Octopus Overlords

In other news, a FOIA request from the watchdog group Citizens United has uncovered the fact that Hill’s chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, was forwarding classified info to the Clinton Foundation — so staff there could support Bill Clinton’s work in Africa.
Add to this new details about Hillary’s e-mails with longtime aide Sidney Blumenthal — e-mails that somehow didn’t make it into the data she finally handed over once word broke that she’d failed to share her work product with the government.
Her extensive communications with him include the naming of a CIA source (obviously classified) as he pushed for action in Libya — action that would benefit his clients.
“It is curious Secretary Clinton took so much of her advice from someone who had never been to Libya, professed no independent knowledge of the country and who the White House blocked her from hiring,” said Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), who heads the select committee trying to finally get to the full facts on the deadly Benghazi attack.
Curious? Hey, in Clintonworld, blending policy with pocket-lining is routine — national security be damned.

hepcat wrote:And months after that to find out that the investigation died within the first few weeks, but was kept alive by republicans.

hepcat wrote:Nope, more like those who spend more time posting unflattering pictures of a politician they don't like than they do actual facts. Your complaints against Hillary usually boil down to "she seems like a Lesbian to me!" and "Man, she's ugly!". That tends to hurt your cause when you're trying to demand respect for your vendetta.

Rip wrote:
I don't recall ever saying she was ugly, although I don't find her attractive, ugly isn't the word I would use.

I think I have only eluded to thinking she may be gay one time, but even so that doesn't matter to me. If Condi Rice said she was gay today I would still vote for over pretty much anyone. So not really an issue with me.

Rip wrote:Tired maybe, weak hardly.

In other news, a FOIA request from the watchdog group Citizens United has uncovered the fact that Hill’s chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, was forwarding classified info to the Clinton Foundation — so staff there could support Bill Clinton’s work in Africa.
Add to this new details about Hillary’s e-mails with longtime aide Sidney Blumenthal — e-mails that somehow didn’t make it into the data she finally handed over once word broke that she’d failed to share her work product with the government.
Her extensive communications with him include the naming of a CIA source (obviously classified) as he pushed for action in Libya — action that would benefit his clients.
“It is curious Secretary Clinton took so much of her advice from someone who had never been to Libya, professed no independent knowledge of the country and who the White House blocked her from hiring,” said Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), who heads the select committee trying to finally get to the full facts on the deadly Benghazi attack.
Curious? Hey, in Clintonworld, blending policy with pocket-lining is routine — national security be damned.

http://nypost.com/2015/10/11/fresh-evid ... l-defense/

Zarathud wrote:This is a technical foot fault over handling of classified info and government IT, nothing more.

Hillary Clinton has been at the center of political controversy since 1993. She's a political survivor. The Benghazi/Mailgate investigations will prove nothing to anyone who isn't already convinced or receptive.

Isgrimnur wrote:This just in: Policy and punishments are enforced in disparate and often unfair manners based on power and patronage.

GreenGoo wrote:

Isgrimnur wrote:This just in: Policy and punishments are enforced in disparate and often unfair manners based on power and patronage.

While true, I'm willing to string her up if something serious comes up. And by serious, I mean something that isn't just embarrassing (for whoever).

What is amusing in this whole thing is that Clinton almost certainly used her own email service in an attempt to avoid government oversight and snooping. Doesn't seem to have worked out too well for her.

The state department disclosed that Mrs Clinton used a private server during her time as secretary of state (2009-13) after journalists requested copies of her government emails.

The presidential hopeful has admitted that her decision to use a private email server at her New York home was a mistake.

However, the latest set of her emails to be released also reveal frustration within the State Department at the technology it was using while she was in office.

In one email exchange Mrs Clinton's then head of policy Anne-Marie Slaughter wrote that the department's technology was "so antiquated" that high-level officials "routinely end up using their home email accounts to be able to get their work done quickly and effectively".

She suggested writing an opinion piece to highlight the problem and Mrs Clinton agreed the idea "made good sense", but her chief of staff Cheryl Mills warned against "telegraphing" how often senior officials relied on their private email accounts to do government business because it could encourage hackers.

The credibility of the Republican-led Benghazi committee came under fresh attack Sunday after the CIA informed the panel that it does not view a 2011 email forwarded by then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as including any classified information. The committee chairman, Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., had cited Clinton’s handling of the March 18, 2011, email as a prime example of her misusing her private email server to receive and send highly classified information.

The email was sent by her close friend and adviser Sidney Blumenthal and forwarded by Clinton to an aide. It contained the “name of a human source” for the CIA in Libya and was therefore “some of the most protected information in our intelligence community, the release of which could jeopardize not only national security but human lives,” Gowdy wrote in an Oct. 7 letter.

But late Saturday night, a CIA official informed the committee that the agency does not view that email, among 127 previously undisclosed messages sent by Blumenthal to Clinton that the panel plans to release this week, as having any portions that need to be redacted because they include classified information.

Max Peck wrote: It sounds like she is not the only State Department official to use personal email of some sort for work-related purposes.

LawBeefaroni wrote:

Max Peck wrote: It sounds like she is not the only State Department official to use personal email of some sort for work-related purposes.

As Secretary of State, AKA head of the State Department, isn't that kind of on her too though? I mean, "but all my subordinates were doing it too!" seems like a pretty self-destructive rationalization.

Max Peck wrote:

LawBeefaroni wrote:

Max Peck wrote: It sounds like she is not the only State Department official to use personal email of some sort for work-related purposes.

As Secretary of State, AKA head of the State Department, isn't that kind of on her too though? I mean, "but all my subordinates were doing it too!" seems like a pretty self-destructive rationalization.

I didn't say that it was good practice, but if the State Dept IT systems for unclassified email were so dysfunctional that it was not abnormal for high-level officials to use personal email accounts to get things done, then it doesn't necessarily follow that Clinton was doing it to avoid oversight. She may have done it for that reason, or she may -- along with the rest of them -- have done it simply to get stuff done.

FWIW, I don't recall seeing any claims that Clinton has said anything at all like "but all my subordinates were doing it too!" Have you seen any such defense from her? All I quoted was an article that cites an email exchange discussing how foobar the State Dept IT was.

Kraken wrote:

Max Peck wrote:

LawBeefaroni wrote:

Max Peck wrote: It sounds like she is not the only State Department official to use personal email of some sort for work-related purposes.

As Secretary of State, AKA head of the State Department, isn't that kind of on her too though? I mean, "but all my subordinates were doing it too!" seems like a pretty self-destructive rationalization.

I didn't say that it was good practice, but if the State Dept IT systems for unclassified email were so dysfunctional that it was not abnormal for high-level officials to use personal email accounts to get things done, then it doesn't necessarily follow that Clinton was doing it to avoid oversight. She may have done it for that reason, or she may -- along with the rest of them -- have done it simply to get stuff done.

FWIW, I don't recall seeing any claims that Clinton has said anything at all like "but all my subordinates were doing it too!" Have you seen any such defense from her? All I quoted was an article that cites an email exchange discussing how foobar the State Dept IT was.

Do you think that Hillary ever even pondered the technical details about how her email worked?

Rip wrote:Unless these AOL e-mails contained classified data it really isn't applicable.

Rip wrote:Unless these AOL e-mails contained classified data it really isn't applicable.

Max Peck wrote:It hasn't been established that Clinton's emails contained any actual classified information either, from the little coverage I've seen.

The Observer wrote:Particularly disturbing is the report that one of the “personal” emails Ms. Clinton forwarded included the name of a top CIA asset in Libya, who was identified as such. The source of this information was Tyler Drumheller, a retired senior CIA operations officer, who served as a sort of one-man private spy agency for Sid Blumenthal, the Clintons’ close family friend and factotum whose sometimes long-winded emails, particularly regarding Libya, have generated much of the controversy behind EmailGate.

Mr. Drumheller became a fleeting hero to liberals with his resistance to George W. Bush’s White House over skewed intelligence behind the 2003 invasion of Iraq, but he was never particularly popular at CIA and he left Langley under something of a cloud. His emails to Mr. Blumenthal, which were forwarded to Ms. Clinton, were filled with espionage-flavored information about events in Libya. In many cases, Mr. Drumheller’s reports were formatted to look exactly like actual CIA reports, including attribution to named foreign intelligence agencies. How much of this was factual versus Mr. Drumheller embellishing his connections is unclear.

What is abundantly clear is that the true name of an identified CIA asset is a highly classified fact and intentionally revealing it is a Federal crime, which Mr. Drumheller, a career spy, had to know. Why he compromised this person who was secretly helping the United States – possibly endangering his life in the process — may never be known because Mr. Drumheller conveniently died of cancer in early August.

Max Peck wrote:

Rip wrote:Unless these AOL e-mails contained classified data it really isn't applicable.

It hasn't been established that Clinton's emails contained any actual classified information either, from the little coverage I've seen.

The punk that claims to have hacked Brennan's account says that he got Brennan's security clearance application paperwork, although I haven't seen any evidence that he's backed up the claim by releasing it. Would that be sensitive enough for you?

Anonymous Bosch wrote:

Max Peck wrote:It hasn't been established that Clinton's emails contained any actual classified information either, from the little coverage I've seen.

Perhaps not. It's certainly been strongly intimated, however.

Courtesy of the Observer:

The Observer wrote:Particularly disturbing is the report that one of the “personal” emails Ms. Clinton forwarded included the name of a top CIA asset in Libya, who was identified as such. The source of this information was Tyler Drumheller, a retired senior CIA operations officer, who served as a sort of one-man private spy agency for Sid Blumenthal, the Clintons’ close family friend and factotum whose sometimes long-winded emails, particularly regarding Libya, have generated much of the controversy behind EmailGate.

Mr. Drumheller became a fleeting hero to liberals with his resistance to George W. Bush’s White House over skewed intelligence behind the 2003 invasion of Iraq, but he was never particularly popular at CIA and he left Langley under something of a cloud. His emails to Mr. Blumenthal, which were forwarded to Ms. Clinton, were filled with espionage-flavored information about events in Libya. In many cases, Mr. Drumheller’s reports were formatted to look exactly like actual CIA reports, including attribution to named foreign intelligence agencies. How much of this was factual versus Mr. Drumheller embellishing his connections is unclear.

What is abundantly clear is that the true name of an identified CIA asset is a highly classified fact and intentionally revealing it is a Federal crime, which Mr. Drumheller, a career spy, had to know. Why he compromised this person who was secretly helping the United States – possibly endangering his life in the process — may never be known because Mr. Drumheller conveniently died of cancer in early August.

Zarathud wrote:Do you want to die on that hill, Rip? Should Google be held responsible for anything that goes through it? Are you responsible for every server you've touched?

But you've already downgraded to "sensitive" from "classified" information. Lost cause.

Rip wrote:

Max Peck wrote:

Rip wrote:Unless these AOL e-mails contained classified data it really isn't applicable.

It hasn't been established that Clinton's emails contained any actual classified information either, from the little coverage I've seen.

The punk that claims to have hacked Brennan's account says that he got Brennan's security clearance application paperwork, although I haven't seen any evidence that he's backed up the claim by releasing it. Would that be sensitive enough for you?

Not through her account but through her server.

Setting up the server makes her responsible for what passes through it.

Max Peck wrote:

Kraken wrote:

Max Peck wrote:

LawBeefaroni wrote:

Max Peck wrote: It sounds like she is not the only State Department official to use personal email of some sort for work-related purposes.

As Secretary of State, AKA head of the State Department, isn't that kind of on her too though? I mean, "but all my subordinates were doing it too!" seems like a pretty self-destructive rationalization.

I didn't say that it was good practice, but if the State Dept IT systems for unclassified email were so dysfunctional that it was not abnormal for high-level officials to use personal email accounts to get things done, then it doesn't necessarily follow that Clinton was doing it to avoid oversight. She may have done it for that reason, or she may -- along with the rest of them -- have done it simply to get stuff done.

FWIW, I don't recall seeing any claims that Clinton has said anything at all like "but all my subordinates were doing it too!" Have you seen any such defense from her? All I quoted was an article that cites an email exchange discussing how foobar the State Dept IT was.

Do you think that Hillary ever even pondered the technical details about how her email worked?

Damned if I know. The emails released from her server seem to indicate at least one occasion where she engaged in a discussion with staff with regard to how the State Dept email system didn't work. Beyond that, I know nothing.

Although, I'm curious about whether Congress will move on to investigating the head of the CIA's AOL usage once they finish with Clinton. If anyone should know better, you'd think it would be the head spook.

Rip wrote:

Zarathud wrote:Do you want to die on that hill, Rip? Should Google be held responsible for anything that goes through it? Are you responsible for every server you've touched?

But you've already downgraded to "sensitive" from "classified" information. Lost cause.

Big difference between selling e-mail accounts to people and setting one up specifically to do government business and being found to have highly classified material on that server which wasn't certified for holding such. Forget that this information is never allowed to be on the public internet, only on highly controlled and encrypted networks. So there exists no server anywhere on the public internet that has been cleared to contain that information.

That stuff being out there makes it vulnerable to an OPM type breach the damage of which would be felt for decades. We can only hope that the information wasn't compromised, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

This is like doing a Snowden but out of stupidity instead of for some personal cause.

Max Peck wrote:

Rip wrote:

Max Peck wrote:

Rip wrote:Unless these AOL e-mails contained classified data it really isn't applicable.

It hasn't been established that Clinton's emails contained any actual classified information either, from the little coverage I've seen.

The punk that claims to have hacked Brennan's account says that he got Brennan's security clearance application paperwork, although I haven't seen any evidence that he's backed up the claim by releasing it. Would that be sensitive enough for you?

Not through her account but through her server.

Setting up the server makes her responsible for what passes through it.

Fine. Where is the evidence that any actual classified information passed through that server?

And you're OK with Brennan's (alleged) use of AOL to transmit his security clearance application? I noticed that you reframed the issue in lieu of answering that query. An oversight, I'm sure.

A special intelligence review of two emails that Hillary Rodham Clinton received as secretary of state on her personal account — including one about North Korea’s nuclear weapons program — has endorsed a finding by the inspector general for the intelligence agencies that the emails contained highly classified information when Mrs. Clinton received them, senior intelligence officials said.

Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign and the State Department disputed the inspector general’s finding last month and questioned whether the emails had been overclassified by an arbitrary process. But the special review — by the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency — concluded that the emails were “Top Secret,” the highest classification of government intelligence, when they were sent to Mrs. Clinton in 2009 and 2011.

Pyperkub wrote:

Rip wrote:

Zarathud wrote:Do you want to die on that hill, Rip? Should Google be held responsible for anything that goes through it? Are you responsible for every server you've touched?

But you've already downgraded to "sensitive" from "classified" information. Lost cause.

Big difference between selling e-mail accounts to people and setting one up specifically to do government business and being found to have highly classified material on that server which wasn't certified for holding such. Forget that this information is never allowed to be on the public internet, only on highly controlled and encrypted networks. So there exists no server anywhere on the public internet that has been cleared to contain that information.

That stuff being out there makes it vulnerable to an OPM type breach the damage of which would be felt for decades. We can only hope that the information wasn't compromised, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

This is like doing a Snowden but out of stupidity instead of for some personal cause.

So, having an Exchange Email server with what I assume is an experienced Exchange admin is worse than using an AOL account? Hmmmm... methinks maybe your zeal for hilary-hatred is clouding your mind...