How Clinton’s Email Scandal Took Root

[KoKo]

How Clinton’s Email Scandal Took Root
By Robert O'Harrow Jr. March 27--Washington Post

Hillary Clinton’s email problems began in her first days as secretary of state. She insisted on using her personal BlackBerry for all her email communications, but she wasn’t allowed to take the device into her seventh-floor suite of offices, a secure space known as Mahogany Row.

For Clinton, this was frustrating. As a political heavyweight and chief of the nation’s diplomatic corps, she needed to manage a torrent of email to stay connected to colleagues, friends and supporters. She hated having to put her BlackBerry into a lockbox before going into her own office.

Her aides and senior officials pushed to find a way to enable her to use the device in the secure area. But their efforts unsettled the diplomatic security bureau, which was worried that foreign intelligence services could hack her BlackBerry and transform it into a listening device.

On Feb. 17, 2009, less than a month into Clinton’s tenure, the issue came to a head. Department security, intelligence and technology specialists, along with five officials from the National Security Agency, gathered in a Mahogany Row conference room. They explained the risks to Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s chief of staff, while also seeking “mitigation options” that would accommodate Clinton’s wishes.

“The issue here is one of personal comfort,” one of the participants in that meeting, Donald Reid, the department’s senior coordinator for security infrastructure, wrote afterward in an email that described Clinton’s inner circle of advisers as “dedicated [BlackBerry] addicts.”

Clinton used her BlackBerry as the group continued looking for a solution. But unknown to diplomatic security and technology officials at the department, there was another looming communications vulnerability: Clinton’s Black­Berry was digitally tethered to a private email server in the basement of her family home, some 260 miles to the north in Chappaqua, N.Y., documents and interviews show.

Those officials took no steps to protect the server against intruders and spies, because they apparently were not told about it.

Continued at.......
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/how-clintons-email-scandal-took-root/2016/03/27/ee301168-e162-11e5-846c-10191d1fc4ec_story.html

[peacebird]

1. This shows her total disregard for rules, regulations, the Law. She is above it all.

Clinton used her BlackBerry as the group continued looking for a solution. But unknown to diplomatic security and technology officials at the department, there was another looming communications vulnerability: Clinton’s Black­Berry was digitally tethered to a private email server in the basement of her family home, some 260 miles to the north in Chappaqua, N.Y., documents and interviews show.

Those officials took no steps to protect the server against intruders and spies, because they were apparently not told about it.

[gordianot]

2. Several months ago without details I heard there was worry about a server...

From an old friend, since I do not think in those terms I did not know why? It is becoming clearer in the last few months especially with the DOJ, FBI and NSA letters are referenced on the same page. Wouldn't it be ironic if security was breached and the Patriot Act was evoked in this episode?

[bemildred]

3. Running your own server is not that difficult, lots of people know how to do it.

And it gives you much more control and vision into the system, as well as the ability to do pretty much anything you like with the mail.

Since the Clinton's are well-known control freaks, that is really all you need to explain these choices, I've seen it myself. There is nothing new in a naive boss making bad technical decisions against the wishes of their technical staff. They see their time and convenience as very valuable and don't want to hear otherwise.

Which is one reason why I would take serious secrets back to the world of paper and pen, and let the rest run free. The open internet is not a good place for secrets and it never will be.

[MBS]

4. Excellent, in-depth investigative reporting.

I am still as flabbergasted as I was a year ago that HRC and her personal staff could have made such a dumb political misjudgment (and yes, ethical misjudgment, too), given (a)that it was against explicit protocols (b) that it gave ammunition to the longtime memes about sense of entitlement and elasticity on the honesty/trustworthiness front that have long dogged the Clintons, fairly or not and (c) the importance of preventing (or at least minimizing) even the appearance of conflicts of interest with her complicated personal and professional entanglements with the Clinton Foundation and other associations while she was at State and (d) her continuing presidential ambitions. Should not ALL of these considerations have pointed clearly to the importance of conducting email correspondence absolutely by the book, and keeping official and personal business absolutely separate (or as separate as is humanly possible - I realize that there can be gray areas).

It was and is so obviously in HRC's personal political interest-- never mind principles of good government - to have conducted all her business at State in an absolutely, by the book, squeaky-clean manner.

This was so unnecessary. This was so preventable.

Why why why?

She and her staff are going to have to address this issue head-on, sooner rather than later. Not defensively, but in a way that will humbly and definitively outline what lessons she has learned from this debacle, and how those lessons would inform how she and her staff would conduct her email and other business in the White House (certainly, government email accounts only for government business; and other protocols to ensure transparency and avoidance of conflicts of interest. Also, the importance of heeding informed recommendations from experts, outside her close circle of personal advisors).

[thereismore]

5. All this after she promised in 2008 that hers will be the most transparent of administrations and

after Obama promising the same, especially vs FOIA.

This was Obama's biggest blunder to keep her in his administration, like a snake in the grass.

Why she did it? She is paranoid. She thinks she is constantly under attack. She can't help herself. She is unfit for public office.