Octopus Overlords

Hillary Rodham Clinton exclusively used a personal email account to conduct government business as secretary of state, State Department officials said, and may have violated federal requirements that officials’ correspondence be retained as part of the agency’s record.

Mrs. Clinton did not have a government email address during her four-year tenure at the State Department. Her aides took no actions to have her personal emails preserved on department servers at the time, as required by the Federal Records Act.

It was only two months ago, in response to a new State Department effort to comply with federal record-keeping practices, that Mrs. Clinton’s advisers reviewed tens of thousands of pages of her personal emails and decided which ones to turn over to the State Department. All told, 55,000 pages of emails were given to the department. Mrs. Clinton stepped down from the secretary’s post in early 2013.

Her expansive use of the private account was alarming to current and former National Archives and Records Administration officials and government watchdogs, who called it a serious breach.
...
A spokesman for Mrs. Clinton, Nick Merrill, defended her use of the personal email account and said she has been complying with the “letter and spirit of the rules.”

Under federal law, however, letters and emails written and received by federal officials, such as the secretary of state, are considered government records and are supposed to be retained so that congressional committees, historians and members of the news media can find them. There are exceptions to the law for certain classified and sensitive materials.

Mrs. Clinton is not the first government official — or first secretary of state — to use a personal email account on which to conduct official business. But her exclusive use of her private email, for all of her work, appears unusual, Mr. Baron said. The use of private email accounts is supposed to be limited to emergencies, experts said, such as when an agency’s computer server is not working.
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Regulations from the National Archives and Records Administration at the time required that any emails sent or received from personal accounts be preserved as part of the agency’s records.

But Mrs. Clinton and her aides failed to do so.

How many emails were in Mrs. Clinton’s account is not clear, and neither is the process her advisers used to determine which ones related to her work at the State Department before turning them over.

At 4:07 p.m., just minutes after the terrorist attack began, Cheryl Mills, Secretary Clinton’s chief-of-staff, and Joseph McManus, Mrs. Clinton’s executive assistant, received an e-mail from the State Department’s operations center (forwarded to her by Maria Sand, a special assistant to Secretary Clinton).

About a half-hour later, another e-mail — this one from Scott Bultrowicz, then director of diplomatic security (DSCC) — related:

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15 armed individuals were attacking the compound and trying to gain entrance. The Ambassador is present in Benghazi and currently is barricaded within the compound. There are no injuries at this time and it is unknown what the intent of the attackers is. At approximately 1600 [4 p.m.] DSCC received word from Benghazi that individuals had entered the compound. At 1614 [4:14 p.m.] RSO advised the Libyans had set fire to various buildings in the area, possibly the building that houses the Ambassador [REDACTED] is responding and taking fire.

At 6:06 p.m., another e-mail that went to top State Department officials explained that the local al-Qaeda affiliate had claimed responsibility for the attack:

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Ansar al-Sharia Claims Responsibility for Benghazi Attack (SBU):  “(SBU) Embassy Tripoli reports the group claimed responsibility on Facebook and Twitter and call for an attack on Embassy Tripoli”

Despite this evidence that her top staffers were informed from the start that a terrorist attack was underway and that an al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorist group had claimed credit for it, Secretary Clinton issued an official statement claiming the assault may have been in “response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet.”

LordMortis wrote:Email as official documents and record keeping has always bothered me.

Speaking of the Watergate wail is actually pretty convenient here.

I don't think I've ever seen anywhere that treats email as controlled document medium. As a collective, we really have this organic definition for what email should and should not be, all of the legal voodoo we like to invoke surrounding email just seems like puppies.

Somehow, I feel like I'm defending Hillary. I feel dirty.

Regulatory Compliance
As enterprises of all sizes grow more reliant on email, the business value of that content is also growing. To protect this increasingly valuable information (intellectual property), numerous standards and regulations have been enacted to require records protection and retention as well as timely response to legal (discovery) and information (FOIA) requests.[2] Modern email archiving solutions allow companies to meet regulatory requirements or corporate policies by securing and preserving data and providing flexible data management policies to enable authorized users to enact 'legal holds', set retention and purge policies, or conduct searches across multiple mailboxes to complete various inquiries.

Some of the primary compliance requirements driving the need for secure email archiving are:

United States

FDA Title 21 CFR Part 11
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP)
Freedom of Information Act
Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act
HFTA (Hedge Fund Transparency Act)
HIPAA
Investment Advisors Act
NASD Rule 3110 and NYSE Rule 440
Sarbanes-Oxley
SB 1386 (Only in California)
Securities and Exchange Commission Rule 17a-4 and SEC Rule 17a-3
The USA Patriot Act
Note, that many of the compliance regulations require the preservation of "electronic business communications" which consist of not only email, but may include instant messaging, file attachments, Bloomberg Messaging, Reuters Messaging, PIN-to-PIN and SMS text messages, VoIP and other electronic messaging communications used in business.

Fireball wrote:It appears that John Kerry is the first secretary of state to use an official government email account, and that previous secretaries did what Clinton did.

There are plenty of good jokes out there about how Secretary of State Hillary Clinton likely used her old CompuServe account as her private email address while conducting business (and whatever else) at the State Department. It turns out the operation was a bit more sophisticated than that, with someone reportedly registering the ClintonEmail.com domain the first day of her Senate confirmation hearing.

hepcat wrote:I'm surprised to find out that there are more than a few folks in Washington using private mail for what appears to be sensitive information. Hopefully these recent revelations will cause them to step up their game.

Jeff V wrote:

hepcat wrote:I'm surprised to find out that there are more than a few folks in Washington using private mail for what appears to be sensitive information. Hopefully these recent revelations will cause them to step up their game.

Snapchat. It's good for more than just sending penis pics.

Defiant wrote:Apparently, Hillary ran her own email server

Uhh, what?

Rip wrote:

Defiant wrote:Apparently, Hillary ran her own email server

Uhh, what?

You mean her people ran it at her house.

I would bet every penny to my name she didn't actually run the server herself.

Smoove_B wrote:All this is just secondary to the fact that we're not going to elect a 69 year old person (man or woman) to the office of president. I refuse to believe it will happen.

Zekester wrote:wow hepcat....theres still some semblance of an American left in you.

Why is Hillary even being considered? What is the draw for her? Anything outside of being a woman?

Honest question.

Defiant wrote:

Smoove_B wrote:All this is just secondary to the fact that we're not going to elect a 69 year old person (man or woman) to the office of president. I refuse to believe it will happen.

Uh, we already did so once.

hepcat wrote:I'm not a big fan of the Clinton family (Rip, pick your jaw up off the floor) so my vote was already decided, but I'm surprised to find out that there are more than a few folks in Washington using private mail for what appears to be sensitive information. Hopefully these recent revelations will cause them to step up their game.

Zekester wrote:wow hepcat....theres still some semblance of an American left in you.

Why is Hillary even being considered? What is the draw for her? Anything outside of being a woman?

Honest question.

GreenGoo wrote:

hepcat wrote:I'm not a big fan of the Clinton family (Rip, pick your jaw up off the floor) so my vote was already decided, but I'm surprised to find out that there are more than a few folks in Washington using private mail for what appears to be sensitive information. Hopefully these recent revelations will cause them to step up their game.

The best part is that email isn't even encrypted. It's literally clear text over the internet. Putting sensitive information in it is insane for anyone, but a national government? Craziness.

GreenGoo wrote:

Zekester wrote:wow hepcat....theres still some semblance of an American left in you.

Why is Hillary even being considered? What is the draw for her? Anything outside of being a woman?

Honest question.

She is a seasoned politician with actual ability to govern. She was pretty darn good as secretary of state (if benghazi isn't apocalyptic for you. It shouldn't be. I realize it is for a lot of the right). She's popular. She's confident, strong willed, intelligent and listens to advice. She's not overly left of center.

She possesses pretty much everything required in a political leader, with experience to back it up.

I'm not saying you should vote for her, but you asked why Hillary is being considered. If you think her only qualifications are her gender, then a) that gender has never, ever put someone in the white house, ever, so the idea that gender is her only attribute is bizarre and b) you haven't been paying attention. If Obama hadn't come along and grabbed everyone's imagination in 2008, chances are she would already have been president for nearly 8 years.

Do I think she should be president? No opinion at this stage. Do I think she is a contender and should be? Yes. Easily. And far more so than many potentials on the Republican side so far, despite their statistically more advantageous gender.

Fireball wrote:If nominated, Hillary Clinton would be the most experienced and qualified candidate for President since George H.W. Bush

Defiant wrote:

Fireball wrote:If nominated, Hillary Clinton would be the most experienced and qualified candidate for President since George H.W. Bush

I think this might be a somewhat debatable - Bill Clinton had twelve years of executive experience (plus a couple of more as AG), as opposed to Hillary's twelve years as Senator + Secretary. I'd also say that apart from experience, IMO, Bill has more skills for being President than Hillary does. Of course, that's speaking from hindsight as we've already seen Bill's ability at being the president.

Fireball wrote:

Defiant wrote:

Fireball wrote:If nominated, Hillary Clinton would be the most experienced and qualified candidate for President since George H.W. Bush

I think this might be a somewhat debatable - Bill Clinton had twelve years of executive experience (plus a couple of more as AG), as opposed to Hillary's twelve years as Senator + Secretary. I'd also say that apart from experience, IMO, Bill has more skills for being President than Hillary does. Of course, that's speaking from hindsight as we've already seen Bill's ability at being the president.

Hillary has major executive experience, having run the State Department, major diplomatic experience, major legislative experience, and, of course, the innate knowledge that comes from being part of a successful White House for eight years. I think that dwarfs Bill's 12 years as governor, which only covered one of those areas.

Defiant wrote:

Fireball wrote:

Defiant wrote:

Fireball wrote:If nominated, Hillary Clinton would be the most experienced and qualified candidate for President since George H.W. Bush

I think this might be a somewhat debatable - Bill Clinton had twelve years of executive experience (plus a couple of more as AG), as opposed to Hillary's twelve years as Senator + Secretary. I'd also say that apart from experience, IMO, Bill has more skills for being President than Hillary does. Of course, that's speaking from hindsight as we've already seen Bill's ability at being the president.

Hillary has major executive experience, having run the State Department, major diplomatic experience, major legislative experience, and, of course, the innate knowledge that comes from being part of a successful White House for eight years. I think that dwarfs Bill's 12 years as governor, which only covered one of those areas.

I said it was somewhat debatable. It's more of a judgement call, depending on what matters to the person in the qualities for president by the person doing the judging.

I still think Bill has more ability at the Presidency than Hillary. But I'd welcome being proven wrong.

Edit: Wait, what about Gore, who was Representative, Senator and Vice Presidency with 24 years of experience. (Kerry and McCain might be potential contenders, but that's harder to argue when Gore's available.)

“Very specific guidance has been given to agencies all across the government, which is specifically that employees in the Obama administration should use their official e-mail accounts when they’re conducting official government business,” Earnest said. “However, when there are situations where personal e-mail accounts are used, it is important for those records to be preserved, consistent with the Federal Records Act.”

Earnest said the administration would have to rely on Clinton’s assurances that she met the fallback requirement of sending along the pertinent e-mails to be archived.

Smoove_B wrote:All this is just secondary to the fact that we're not going to elect a 69 year old person (man or woman) to the office of president. I refuse to believe it will happen.

Fireball wrote:

Defiant wrote:

Fireball wrote:If nominated, Hillary Clinton would be the most experienced and qualified candidate for President since George H.W. Bush

I think this might be a somewhat debatable - Bill Clinton had twelve years of executive experience (plus a couple of more as AG), as opposed to Hillary's twelve years as Senator + Secretary. I'd also say that apart from experience, IMO, Bill has more skills for being President than Hillary does. Of course, that's speaking from hindsight as we've already seen Bill's ability at being the president.

Hillary has major executive experience, having run the State Department, major diplomatic experience, major legislative experience, and, of course, the innate knowledge that comes from being part of a successful White House for eight years. I think that dwarfs Bill's 12 years as governor, which only covered one of those areas.

Jaymann wrote:

Smoove_B wrote:All this is just secondary to the fact that we're not going to elect a 69 year old person (man or woman) to the office of president. I refuse to believe it will happen.

69 is the new 60. Besides, she could always get a head transplant.

Kraken wrote: She is also, it must be said, uniquely qualified to take on the right wing. She's a cautious centrist but I doubt that she would be a compromiser. Too much personal experience with what it took Obama six years to learn.