Snowden

How so? (I would wager neither put us in danger.)

[adamnemecek]

If nothing else she took bribes in exchange for weapons sold to Middle East. This destabilizes the region even more (if that's possible).

Edit: you can down vote me all you want, you know it's true http://www.ibtimes.com/clinton-foundation-donors-got-weapons...

[tptacek]

So far as we know, HRC didn't expose any information. During the time HRC was using her own email server, the official email server she was supposed to use was comprehensively owned up by Russian hackers. It is unlikely but plausible that her emails were safer on her servers.

The reason Justice didn't prosecute HRC was that it was too difficult for them to pursue a narrative around "intent". Comey at FBI wasn't making that part up: the previous cases on the record for negligent, rather than deliberate, exposure were not helpful to the prosecution: for one thing, in every case on the record, the line between "negligence" and "deliberation" was pretty vague --- each prosecuted person had deliberately done things with specific, known pieces of classified information that put them at risk. For another, in each of those cases, classified documents actually leaked (usually to the person who reported them). And finally, in most of the cases, the accused were not civilians and not part of the Intelligence Community.

Three things to know about classified information in the government:

1. Ordinary people who take jobs involving classified information are taught that the penalties for mishandling it are grave, and almost invariably involve prison time.

2. That training appears to be a lie, intended to scare people into being diligent about classified information.

3. There is a long history of leniency for people outside the intelligence community who mishandle classified information. The expectation seems to be that if you take 10 people from State and search their Hotmail accounts, you're going to find stuff.

I don't believe HRC received special treatment. If she had been at State when this story broke, and had been an ordinary employee, she'd have been fired. Termination is not prosecution. At any rate: she can't be fired now: she's already gone.

[mikecb]

Best walkthrough I've seen of the intent element from a JAG:

http://warontherocks.com/2016/07/why-intent-not-gross-neglig...

[xenadu02]

Bypassing idiotic and/or incompetent corporate IT departments is an everyday activity for half the people who post in HN. I haven't seen any proof that her email server was hacked and the two "classified" emails Comey spoke about were mis-categorized and not actually sensitive at all. Just like the Benghazi nonsense I have yet to see any actual proof, just a lot of political theater.

This is and was a transparent attempt to squash Hillary's run for president. That's all. The tone of your post betrays your own naked political bias as well.

Hillary's actual decisions while SoS have a far greater effect on the US as a country than everything related to her email put together.

There are plenty of legitimate things to criticize her on, we don't need to make up nonsense. It's OT anyway.

[etjossem]

Agreed. Read the reports from the investiation: Benghazi and the emails are the new Swiftboat [1], and it's particularly telling that they don't have anything better to talk about. Move along.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiftboat

[rayiner]

Hilary may have gotten special treatment. I'm not convinced that's a bad thing. There are serious Constitutional concerns about the sitting administration prosecuting the presumptive next President. It's not a precedent we want to set.

[adrenalinelol]

Special treatment IS a bad thing. Running for president doesn't exonerate you from a felony.

[themartorana]

I think it's a little absurd to say she only cares for herself. Despite the megalomania that I assume all presidents have to have, I doubt they are in it solely for themselves. Well, maybe Trump, but he's pretty open about it.

I do, however, believe she thinks she's above the law, and so far it seems she's right.

[sctb]

If you believe you evidence of astroturfing, please [e-mail] rather than commenting like this.