I work at the State Dept. Let's talk email.

[Proud Public Servant]

So Hillary's failure to use government email for government purposes is blowing up today, perhaps rightly. (Certainly, DUers spare no scorn or outrage for Republicans when they do this kind of thing). I thought you might be interested in one person's inside-the-Department perspective. Here's what I'd note:

- Hillary at State was famous for being a Luddite. That hip tumblr of pics of her on her BlackBerry notwithstanding, she apparently didn't even have a computer on her desk and used to ask staffers to print out important email for her to read.

- State is famously behind the times when it comes to digital technology. When Colin Powell arrived in 2001, he called IT to his office because nothing seemed to be loading in his web browser. The techs patiently explained that that was because his computer wasn't connected to the internet; no desktop computers at State were. But if he wanted to get on the internet, there was a handy desk in a room down the hall that he could use! Powell changed that right away (it's one of the reason that State rank-and-file, who are overwhelmingly liberal Dems, regard Powell as the best Secretary they've ever worked for) but its systems still provide an inferior user experience compared to most people's private computers. (One example: Internet Explorer 7 came out in 2006; Internet Explorer 6 was the only browser available on most State desktops until 2012 or '13.)

- As bad as State's desktop systems were (and are), remote access is much, much worse. Using personal email for business is not all that uncommon at State precisely because, away from the desk, State email is notorious for its slow pace and frequent outages.

- Lots of people can live with crappy email and slow communications. The Secretary's staff can't. I've was on embassy staff for two different Hillary visits, and worked directly with her staff while she was on the ground (met her, too; she was lovely, her staff were the demon spawn of Hell -- and not especially competent demon spawn, either). These folks needed to be in constant, immediate communication with each other; State email was not a reliable tool for that.

So, there's your picture: a not especially tech-savvy Secretary and a wonky email system that was especially bad when accessed remotely -- and Hillary was always on the go.

I'm not a big Hillary fan, but I can absolutely understand why she would have stuck with a system she already knew, and already knew worked. That doesn't make it right, but it does suggest it may not be nefarious. Hanlon's razor applies: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.

[riderinthestorm]

1. K&R. Good post nt

[pnwmom]

227. And the National Archivist testified in 2013 that it was legal to use private email accounts.

That is why the new law was written.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026308341

[snooper2]

2. what mail server does the department use-

POP3 or IMAP?

[Proud Public Servant]

3. No idea, sorry (nt)

[snooper2]

13. Well, looks like it is outsourced and I'm sure they WAY overfuckingspent

I found this document

(Oh, and on edit, of course, found that State is using Exchange, of course)




Here is how much your single phone line costs LOL

008
Strengthening Consular and Management Capabilities
Technology
Technology Costs
Operations and Maintenance Costs
Average cost per line for telephone system installation.
$6,121.00
Maintain at $6,121.00
As of 07/31/2008, the average cost per line has been calculated at $2,979.35.


Oh, and they try to calculate to the bit

2008
Strengthening Consular and Management Capabilities
Technology
Technology Costs
Operations and Maintenance Costs
Cost per bit of bandwidth decreases due to network modernization.
Baseline is $.45/bit in FY2004.
Decrease cost per bit of bandwidth to $.29/bit in FY2008 - for a 10% annual decrease.
As of 07/31/2008, DoS has achieved a reduction in the cost per bit of bandwidth to $.290 per bit, meeting its target of a 10% annual decrease in the cost per bit of bandwidth.

http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/122830.pdf

[Recursion]

256. All of USG uses Exchange except a few tech shops

But only the CAL transport, not IMAP or POP. And of course BES since USG seems determined to keep RIM alive.

[stonecutter357]

250. .

[leveymg]

282. This OP is a year old. Fascinating wrong-headed and uninformed arguments defending her. Still are.

Funny how the DU kick system makes old posts pop up like a ruin in a low tide. This was when some people were still saying it was all just a big mistake brought on by Hillary's inability to manage technology. That was before the revelations that there were 2,000 plus emails containing classified information on her private uncertified server, 104 of which she had sent herself, and 22 that contained Top Secret/Special Access Program material that had been downloaded from classified systems, stripped of their classification headers, and sent "unsecure." That was before it was known that she had been warned not to continue using her off the shelf Blackberry by the NSA because of its security vulnerabilities. So, she proceeded to immediately hook up an unsecure private email system connected with the very same hand-held device.

We heard a year ago, and still hear from her defenders that these emails were "innocuous". No harm done. But, as we have learned in recent months, some of these classified materials were fresh NSA intercepts that had been taken off a classified system just hours earlier. When she received them from Sid Blumenthal her response was, "keep 'em coming." Too bad her signed security oath invoked a federal statute, 18 USC Sec. 793, (e) and (f) that states it's a felony to fail to report such breaches of classified materials, as well as a felony to mishandle or expose classified materials so that they are vulnerable. That law, which is referenced twice in her security oath, does not require proof of intent to harm the national security or even any actual harm be done. The mishandling of classified materials or failure to report it when you see it is enough to earn a 10 year all expenses paid vacation in Club Fed.

Oops, her Luddite ways are still the main-line excuse being offered. Tell it to FBI Director Comey. We will see soon what he thinks of that defense.

[Aerows]

114. Easy to find out

drop to the console and nslookup MX.

[LiberalArkie]

204. Maybe still on CCMail

[Autumn]

4. I think that Hillary is very tech savvy. But the rest of your points are

very good. I do think it was stupid of her staffers not to set up a government e mail account though, mainly for security reasons My husband used to access his state email from his phone and he was NOT tech savvy at all.

[snooper2]

15. why would you think she is tech savy

she can't even drive

[Autumn]

23. So what. I haven't driven since 2010. And she has staffers so why should she drive

herself as SOS and I think that as a former First Lady and Senator her just jumping into a car and driving herself would be a real security issue. People are fucking nuts. She travels all over the world, her phone by her side. Bet your ass Hillary is tech savvy with that phone.

[snooper2]

33. sure LOL

[Autumn]

35. Whatever.

[leveymg]

151. She was tech savvy enough to know that the official email was a public record

But, perhaps, not savvy enough to realize that anything she put into commercial email was likely to become public. Perhaps. That should have become obvious to anyone after CIA Director Petraeus' personal email communications became demonstrably "insecure."

[Autumn]

154. I think you work for the government you don't use your personal email

As a SOS you use government e mail, IMO . Petraeus kind of screwed the pooch, so to speak on that one. But from what I heard Di Fi say on TV the poor dear has suffered enough.

[leveymg]

179. The General just pleaded to Unlawful Retention and Use. Fine no jail.

Don't think the issue would ever have come up if he hadn't continued to be a "forceful advocate" for a Syria policy the President had decided wasn't working.

Some interesting coincidences today.

[Caretha]

238. That does it!

I do not want to vote for a woman in the 21st century who can't or won't drive.

That iMNSHFO does it!

She may not be able to build her own computer...I get that, but for Gawd's sake...drive?

[Autumn]

239. What? You want to put the chauffeur out of a job???

I agree, a line must be drawn.

[Caretha]

241. So not worried about the chauffeur

So worried about all the Americans who cannot find a job or one that can feed their children and keep a roof over their heads.

I get it, you were not making light of the subject. Thanks for your ability to see.

[Autumn]

242. Caretha, as long as you and I see the same thing, I know I'm seeing the right thing

[awoke_in_2003]

234. as a former first lady...

she is probably not allowed to drive.

[karynnj]

66. I would listen to the op - there is nothing in her background that suggests that she

is particularly tech savvy. That said, I doubt there are many political figures who were on the leading edge of technology. The best that many do is to hire people who do have the background, knowledge and vision in this field.

The question I would ask is whether the situation became better over her term -- in which case she deserves credit for pushing for modernization -- and then held to account for not returning to use the improved email herself.

Kerry is traveling more than she did and is easily more involved in serious, time sensitive issues and he uses a State Department account. Other than the fact that he has always been more for transparency than HRC, how can this be discounted.

Not to mention, even if it was tech reasons, there is no way to explain that she had no provision to turn over the emails for the record - not even when her term ended. It was a SD request that led to them selecting the responses to send. (Not to mention, if the concern was just technical, why not have a private email JUST for this - to facilitate handing it over. The fact that they were commingled shows there was no thought given to the fact that they should at some point be handed over.)

[MBS]

112. + 100 n/t

[Autumn]

191. Are you saying that one has to be on the leading edge of technology to do email?

An SOS's e mails are the people business and should be on a secure government server. Anyone in the government should know that at some point those emails should be turned over.

[karynnj]

199. of course not - I was responding to her being labeled very tech saavy

NOT being able to do email would put you in a technology challenged category. I agree that they should be on government email - and have the complete knowledge that they should be turned over.

[roguevalley]

178. I think it was deliberate to NEVER have an email

account in the system. It doesn't matter anyway because the law says she has to preserve her mails. She didn't.

I find the picture of the day offensive. It is cutting slack to someone who wants to be president. If she doesn't obey that law, why should she obey any and if that is so, why complain about pugs and the bushies?

Sarah Palin did the same thing she did. She got burned here. Hillary is getting a pass. Hypocrisy flourishes here as well as out there. Hillary Clinton had her 3 am phone call and she failed it. She disobeyed the law. She didn't preserve her mails so any country can produce any email and say she sent whatever they have printed on it. What can any us say about it? No, that's not what was on it?

She doesn't get a pass from me. Sue me. And having a bad system or not knowing how to use one is no pass. She has STAFF for that.

PS I do recall the OUTRAGE over KKKarl Rove 'losing' 5 million emails. Why no outrage here?

[Autumn]

182. I agree with you 100%. There is no excuse for this. The bad system excuse is all horse shit

Millions for endless war and NSA technology and the SOS can't even have an up to date system?

[roguevalley]

186. thank you, autumn. Hugs

[Autumn]

193. It's all BS excuses. Hillary emails from her phone, she used a personal account to do so.

That's wrong. A government employee should never mix personal with business.

[misterhighwasted]

5. Thank You.

Considering how much time she spent in foreign countries..and knowing, how shabby the tech conditions were back at the office..well then..
Enough said.
Appreciate your post.

[Fumesucker]

6. "Not especially competent demon spawn from hell"

Nice turn of phrase and a nice post, thanks for the perspective.

[karynnj]

17. Not good - as they were the people she chose

many followed her from the Senate to the campaign to the State Department. I don't know if it is better to have competent demon spawn or incompetent demon spawn.

[Chellee]

180. Are those our only choices?

I suppose I'd have to go with competent demon spawn then.

[procon]

158. Sounds like her former campaign team... 2nd verse same as the 1st; I wonder.

[TheKentuckian]

7. Sounds like an inspiringly perfect fit for leading in the 21st century

It also seems like an enduring issue that for some reason nobody really wants to address or they would have. Instead you have built in rationalizations for what easily could be shady actions.

It's okay, she's just an incompetent Luddite is not an especially assuring defense.

[brendan120678]

8. Honestly, it's not much different at DoD either.

But I will say, we've had quite a few IT upgrades at my agency lately. Things are usually pretty tolerable. Even remote connections are decent on my telework days.

[Pacifist Patriot]

31. I'm involved in some projects with the Air Force...

and at times am agog at their IT situation.

[Aerows]

9. She also famously stated that she

hadn't driven a car since 1996.

I don't know about you, but someone that detached from the reality of most folks isn't going to be my first choice of a candidate.

I'm a loyal Democrat, but I'm not that damn loyal.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

14. Most rich folks lead pretty insulated lives...

Reminds me when John Kennedy was running for president and he met a coal miner during the West Virginia primaries who told him, " I heard you never worked a day in your life. Well, you ain't missing anything."

[Aerows]

19. Same bullshit

different day.

It drives me nuts. And we are supposed to adhere to political loyalty to people that regularly don't follow the law, and don't hold their own political equals to the law, either?

It's just the same circus over and over again in Washington. I'm no more outraged anymore than I was when Bush did it, because I was outraged then, too. Boo-hoo, they are attacking Democrats. Boo-hoo, they are attacking Republicans.

Boo-hoo, they aren't following the law, and that is the problem.

[DebJ]

29. It was posted elsewhere that this became law in November 2014, when Barack signed it into law.

When did Hillary leave the State Department?

[Aerows]

34. Excuse me?

Archiving communications by politicians didn't become law in 2014. It has been the LAW for about 2 centuries.

This isn't something new - good heavens.

[DebJ]

38. Not the archiving. The specification that only government email systems could be used.

If she pulled up 55,000 emails for them, seems to me there was archiving.

[Aerows]

46. I am uniquely qualified

to speak on this issue, since I have administered email servers for YEARS.

I absolutely know the law regarding this, and anyone that tries to pretend that this is a new "thing" or a new "law" is talking out of their ass.

Journaling email has absolutely been a requirement for decades for the financial industry and for political purposes.

I'm going to put the damn brakes on this situation of someone is saying that archiving is not a requirement. I know for a FACT that it absolutely is, and I was pissed when Bush and Cheney attempted to evade archiving. Am I supposed to give Hillary a pass when she does it?

[Dr Hobbitstein]

82. Hillary archived her email.

She delivered 55,000 emails to the Benghazi panels.

No one is arguing that ARCHIVING was not a requirement. What's being argued is that using government email systems was NOT a requirement until 2014. Which is true.

She violated no laws here.

[DebJ]

120. And some of those emails were probably to Chelsea.... n/t

[Aerows]

109. OMG

I cannot believe people are saying this "using government email systems was NOT a requirement until 2014".

Dear God have MERCY. Does no one remember the scandal in 2006 when Bush and Cheney were doing it!!???

The Secretary of State for heaven's sake. Oh, gee, national security couldn't possibly be compromised by using an outside account.

I hang my head in shame. I honestly do. I cannot believe DU has people that think this is not just okay, but champion it.

Ugh.

I give up.

[Agschmid]

117. No one is championing it...

Show me a post where someone did that!?!

[roguevalley]

188. check my email reply to other posts, agschmid

I am now the spawn of satan because I dared questions the Queen on other threads about this by mentioning the close likeness of Palin's turn when she got burned alive here for doing the same thing.

[Agschmid]

189. If you can PM me the link to that post.

Be curious to read it, thanks.

Pretty sure you aren't the spawn of Satan so don't fret over that.

[DebJ]

126. The risk of compromise of national security would depend upon the information

contained in those emails.

if the Republicans had actually detected risks to national security within those emails, why was not even one instance
brought up for an example?

Instead, the only complaint is that she didn't have a government email account and use that.

Which was not required under the law during her tenure.

So no laws were broken.

And there is not even any proof offered of a security risk.

[Aerows]

147. I'm done

with it. If people don't want to see what is right in front of their face, and actively justify it, why should I bang my head against a brick wall?

[Dr Hobbitstein]

129. No

we were pissed at Bush/Cheney for DELETING emails. Hillary has not been accused of that.

You have been given the information, but you choose to ignore it.

[frylock]

274. Yes, Hillary deleted emails.

Do you know how we know that Hillary was soliciting Sid Blumenthal for advise, despite Obama stating unequivocally that he was not to deal with any business at State? It wasn't because Hillary disclosed that by submitting those emails.

[DesMoinesDem]

278. FYI this thread is a year old.

[frylock]

280. Someone kicked it back to the top.

On edit: Must've been me! Someone linked to this from another thread, and I never bothered to look at the date. So we're a year into this non-event that was supposed to go away 11 months ago.

[SunSeeker]

217. Wait, now you're worried about "national security" being "compromised"? Is that really you, Aerows?

Seems not too long ago you were railing against the "security state" and applauding the disclosure of top secret U.S. government communications...but then that was when that dreamy Edward Snowden was doing it.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024848475

[Number23]

220. Ka-BOOM!

[Cha]

236. ..

[Number23]

243. That calls for a bit of this:

[Cha]

235. Perfect. Another hypocrite busted. Mahalo SunSeeker

[DebJ]

102. Aerows, my response began "Not the archiving". ???? n/t

[roguevalley]

185. thank you aerows. I know that too.

[Aerows]

192. Most professionals

know this. It's silly to pretend that this is "new" "unheard of" and "recently enacted".

But suddenly you have a crop of experts that know more about email servers than people that run email servers.

That's the ridiculous part. I know the law because I have to make sure I and my clients follow it. But, hey, I have no idea what I'm talking about because everybody that wouldn't know a server if they tripped over one knows oh so much more than I do.

[frylock]

275. Well, we're not dealing with most professionals here.

We're dealing with Democratic party hacks that need to have their grandchild come over to configure their email client to access their AOL IMAP account.

[Agschmid]

49. Seems like they were archived considering they turned over 55,000.

[Aerows]

52. It seems

some were missing, otherwise we wouldn't be having this conversation at all.

[Agschmid]

57. Please tell me where there is a link saying some were "missing"..

[1StrongBlackMan]

229. Well, there were no emails about the wedding flowers. n/t

[frylock]

277. Clinton Hacker Extradited to U.S.

Sidney Blumenthal emailed Hillary Clinton at least two intelligence reports about Libya which were not included in the trove of 296 emails released by the State Department on Friday.

Clinton has claimed that in December she turned over all official government emails she sent or received from her personal account while in office. In turn, the agency has claimed it turned all Clinton emails related to Libya or Benghazi over to the House Select Committee investigating the Benghazi attack.

But a screenshot of Blumenthal's email inbox, which the Romanian hacker Guccifer published in March 2013, shows two reports about Libya emailed to Clinton which were not released in Friday's batch.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/clinton-hacker-extradited-to-u.s./article/2001449

[DebJ]

116. Actually, the accusation is that she was using an email other than a government email, period.

That's all I've read.

[former9thward]

71. The 55,000 may not have come from Clinton's account.

They may have come from others who were either sent the email or were copied on them.

[riversedge]

58. Here you go

Remain objective: @DavidCornDC … #p2 #UniteBlue

[Aerows]

62. And

It wasn't legal. Try me. This is not a new law.

You can dress it up as something new, but the fact remains that using outside email accounts, nevermind the security implications, does not bypass the fact that they are required by law to be archived.

Pick one. It's either ridiculously violating the law, or recklessly violating security policy.

The truth is, it's BOTH.

[Agschmid]

76. I'm still waiting for you to tell me how they were not archived...

Considering they were turned over...

[Aerows]

84. Hillary Clinton is a lawyer

She used a personal email account to evade the law that all politicians must have their correspondence archived.

I don't know why you think people are stupid on DU, but ...duh... you use an outside account to evade archiving and add in a security problem to boot.

Is it wise to be discussing national security issues on a different account than the proper channels? No, it isn't. It's not like she was Secretary of State or anything and discussed things of national security.

[kwassa]

100. You really have no idea why Hillary used outside email.

yet you leap to judgment anyways.

You don't know what matters she used it for. It may have been trivial things.

[Aerows]

103. It's not trivial

to use an outside email account when you are the Secretary of State. First off, it is a violation of the law, and second it's a huge security risk.

Bush did it, and I was just as upset by it then - I wrote to Patrick Leahy about it.

Irresponsible behavior, breaking the law - they aren't just things Republicans need to get yelled at for doing. We must hold our own favored politicians to the standards we hold everybody else to.

[DebJ]

108. Aerows, please quote the law that she was in violation of; the requirements of that law,

and the date this became law.

[Agschmid]

111. They will deflect to the archive issue...

Which is also a failed argument considering the emails were archived.

[kwassa]

118. She wasn't breaking the law because the law is recent.

There is no security risk if she isn't discussing important secrets.

[leveymg]

152. Not for the Secretary of State to determine for herself. That's why there is a secure gov't system

for State Department employees to use for official business. She never did - not just when she was on the road.

[kwassa]

155. The OP discusses the inadequacies of this system.

[leveymg]

183. Do you really think that's the reason she never used it?

The OP is trying to raise reasonable doubt. Probably a lawyer.

[stonecutter357]

251. you seem desperate!

[RiverNoord]

150. This is a matter of point-blank common sense.

Trivial things? There are apparently some 40,000 email communications that have actually been turned over, and thousands more unnacounted for. Do you honestly believe that, for 4 years, the Secretary of State of the United States of America confined all of her email to trivial things?

Hillary Clinton is a lawyer. She was the Secretary of State of the United States for 4 years. She was a United States Senator for the State of New York for one full 6-year term and was elected for a second term, which she did not serve out due to becoming the Secretary of State. Her husband was a two-term President of the United States.

There is no way on this planet that she was not clearly aware of the archival requirements for her position as Secretary of State. There is also no way that she did not receive a crystal-clear briefing on the nature of this requirement as it applies to email communications. It's irrelevant if the poster's experience with weak technology in the State Department is accurate. If the Department of State of the United States has lousy IT capabilities, and if Mrs. Clinton's exclusive use of a personal email account to conduct State business is purely a consequence of that, it indicates that she's OK both with permitting the State Department to hobble along with crappy IT and that she was comfortable violating very clear rules of archival of official communications in order to be comfortable with the ease of use of her emails. And that's the most conceivably benign interpretation of the situation.

I cannot possibly imagine that she didn't have tech-savvy staffers, interns, ambassadors, consuls, and their staffs, who would indicate to her, if the IT capabilities of her department were poor, that this was the case and that they considered it a problem. I mean, this is the cabinet-level department responsible for the management of diplomatic communications with 174 countries around the world - 168 embassies and 6 consulates, 'interest sections' in other countries' embassies, and one quasi-embassy in Taiwan. Is this a Department that can afford to have crappy email and poor Internet capabilities? So somehow she opted for a personal email account, which we could almost guarantee was monitored by the NSA, and conducted State business on it?

That's really bad, on so many levels. If it was a Republican Secretary of State, every commentor here would be calling it both irresponsible, almost certainly for the purposes of concealment, and the fact that it broke a very, very clear rule of executive branch communications would not be ignored. I don't know if it was concealment, incompetence, or some mix of both, but it was pretty amazingly bad.

[frylock]

279. Trivial things, like circumventing FOIA requests.

[Calista241]

273. So she turned over 55,000 emails.

What if there are 60,000 relevant emails and she's sitting on 5000 of them for whatever reason? What if there are 75,000? Are we just supposed to take her at her word that all of it has been turned over?

I think Bush and Cheney have managed to withhold emails that could cast them in a negative light, or even expose them to some criminal investigation. What's to stop Repubs from thinking the same thing about Clinton?

[WashingtonConsensus]

69. 2013 - and michael schmidt forget to mention the rule didn't exist in 2013 in his NYT article

funny that

[840high]

81. ...^ that

[Aerows]

132. It drives me nuts.

I give up. I really do. You can't get people to see reason when the only thing they see is "my team" "your team".

No wonder our country is heading for the ditch.

[DebJ]

141. No Aerows. I have no firm feelings on Hillary myself. I am just asking for the specific

law that was broken during her tenure, and I'm not seeing that.

I want more facts to be in before jumping the gun.

[kairos12]

41. I always laugh at that story. Thanks.

[rickford66]

16. The Secret Service probably prevented her from driving. n/t

[Aerows]

30. Bullshit

She's so entrenched as a "somebody" that she doesn't feel the need to act like one of the little people.

You know, the King of Norway, Olav V was asked why he didn't have security personnel and why he could ride the bus. His answer was that he had enough security because every Norwegian was his security.

And he was right. They respected him, wanted to protect him because he was one of them.

You need bodyguards when you aren't one of "them".

[rickford66]

60. Name an ex-president or first lady that drives on public roads.

Until they relinquish their SS protection, they won't be allowed. The King of Norway lives in a civilized country not full of gun nuts willing to take out the president. I doubt he ever received a death threat. My sister who was visiting the Houston area a while back was in a drug store when two huge SUV's pulled up and out came a few men. One happened to be ex-president GHWB accompanied by burly SS agents. Why didn't he drive himself to the drugstore? I think you're full of BS.

[Aerows]

63. You are welcome

to your opinions.

[rickford66]

64. And you are welcome to your opinions which don't agree with facts. n/t

[Aerows]

70. I have

over a decade of experience to back up my facts on the laws regarding archiving email.

I can't believe I have to give a lesson, on DU of all places, that Democrats should obey the law just like Republicans should.

Seriously?

[rickford66]

83. You called BS on my post about HRC driving. I never commented about her emails.

Where did I mention her emails? You sure know how to change the subject. You're the one who needs a lesson on how to respond to a post. I demand an apology Sir.

[Aerows]

90. I'm in a thread about email

I'm discussing email. The driving thing was a non sequitur, I'll grant you.

Other than that, though, I'd like to bring your attention to the fact that this thread is about emails - it even has the term in the title!

If you would like an apology, here it is. I apologize for bringing a non sequitur into the thread, hope you have a nice day, and where ever you are, I hope it is warm and the birds are singing.

[rickford66]

96. Tweet tweet

[Aerows]

97. I hope

I made you smile !

[rickford66]

115. I'm streaming the Daily Show, so I am smiling.

[DebJ]

131. Aerows, where has anyone said that emails should not be, or were not, archived?

[A Simple Game]

105. Why didn't he drive himself?

Probably never got his license back after the last DWI.

Other than that there is no reason he couldn't have other than laziness.

Could you have picked a worse example? I doubt it.

President Obama may even start driving himself now that he signed an illegal executive order allowing undocumented aliens to get licenses. Yes this is snark.

[rickford66]

161. Read closely. GHWB. Not "W"

[A Simple Game]

165. Sorry my mistake. I would have been right though.

Then in this case he is just too frail and shouldn't be driving.

[rickford66]

172. The incident occurred in the mid 90's.

I think he was still pretty healthy back then. I obviously wouldn't have mentioned it if I thought he was frail. I do have some empathy even for Republicans.

[DebJ]

133. And so are all the elite whom we elect. No one is a Pope Francis. n/t

[dsc]

225. that is nothing short of assinine I would bet no King of Norway has been assassinated since Viking

times. Yet in the last 60 years one Democratic President and one Democratic candidate for President were assassinated and two Presidents had assassins attempt to kill them (Ford and Reagan) and two have had the White House attacked (Clinton by a plane and Obama by gun shots plus a man running in) To compare the King of Norway's security needs to the wife of a US President's is assinine.

[Autumn]

27. I understand her not driving herself for security reasons. But the e mail thing

bugs the hell out of me.

[Aerows]

32. It bugged the hell out of me

when Bush and Cheney did it, and I wrote to Senator Leahy about it. It bugs the hell out of me now when she does it.

[BubbaFett]

221. Well the driver has to take the Clinton family to play golf with the Bush family

Why should Hillary worry about such things?

[TreasonousBastard]

10. I have absolutely no reason to doubt this. It speaks...

so well to so many things.

There is also a Clark's Law which says that any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.

And a favorite Dumas quote...

"I prefer rogues to imbeciles, because rogues sometimes rest."

[karynnj]

11. Thank you for this inside opinion

My question is was there an improvement in the service that has led to John Kerry using the state email as one would have wanted.

[Proud Public Servant]

18. Yes, vast improvements started halfway through Clinton's tenure

We finally moved off Windows NT. We got Explorer 7! We also got the option of using Chrome, though not as a default browser. (Still no Firefox though). Inbox size restrictions were lifted (previously, email inboxes had been so small that a single deck of Pentagon PowerPoint slides could shut down the whole thing; try working on Afghanistan or Iraq under those conditions...). And email from outside addresses seems to go through the firewall much more quickly (email to/from my gmail account arrives almost instantaneously these days; 3-4 years ago, a 20-minute lag was routine, even for mail with no attachments).

All this phased in slowly starting around 2011, IIRC, so yes -- Kerry came in to a much better-equipped department than Hillary had.

[SunSeeker]

99. Thanks for the informative posts!

[KeepItReal]

12. That's definitely not an endorsement of their IT competence

Having a slow and/or unreliable email system at State is no excuse for going to an unsecured personal email option.

That's an Information Technology failing that is not to hard to fix. Hire experienced contractors if internal staff aren't up to snuff.

[riqster]

67. Speaking as an IT PM with four decades of experience, it is not as quick and easy as you suggest.

First, regulations have to allow it.

Second, funds have to be available.

Third, the existing environment must either support the change or be upgraded first.

Then architectural and security concerns must be addressed in the design phase.

Then you have to implement the solution. And keep it running and secure .999, 24/7/365.

For an enterprise-wide, international solution that carries information that frequently is top secret.

Even if Congress DID give them enough funding, that project would take years.

Meanwhile, work has to be done. So HRC used a then-legal workaround. Like anyone else would have done.

[KeepItReal]

168. We talking email. Email. Not an ERP suite nor building a new network.

It is not rocket science.

[riqster]

175. Rocket science, no. Simple? Also no.

Looking at the State Department FAQ, there are tens of thousands of workers at hundreds of locations around the world.
Each of these locations will have different infrastructure, laws, security concerns,and resources. An acceptable solution has to work for every person in every location. That in itself is a heavy lift, but we haven't even begun to dig.

Congress has cut funding for many years, so the department hasn't the budget for the lift.

Oh, and lots of these people travel, so the solution has to be mobile. Secure, fast, and mobile.

And the solution has to be compatible with all those different environments mentioned above. No enterprise IT solution is truly stand-alone.

Like I said, your idea that there is a quick and easy-peasy solution is not feasible in the real world.

[KeepItReal]

201. Never said "quick and easy-peasy".

If there is no funding for email system upgrades, this is a moot point - they are stuck with what they have.

Any executive would demand an email system capable of supporting mission critical work for their department and raise the issue with Congress if need be. It is a matter of national security for State to have secure communications.

It sounds like Sec. Clinton never used State's email system, whether it was capable or not.

[riqster]

210. Read the articles. They say:

She couldn't use it because it was unworkable. And that what she did was legal at the time she did it.

[KeepItReal]

216. Please cite the article you are referring to that says State email was unworkable

From the New York Times article:

Mr. Merrill, the spokesman for Mrs. Clinton, declined to detail why she had chosen to conduct State Department business from her personal account.

I would love to hear her justification.

[riqster]

219. I should have said "read the OP".

[Logical]

208. 40 years here also and much easier that you propose! nt

[riqster]

211. Really? Please explain.

Zee dinosaurs shall duel!

[All in it together]

285. But it was okay for Hillary to hire someone not vetted by State Dept. to set up and run her server?

I think that's highly questionable. She didn't turn over her emails until forced to, that's not following FOIA. (A law)

[alarimer]

20. Why is the federal government so bad at technology for its own offices?

Is it just the massive size or is it the requirements for confidentiality and secrecy? Or do they do it on purpose because they do not want the public finding out what they actually do? I'm suspicious of the incompetence; I think it's another way of evading accountability. I've worked for several states since the dawn of email and most of them have been miles ahead, it sounds like. Our operating systems here is Windows 7 (although it just got upgraded a few months ago).

[Proud Public Servant]

25. We're always told it's about security (nt)

[Recursion]

233. It's more about stability than security

(I work in IRM.) If you were at work over the past year or so you no doubt know that "security" isn't particularly great. What's more important is stability; many large organizations face the same challenges and come up with the same solution: strictly limit what technologies are allowed in the first place to prevent diversity on the network.

[Proud Public Servant]

237. Well-put (nt)

[jeff47]

43. For the same reason our military is much more heavily armed than our mall cops.

Your and my email accounts are potentially interesting for people who want to steal credit card numbers. They're the digital equivalent of street thugs. You don't need a whole lot of sophistication to deal with that.

Government email accounts are very interesting to other nations. Just like you can't resist an invasion with mall cops, you can't resist a cyber attack from another country with the resources available to private email services.

I'm very confident China and Russia were reading Clinton's email. Probably several other countries. Heck, they probably fought each other's spy tools within the mail servers.

[DebJ]

137. Perhaps the highly technically competent and science competent goons in Congress

have problems providing the finances and otherwise helping such a thing along. It defies their goal of proving the government is incompetent.

No profit in it, you know. Maybe computer IT service companies aren't doing enough bribing.

[treestar]

181. Money

Regular businesses have a financial motive for efficiency. Government bureaucracies have a motive to stay where they are so they don't have to ask for more funding, or they can ask but not get.

I remember an agency with manual typewriters back in the day when everyone in the private sector had electric ones. The government is always behind.

[Adrahil]

254. I'd say two things are at fault...

1) Congress. Quite often terrible contractors can be traced back to a Congressional deal. And they seem to think more rules are always better.

2) Contracts. The providers are usually contractors, and the solution is spelled out in contracts (see 1) and contractors will adhere to to the letter of contract. Their job is to make money, more than anything else.

[justiceischeap]

266. I'm a front-end web developer IRL

and a lot of corporations don't want to upgrade their OS if they don't have to (or can't because they won't upgrade their antiquated PC's).

How do I know this? Browser share numbers. There are still quite a few people using IE8 (and still a few using IE7) even though we're up to IE11 now. This includes schools, the government and corporations that can't or won't upgrade their equipment.

[chalmers]

21. Question

Did you post this from a State Department computer?

[Proud Public Servant]

22. Nope! LOL

[BlueMTexpat]

26. Thanks for your perspective.

Thanks also for your public service and for being proud of it!

I am a former DOSer myself (from awhile back) and appreciate what you all do very much!

[Skinner]

28. Good post.

Thanks for sharing.

[bullwinkle428]

36. Very interesting comments about her staff. I wonder how much of this explains

her campaign struggles in 2008.

[randome]

37. I'm sorry, I can't quite make heads or tails of your post without vitriol and doom and gloom.

Is it in English?
[hr][font color="blue"][center]You have to play the game to find out why you're playing the game. -Existenz[/center][/font][hr]

[AtheistCrusader]

39. Here's what I don't get.

Shouldn't SOMEONE else in government have replied to her with 'hey, you sent this from your personal e-mail'? You know, at SOME POINT?

I tell people that all the damn time at work. And if they flip me shit for pointing it out, I forward the e-mail and a link to the Sarbanes-Oxley statutes to their boss.

Like really? All the people she e-mailed in that span of time, and nobody pointed it out? Maybe these e-mails don't matter after all, and were of a personal nature?

[hrmjustin]

40. K&R!

[hunter]

42. If I was President or Secretary of State I wouldn't use email at all.

Call my staff on the phone or send them a handwritten note. They'll pass it on to me if it's important.

99% or more of email is crap. I loathe the email culture that has developed, and I think email (or worse, fax) technology ought to be put down with extreme prejudice.

[KingCharlemagne]

44. "State rank-and-file, who are overwhelmingly liberal Dems" - way off topic, but I

thought State was full of card-carrying Reds. Why, just 65 years ago, Senator Joe McCarthy said he had a list of 205 Commies who worked at State:

Speaking before the Ohio County Women’s Republican Club in Wheeling, West Virginia, Senator McCarthy waved before his audience a piece of paper. According to the only published newspaper account of the speech, McCarthy said that, “I have here in my hand a list of 205 [State Department employees] that were known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping the policy of the State Department.” In the next few weeks, the number fluctuated wildly, with McCarthy stating at various times that there were 57, or 81, or 10 communists in the Department of State. In fact, McCarthy never produced any solid evidence that there was even one communist in the State Department.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/mccarthy-says-communists-are-in-state-department (Emphasis added)

[Recursion]

262. State is full of liberal Democrats and Mormons

I've never quite understood that split, but it's noticeable.

[yallerdawg]

45. Things are not always what they appear to be.

"Hanlon's razor" absolutely explains everything happening in Washington, everything the government does! Except you use the forgiving term of 'incompetence!'

[greatlaurel]

47. Interesting that technology improvements were made under Clinton's tenure.

That fact will be ignored by the talking head ninnies.

I met some of Clinton's senate staffers in the 2008 campaign and they were all extremely nice to a bunch of rural rubes and sharp as tacks. It is too bad she did not take those folks with her.

[burfman]

48. Those that make the rules should follow them.....

Another person who wants to make the rules for everyone, except themselves.....Gee I can just imagine what would happen to the average person in government who flaunts the rules.....

[randome]

51. What rule would that be? She was under no obligation to use only public email.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]Everything is a satellite to some other thing.[/center][/font][hr]

[burfman]

59. It's perhaps a little like trusting Nixon to give us a complete transcript of his tapes....

FOIA

from: http://www.archives.gov/records-mgmt/bulletins/2013/2013-03.html

4. Can email messages be Federal records?
Yes, email messages created or received in the course of official business are Federal records if they meet the definition mentioned above, and agency employees must manage them accordingly. Under NARA’s current policy and regulations, defined in 36 CFR 1236.22(a), agencies must issue instructions to staff on the identification, management, retention, and disposition of email messages determined to be Federal records. Employees who create a significant amount of permanent email records should consult with their records officer to determine the most effective way to manage them, including using NARA’s recent “Capstone” guidance, NARA Bulletin 2013-02, entitled “Guidance on a New Approach to Managing Email Records.”

5. What are agencies’ and agency employees’ recordkeeping responsibilities when the use of personal email accounts is authorized?
While agency employees should not generally use personal email accounts to conduct official agency business, there may be times when agencies authorize the use of personal email accounts, such as in emergency situations when Federal accounts are not accessible or when an employee is initially contacted through a personal account. In these situations, agency employees must ensure that all Federal records sent or received on personal email systems are captured and managed in accordance with agency recordkeeping practices. Agency policies and procedures must also ensure compliance with other statutes and obligations, such as FOIA and discovery.

[randome]

68. There was another post about the term 'regular federal employee'.

And that Clinton was not part of that definition. She may not even be considered an employee at all, I don't know how that works in the upper levels of an Administration, especially at the Cabinet level.

At any rate, I don't particularly like Clinton but I don't think she is so utterly incompetent as to use a private email service without being aware of the consequences, both real and political.

So my guess it that she was exempt in some manner and that this story amounts to nothing.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Everything is a satellite to some other thing.[/center][/font][hr]

[Android3.14]

50. Bullshit

Total.
Bullshit.

If she is so incompetent she cannot forward her emails, she shouldn't run for President. If she is a Luddite, she shouldn't even hold a position in government.

[riversedge]

56. ...

Remain objective: @DavidCornDC … #p2 #UniteBlue

[Android3.14]

61. Unacceptable response

She needs to apologize, release the email correspondence and promise to follow the law.

This is especially egregious given the way we all came to her defense during the Benghazi crap.

She just sank her prospects as a Presidential candidate, which isn;t a bad thing at all.

[Bluenorthwest]

75. That response explains to you that she was following the law.

nt

[Android3.14]

85. Your response has no weight

Really? Your going to post a stupid FB meme to defend something like this?

Let me show you how it is done.

"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."

From the NYT

[KittyWampus]

92. they were preserved and handed over. 55,000 of them.

[riversedge]

124. The RW hate maching is having a hay day

Too bad so are some Democrats. Look, if she knowingly broke the law--I would not be pleased at all. But seems to me, there is too much of a gotcha mentality going around with All strips.

[Android3.14]

134. Humpty, meet Dumpty

There definitely is a "gotcha mentality" going around.

With good reason. She knowingly ignored the policy or she was so ignorant of the department she led or of modern technology in general that she is incompetent.

This oversight speaks directly to her trustworthiness, openness and ability to make decisions revolving around the simplest forms of technology.

Her critics (myself included) can point to this and say, "See what happened there? See it? Why would you support this person?"

[riversedge]

139. I try not to listen to fox news talking points.

[Android3.14]

145. Insults are a poor response to a real credibility issue

Thank you for playing.

[Android3.14]

125. We can hope.

Hillary would never ever withhold anything. Right?

[Agschmid]

176. How do you turn over 50,000+ emails if you didn't preserve them?

Just wondering...

[1StrongBlackMan]

228. And sinceshe'salready released the emails ...

all that is left of the demand is that she promise to follow the law. Her next opportunity will be at the swearing in ceremony (should see win the primary and general election).

[rickford66]

53. Some well know corporations doing DOD work have terrible IT systems.

On one job some important data was provided to me on YouTube of all places AND I was prevented from viewing YouTube due to security measures required by the customer that provided the data. The desktop PC provided didn't have some applications installed that were needed to access data and other vital information. I had to remotely log on to a manager's PC and use their desktop icons to access the applications. While two monitors are very productive for software development, the engineers were the last to get that innovation. The CEO of course had two large flat screen monitors to play solitaire. In some cases internal email took over an hour to be received. On one occasion I missed an important meeting because I didn't receive the meeting notice until 24 hours after the meeting. I showed them that it was sent to everyone at the same time. Accessing the company email from outside was so unreliable that nobody used it. I started having all my company email forwarded to my personal account. The phone system was a complicated mess and mine never worked properly and I had to use another engineer's phone for calls. When the engineers finally were given laptops to make on site trips more productive, they were of course hand-me-downs from the front office and close to being obsolete. Mine had a heavy external battery that didn't work but had to be connected for the AC to work. So I had to lug that brick around for a couple years. The list goes on. It's amazing that we accomplished as much as we did. I worked a several places in 35 years and the story was the same. The TV and magazine ADs would have you believe they were state of the art and behind the scenes not so.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

54. That's a scandal in itself.

More of the Republicans 'See, government doesn't work (because we refuse to give it the resources it needs)!'

[Sarcastica]

55. I don't mean to be dismissive or stereotype, but a person in their late 60's who isn't confident

with computers is not all that uncommon. I can easily see her getting an e-mail account. Getting used to it and not making a change thereafter.

Her failing to follow archiving protocol is a problem, and I hope that her staff has a handle on it.

I was hoping that we would not be spending the primary discussing Benghazi and the "scandal of the day".

[arcane1]

65. With all due respect, this post is hearsay. I could say I worked at State and you're wrong.

I think I'll wait and see how this develops instead. Nefarious or stupid or some other possibility.

[kwassa]

73. This post is direct testimony. Hearsay is if you report it to someone else.

and that person relies on your testimony about the facts.

[steve2470]

74. correct nt

[arcane1]

98. You're right. I meant to say there is no evidence in the OP to supports its claims.

[kwassa]

104. You either accept the OP's truthfulness or you don't.

He supported his claims with his personal experience working in the State Department.

If you choose to disbelieve that he works there and knows these things, that is your choice. I tend to believe him because I had a friend who worked in the White House and had similar things to say about the primitive quality of the email system there.

[arcane1]

110. I can neither believe nor disbelieve, that was my point. Not enough data to make that call.

[Lefta Dissenter]

244. I can add some real hearsay to his first-hand report

My son is in the State Department as well, and he's described the super-crappy technology. Email, access to records... it's all old-school and heaven forbid you need something on a holiday!

[Dreamer Tatum]

72. Tell me if you'd make the same points if she was a Republican.

I can help you with that: you wouldn't have, and that is how you know she did wrong.

[wyldwolf]

78. That would just make him a partisan, not dishonest

[Dreamer Tatum]

79. Actually there is a word that starts with H. nt

[wyldwolf]

86. well why not enlighten us?

[Dreamer Tatum]

89. When you profess to have values that you don't really have

that makes you a hypocrite.

So, unless the OP would make the same apologies for a GOP SoS (which, in fairness, he/she might, for all I know), this feels
hypocritical.

[wyldwolf]

91. He's not making an apology

he plainly said he's no fan of Hillary. Sometimes facts are just facts.

[Dreamer Tatum]

93. Then I will avidly wait for a similar defense of Bush/Cheney. nt

[wyldwolf]

94. Be my guest.

[treestar]

184. No, we wouldn't

We don't have to be fair to Republicans. We hate them.

There is no reason to trust them as much. We are Democrats, and Democrats are more trustworthy. I have no concern for fairness to Republicans.

[Dreamer Tatum]

207. I see. Ethics, rules, and laws are for the other guys to observe.

We get to do what we want. Because we're cool, and they're square.

[treestar]

222. No, we just think it less likely our side is not going to do the wrong thing

But your concern for fairness to Republicans is touching. I'm sure they are grateful and as we know, they are always fair to Democrats.

The issue is whether the ethics and rules are followed in a particular instance. It is Republicans who are more likely to violate them and then turn to accuse Democrats of doing exactly the same thing. Look at Newt and his cheating on his wife while making something of Clinton doing it. These are the people you want to make sure we treat with total fairness.

[LanternWaste]

205. It's fun to pretend we know what another person would say in another situation.

It's fun to pretend we know what another person would say in another situation. It's all pretense, intimation and low-grade prophecy (some of us seem to to that far more often than others, but still...), but it's still fun!

[Aerows]

77. Hillary is a lawyer

She knows the law. She knew exactly what she was doing when she evaded the archiving system.

This isn't some newfangled law that just came into being last week, it has been in place for 2 decades.

You know it, I know it, and Hillary knows it, as do her opponents. If you don't want to get tagged for breaking the law, an excellent place to start is not breaking it in the first place.

[840high]

88. ....

[arcane1]

101. Assuming, of course, that there is any truth to the OP in the first place n/t

[Proud Public Servant]

130. That's twice now that you've implied that I'm a liar

I'm curious to know why. I've been a member of this board for a little while, have referenced my working for State before, and have indicated repeatedly that I'm not a Hillary fan (let alone apologist). All of that is fairly easily to ascertain. I thought my experience would be interesting to others, and it seems to have been. Not sure what your problem is.

[arcane1]

142. I implied no such thing. I'm simply saying it's an anonymous post w/no evidence.

Your post may very well be 100% true, and I would happily accept that if it was. However, I don't take anyone's word for anything just because I agree with it.

I didn't mean to come off as insulting, I'm just adding the proverbial pinch of salt that I add to any claim. If I have no way of determining the truth of it, I cannot automatically believe it or disbelieve it.

I wasn't speaking of you personally, just the content of the post

[LanternWaste]

206. That's a creative allegation.

That's a creative allegation.

[Marr]

80. I don't think Hanlon's razor can be applied to people in positions like SoS.

At a certain point, I think we're justified in beginning with the assumption that a person isn't completely ignorant/incompetent. I mean, we're talking about a likely presidential candidate. Incompetence is just as bad as maliciousness.

[kwassa]

123. It can be applied to other people that work there.

The email system doesn't work properly. Hillary didn't create that.

[Marr]

136. You want to blame the people who work in IT at State

for Hillary Clinton's email practices-- which were illegal a decade ago when the Bush Administration did the same thing and we were all outraged about it?

Really now-- when the Bush team did this, didn't you think it was pretty obvious what their intentions were? If they'd claimed that they only did it because government email was too slow... would you have given that one second's consideration? I wouldn't. If you're that incompetent/ignorant, you should not have such a high level post.

[kwassa]

146. If IT can't provide a robust email systems to support the neccessities of the work ..

the work still needs to get done.

It isn't Hillary that is the incompetent in this case, necessarily.

[Marr]

163. Would you have so easily accepted this excuse from the Bush Administration? /nt

[kwassa]

194. Sure. I wasn't surprised by their email behavior.

What outraged me were the lies Dick Cheney told to get us into the Iraq war in the first place.

Archiving email is small potatoes.

[Fumesucker]

230. The questiion that comes to me though is were you outraged at Cheney's lies at the time?

Or did that outrage happen years later when the lies were exposed?

[kwassa]

232. I was outraged at the time. They were obvious.

I was really outraged by Colin Powell's selling out his credibility to these obvious lies. I have never had an ounce of respect for the man since.

Foreign policy was run by Cheney and Rumsfeld, not by Powell at State or by Condi Rice as National Security Adviser. Despite putting black faces in roles of importance, they were but sock puppets for old white men with serious issues.

[kwassa]

87. A friend who worked at the White House has similar tales.

Second half of Bill Clinton's administration. The White House email was terrible, she would receive email attachments she couldn't read because not all machines had the same versions of Word. To get anything fixed she had to be very, very nice to the tech support people, who were in no particular hurry to fix anything. She was amazed that the White House would be so far behind the general public in email capabilities.

[Marr]

138. That's not an email problem.

That's just people having different versions of Word.

[kwassa]

144. There were multiple problems. This was just one of them.

[herding cats]

95. Thanks, this is interesting.

I appreciate your posting this for the rest of us. I'm not surprised Hillary is bit of a luddite, or that the State Dept. is that far behind the times in tech.

[bemildred]

106. Gmail is likely more secure than government managed email anyway. nt

[SheilaT]

113. Thank you for this.

What little I know about the federal government and technology is that they are often years behind the times.

The Air Traffic Control System is a case in point. Back in about 1968 when they needed to install computers, some genius in the FAA said, "Lease computers? Are you nuts? We'll BUY the computers and then we'll own them!" Forty years later they were still working with those same computers, which desperately needed upgrading. Not sure how the problem was resolved, but it must have been. I do recall sitting on an airplane some time in the late '90s alongside a man who told me he was in IT and was working on those FAA computers.

In 1980 I had a student intern job with the Department of the Army, and one of the things I worked on was called The Machine Readable Project. Since Army installations around the world were in the process of being computerized, they were needed to draw up regulations about how to maintain or archive records, how long they should be kept, and so on. It started with sending out a survey to all of the installations everywhere asking them what was their current state of computerization, just to get a handle on things. I suspect it was a good ten years before the regulations got written and sent out. Which is one problem with any organization as huge as the federal government, just the sheer number of people doing vastly different things from one another, and the perceived need to have uniform standards everywhere.

I've also read over and over that technology has not penetrated most of the federal government, most notably the Supreme Court. I'm sure all the younger lawyers who clerk for them are quite tech savvy, but the Justices themselves not so much.

[elleng]

119. Thanks, and a very good one:

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.

(I'm not a Hillary fan, but facts is facts. I worked for Fed govt too.)

[calimary]

122. Interesting. VERY interesting. I didn't realize I had so much in common with Hillary Clinton.

I'm pretty much a Luddite, too. And even to this very day, I don't feel as though I have all my work tools available to me unless they're printed out and clipped together in packets - that I can just LAY MY HANDS ON whenever I need to. Those organized packets are there whether there's a power failure or not, whether there's a bad signal or not, whether the internet is down or not. I can still get some work done.

I don't keep an online or iPhone calendar or any of that stuff. I have a date book for the year. And I write my schedule items on the pages with a pen. And I can carry it in my purse and get it out and refer to it and get my reminders from it - wherever. Whether there's a good internet signal or not.

I, too, can understand why she would have stuck with a system she already knew, and already knew worked. That's totally ME as well! TOTALLY me! And I'd bet she never wanted to have to take much time to learn or be shown whatever system it was. She probably had WAY too much else to do that was equally time-sensitive and strategic and critical, if not moreso. And one other note here - sometimes with people like me (don't want to speak for Hillary, but this is definitely ME), the very idea of "showing how it works," or "showing what to do or how to operate it" is going to take DAYS. And I have to make notes. ON A PAPER NOTEBOOK, WITH A PEN (or pencil). If I can't make notes, I'm less likely to remember what was just shown to me or described to me.

My husband finds me frustrating to try to help in this regard. He's a genius. I'm an idiot. And he'll say - "just watch. Just WATCH what I'm doing. You'll get it. JUST WATCH. Don't write anything down. JUST WATCH!" And then I don't know what to do! WHAT am I supposed to watch? The screen? Your hand? The keyboard? I can't see what keys you're hitting 'cuz the top of your hand's in the way anyway. Am I supposed to follow the cursor? WHAT DO I WATCH?

And as you can imagine, it just deteriorates from there. Sometimes someone will comment to me - "hey, I can't believe you don't understand - this is so simple a child can do it!" My response is - "well, then, okay. Go get a child in here to work it for me!"

Oddly enough, this actually makes me like Hillary Clinton MORE. I can appreciate her more. And maybe I "get" her a little more, too.

[greatlaurel]

171. Great post, good insights. nt

[Pacifist Patriot]

196. I'm not exactly a Luddite, but I am extremely slow to adapt to technological changes.

Programming changes to the interface of programs or sites I've used for years can send me into a tailspin. A recent "upgrade" at iTunes just about sent me into an apoplectic fit. I still use MS Money for my home finances and I hear that was discontinued years ago. Frustrates my husband that he bought me bluetooth headphones for Christmas and it's March and I haven't installed the app on my phone. I just don't see why I need my texts and emails to talk to me.

I can TOTALLY see why a woman in a position like that would not have the time or the inclination to learn something new when processes in place feel like they do the job perfectly fine.

Feels like much ado about nothing to me.

[hugo_from_TN]

247. She was the one in charge! The big boss! Fix it.

Good lord. That sort of incompetence would get you booted from most mid-level corporate jobs.

[calimary]

260. With all due respect - I am not seeking a mid-level corporate job.

I know my limits. I'd rather do what I'm good at and confine it to that. I wouldn't go for such a job knowing it demanded technical skills or savvy in those things - which I freely admit - are WAY beyond me. WAY above my pay grade.

I left my last full-time news job just as they were starting to switch over to digital editing - for soundbites, interviews, actualities of all kinds to feed out to the member stations every hour. We all started learning the "wave file" system. I was very skilled in tape editing - with reel-to-reel tape, single-edge razor blade and splicing block. That's how we did it. That's the way it was done, across the industry. We were all instructed that, once you engaged the satellite, and started your feed from wherever you were (for me, in the L.A. bureau), then you go out and get yourself a cup of coffee while the feed is uploading or uplinking or whatever the term was. Because it was going to take that long. I had an assistant managing editor advise me to do that. It was hard. It was complicated. It was another layer of expertise that I had to try to adopt, and adapt to. And I tried. It was part of my job.

I will tell you this - when the way suddenly opened up for me to take early retirement (and with VERY young children at home, I didn't want to be away from home for most of the day/evening to do a job when I felt I should be closer to those little ones at that critical time), I grabbed it. And as I was leaving, on that last day, the first thing on my mind was relief - that I was leaving at THAT time. So I was not going to have to wrangle with all that new technology - when what I was good at was WRITING. And GOING ON THE AIR AND COMMUNICATING. Not fiddling with buttons and switches and inputs and wires and stuff. I'm simply not a techie.

When I started as a news reporter, you couldn't touch the equipment. You literally got your hand slapped, or physically pushed away. There were union members who did that. Union engineers and tape editors and board operators. They were the specialists in that, for which I admired and respected them. Because. THAT. IS. NOT. ME! That is NOT my skills set. I was very happy to confine myself to what I WAS good at, and leave the button-pushing and the wire-twisting and the installations and mechanics to someone who knew what they were doing.

As unions were done away with in my industry, it fell to us on the air-talent side to take up that job as well as the one we were good at. I had multiple calamities. I was a problem for some of my supervisors - I had to have them find me a different tape recorder to take into the field because I couldn't figure out or deal with the one they issued all the reporters - with 132 knobs and buttons on it that I could never keep straight. I could go pushing myself through a crazy, angry, partying-too-hard crowd in pursuit of an interview subject or to get to where the story was happening, and I'd inadvertently knock some of those buttons out of position and I'd wind up with NOTHING recorded when I got back to the bureau. They had to get me a "dumb-guy" recorder. I remember air checks I tried to record on "designated news days" when everybody in the market submits their work from the same day for awards. I'd have a stack of carts with different taped soundbites on them, to insert into my newscast at various places, in various stories therein. And in trying to load one, live, with the mic open, I knocked the whole pile over and the clattering went out over the air, all over the control board, my script, everything. When I had an engineer handling that part, such idiocy never happened. Shit like that happened to me a lot. I'm not a techie. And I would never claim to be one. Besides, the engineers were there and I also felt strongly that somebody like me shouldn't be asked to take a job from somebody like one of them. Especially since I was so lousy at it!!! I did writing and voicing and reporting. I did that very well. I kept getting hired for greater and more heavy-weight jobs because I was good at it. But have me try to engineer something and I might as well have been a cow brought in from the pasture before milking time.

So you play to, and MAKE USE OF, your strengths. I never claimed to be a technical expert. I wouldn't DARE! SO I'm never gonna be booted from most mid-level corporate jobs. Because I'm never gonna get one, or go after one, or try to get hired into one. I know better. And if anyone ever wanted to hire me for such a thing - they'd have to hire me a techie, too.

And I would think one would have hired or appointed someone at Hillary Clinton's level for her brains, her negotiating skills, her communication skills, and all that - and NOT whatever technical expertise or lack thereof would have come with the job.

[riversedge]

127. Well, I am glad that the bid Speech is also going on to take...

the edge off this but I am sure it will hang on and on and on....Benghazi light with the RW right now!

[Kablooie]

140. Very useful information. As long as the gov archived her emails this shouldn't be much of a problem.

[juajen]

143. Thanks for that internal view.

They will attept to crucifiy her. I hope they fail. She works incredibly hard at anything she undertakes.

[leveymg]

148. Relevance? Reportedly, she never used the approved email system, not just on trips or remotely.

This wasn't just because remote access is cumbersome. NYT:http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/03/us/politics/hillary-clintons-use-of-private-email-at-state-department-raises-flags.html

WASHINGTON — 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.

[Proud Public Servant]

156. I was explaining why

she might have opted to not use the State system. I was careful to say that it didn't excuse anything.

[riversedge]

149. Republican Select committee on Bengazi just announced hearings on this issue..

oh crap!!

[guillaumeb]

157. since the GOP is not interested in actual governance

Benghazi is the perfect distraction on the 3 days a week that they show up for "work".

[guillaumeb]

153. I also worked for the Federal Government for 37 years.

Many managers both young and old were totally clueless about the technology. Our email system was notoriously slow. I suppose that by saying this I am a Hillary apologist but in the rush to condemn someone it might be good to slow down and wait for actual facts before assembling the firing squad.

[kwassa]

195. thanks for contributing your personal experience in this area.

[Hekate]

159. Thank you very much for this, PPS. KnR

[Sheelanagig]

160. She knew enough to register - or have registered - her own personal email domain so

I do conclude from that that she deliberately avoided using the State Dept. email system.

[1StrongBlackMan]

162. Amazing how quickly/will ...

the (presumed) Democrats of DU are so willing to climb aboard this latest, nakedly transparent, Bengzi!!!! revival.

Perhaps a name-check and 90 day post cross reference would explain why.

[freshwest]

272. In case you haven't seen my newest pic:

Expect a new one everyday at DU, even without an expiration date. I saw a post yesterday that went after her for something that happened when Bill was in office, and another one about him.

The reichwing can recycle this material endlessly. But I no longer reply to that nonsense:

[nolabear]

164. Thanks for a thoughtful, non-reactionary post.

If only this was the first, rather than the last place people went to begin a conversation.

[tclambert]

166. If for nothing else, thank you for introducing me to Hanlon's Razor.

Looking that up led to Hume's Razor, Hitchens' Razor, Russell's Teapot, and Newton's Flaming Laser Sword. I feel so much smarter now--which is probably the Dunning-Kruger Effect at work (something else I learned on DU).

[Cryptoad]

170. Oh the Horror of it,,,,,,,,,

what a Papa Paul Whore to do?

[DeSwiss]

173. I thought she was with the group bringing: ''Change We Can Believe In?''

- Or was that just for the other guy to bring??? These ''Change Potlatches'' are so hard to plan for. You never know what to bring.....

[center]Neill calls BULLSHIT!

[/center]

[treestar]

177. K&R

The tech stuff is really getting absurd - we spend so much time on it and so little on substance.

[benld74]

187. Beware your postings on a political commentary site PPS

[daredtowork]

190. Having attempted to work with Department of Rehabilitation computers

which are incredibly slow and protect clients FROM applying from jobs on most employment web sites, I can see how what you say is true.

However, certain levels of government should be considered "mission critical". And when they discover IT still sucks at THEIR level, it is time to kick some IT department ass into gear and say it is their top priority to make sure that communications between personnel HUM as well as being secure. With all their security clearances, this IT department is being paid a fortune plus pensions. They can put some elbow grease into EMAIL.

Need an employment program? Looks like we could use more kids doing software updates for staff down the line...

[KamaAina]

197. So what's Jeb's excuse?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026304079

[Blue_Tires]

198. I just have one question:

Can you please please please please please please please please PLEASE get me into State?

[TwilightGardener]

200. Sorry, I don't see how any of your "state dept. email sucks" gripes have a bearing

on the fact that she basically built her own email system and never even attempted to build or use a government account. What do we know about the security of her special private system? Was there any oversight of the number and type/classification of messages sent and received? There are a lot of questions to be answered. One could forgive SOME messages sent out on personal emails, out of convenience or frustration--but evading the entire (properly archived) .gov system entirely for one's own exclusive email kingdom, for use only by her and staffers and not the rest of the State Dept., seems very weird.

[JDPriestly]

202. Thanks. I think this is a bogus issue, but one the Republicans will use to defeat her bid

for the presidency.

She is a good person, but she shouldn't run.

[Agnosticsherbet]

203. Daily Beast proves story is not accutrate.

DU thread

http://www.democraticunderground.com/11071930#post1

Link to the Daily Beast

Well, this might be the explanation: The new regs apparently weren’t fully implemented by State until a year and half after Clinton left State. Here’s the timeline: Clinton left the State Department on February 1, 2013. Back in 2011, President Obama had signed a memorandum directing the update of federal records management. But the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) didn’t issue the relevant guidance, declaring that email records of senior government officials are permanent federal records, until August 2013. Then, in September 2013, NARA issued guidance on personal email use.

[greatlaurel]

213. Thanks for the links. Very interesting information.

Well done. Figured it was something like that. Baloney thrown out to try to distract from the epic GOP failures from CPAC, Bibi and now the cave on funding DHS by Boehner.

[wyldwolf]

209. Michael Tomasky reminds us of the NY Times' poor record on facts

this seems like a good time to remember another pattern of behavior: namely, that of the Times. I remember clear as a bell reading that initial Jeff Gerth story on Whitewater back in March 1992. It seemed devastating. It took many millions of dollars and many years and many phony allegations before important parts of Gerth’s reporting were debunked. But they were. The Clintons did nothing wrong on Whitewater except to be naïve enough to let themselves by chiseled by Jim McDougal.

If they had done something wrong, with all the prosecutorial firepower thrown at them by a prosecutor (Ken Starr) who clearly hated them, don’t you think they’d have been indicted? Of course they would have been. But Starr couldn’t turn anything up on Whitewater and was about to close down his investigation empty-handed until he got wind of a gal named Monica.

So that’s a pattern too. The Times, for those with short memories, has never loved the Clintons. Remember Howell Raines and his ceaseless, thundering editorials against them. And today, it smells like the Times may have been rolled by the Republican staff of the Benghazi panel. And hey, great work by them and Chairman Trey Gowdy to use the nation’s leading liberal newspaper in this way.

Clinton still has some questions to answer, two that I can think of: Why did she not take a state.gov address? And is the Times accurate in writing that “her aides took no actions to have her personal emails preserved on department servers at the time, as required by the Federal Records Act”? If she can’t put forward persuasive answers to these two questions, then there may still be something here.

But the Times has some questions to answer to: Did you know that the new regs went into effect after Clinton left office? And if you didn’t, why not? And if you did, why did you leave that fact out of the story? One can imagine Clinton coming up with decent answers to her questions, but it’s kind of hard to see how the Times can.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/03/03/hillary-email-scandal-not-so-fast.html

[greatlaurel]

214. Thanks for the information. Very good post.

This is sure sinking fast. Another right wing smear attack failure.

[cui bono]

212. So the excuse is incompetence and ignorance?

That doesn't make me feel any better.

[I hate liars]

215. Does no one in the media remember what happened in 2007?

Hillary is a piker compared to Rove and others in the Bush Jr whitehouse who funneled millions of emails illegally through an RNC-hosted server in 2007.

From Wikipedia: "Congressional requests for administration documents while investigating the dismissals of the U.S. attorneys required the Bush administration to reveal that not all internal White House emails were available, because they were sent via a non-government domain hosted on an email server not controlled by the federal government. Conducting governmental business in this manner is a possible violation of the Presidential Records Act of 1978, and the Hatch Act.[1] Over 5 million emails may have been lost or deleted."

I'm no fan of Hillary, and I understand that what happened under Bush Jr doesn't justify any violation of statutes she might have committed, but before the outrage machine shifts into an even higher gear, it might help to remind our short attention span country that many of the same people outraged by Hillary's actions were neck-deep in a much more serious abuse, back then.

[calimary]

224. Welcome to DU, I hate liars!

Good to have you with us! GREAT point you make here. Let's remember what the bad guys perpetrated that nobody seemed to care about. Let's remember. Hillary, say what you will about her, but she is in NO way as bad as the alternative. And nothing she's ever done could possibly be as bad as the bad guys already have (and somehow got away with).

[pansypoo53219]

218. typikal govurnmnt prokurmint.

[Rex]

223. So there is no IT team for the SOS? How pathetic.

Does the POTUS have his own IT team?

[spanone]

231. k&r...

[ARMYofONE]

240. Except the Clintons are not incompetent when it comes to knowing what the FOIA demands and they hate

having to follow it. This is well documented. So, on balance, I would conclude that FOIA concerns were at least part of the reason why Hillary chose to never use a .gov email. Like 'em or not, there's no denying the Clintons are willing to get in the mud when it suits their ambitions.

[MadDAsHell]

245. If this is all true, what exactly did Hillary's State Department...

Or any State Department for that matter, do with that nearly $60B in taxpayer money every year?

[Proud Public Servant]

253. Lots

We pay our ~50k employees. We staff 180+ embassies and consolutes worldwide. We house the Americans working at those embassies. We run myriad diplomatic programs. In a post-9/11 world, we pay more and more for security. And we do it all with a tiny percentage of the federal budget. And, as I say somewhere above, we also got improved tech eventually. Believe me, State's a bargain.

[MadDAsHell]

267. You could pay all 50,000 employees $120k and that still leaves $54B...

$54 billion for 180 outposts?

I'm just saying the math doesn't work, especially when they're skimping on something like a browser upgrade. Someone's making out like a bandit at our expense.

[hugo_from_TN]

246. Seems like if you were in charge of State you would have busted butt for 4 years fixing that.

[Lars39]

248. This!

I can understand doing a work-around while the problem was addressed and fixed, but there didn't even seem to be an attempt to address the problem.

[Proud Public Servant]

259. So, two points:

First, as I mention somewhere above, things actually did get a lot better for average users starting in about 2011. I credit Clinton and her team for that. And I'm not surprised it took two years; changing anything, in any federal bureaucracy, seems to take forever.

But second -- and this is a pet peeve of mine -- the fact is that with a couple of exceptions (who I'm sorry to say were Republican), our Secretaries of State come to the job with little or no managerial experience, no experience heading up large organizations, and little interest in that part of the job; the actual management of the State Department is typically what they do least, and least well. So it's no surprise Hillary didn't "bust her butt" fixing a managerial issue -- she was actually more attentive to those issues than either her predecessor or her successor, though that's not saying much -- and I'm grateful it got the attention it did

[stonecutter357]

249. .

[LWolf]

255. Are you telling me that

the State Dept. is FURTHER behind with digital technology than public schools? That State email is somehow more archaic and inefficient than my District email?

I somehow manage to use my District email onsite and remotely. Maybe inefficiencies just don't matter because I'm not as important as the SOS, but still...

[Recursion]

263. Absolutely

It's improved in the past few years, but State still has an institutional mindset against email in the first place. They used demarches and cables for decades, and are hesitant to change that.

[LWolf]

264. Considering the

under-funded, under-resourced, under-staffed, and under-supported state of public education, that's truly scary.

[Recursion]

265. The problem is inertia and bureaucracy

It takes about a decade to get software approved because everybody and his dog has to sign off on it.

Like I mentioned upthread it's a problem almost any large enough organization faces, but State in particular has an extra helping of Luddites at senior levels.

[randr]

257. It is incredulous to think that she does not have tech support

I would hope really good tech support. If not she is not qualified for her position imo.

[mackerel]

258. "State is famously behind the times when it comes to digital technology."

Talk about it! And it's not just the state department! Most of the Fed agencies suck in that regard. I work with the SSA and they're just as bad or worse!

[NSAserver]

268. retrieving data

.....slurp......

data retrieved.

[uppityperson]

269. The first time it was funny, the second not so much. Third time? Bordering on spam.

Welcome to DU and be aware we don't like this processed lunch meat.

[GP6971]

270. No charm for the third time

[KMOD]

271. It was me. My apologies.

I'll stop with the "bologna" now.

I probably would be better served spending my time in Hillary's server room anyway.

Someone needs to delete all the files related to Benghazi, Vince Foster, Lewinsky, etc.

just for the above two lines. The first two lines are sincere.

[Jackie Wilson Said]

276. I am curious why you call her staff demon spawns from hell, yet you say the Secty was lovely.

What about her staff was so bad, examples?

I am not doubting you, I am curious.

[COLGATE4]

281. Excellent post! Thank you.

Makes the whole non-issue crystal clear, particularly as to the "indictnent forthcoming momentarily" crowd and/or those who accuse her of all types of nefarious or outright criminal behavior. While I doubt that facts like those you provide will do much to sway the "I hate Hillary" crowd they should go a long way towards providing reasonable answers to those with legitimate questions.

[matt819]

283. That's all fine, but

I started working for the USG when you needed permission to send a fax. I left some years later in the early days of email.

This issue, however, is not about obsolete technology or being a Luddite or having your emails printed out. The fact is that she mishandled classified information. Sure, in my day there was a tendency to classify damn near everything. So, yes, some classified information is probably not all that classified. But rules is rules, because when you're addressing policy matters or sources and methods issues, not paying attention to classification can in fact be very damaging. Had I done that, I would have been fired. Several former USG employees are now serving time for mishandling classified information.

And, think about it. She was the fucking Secretary of State. There were ways to have handled this and still satisfy security concerns. As captain Picard said on Star Trek: the next generation, make it so, number one. That's all it would've taken. Instead, she had some tech guy set up a server in her house. Does that sound like sound judgment to you? Did anyone have the balls to stand up to her and say, Madame Secretary, there may be a better way to do this? Or did she simply surround herself by people who would automatically say yes, Madame Secretary. That's not the kind of President I want.

More than anything, at this point, is that it simply taking the FBI too long to come up with its findings. And I can't help but wonder about the extent to which that is some sort of political game playing.

[Proud Public Servant]

287. Agree, but...

This issue, however, is not about obsolete technology or being a Luddite or having your emails printed out. The fact is that she mishandled classified information. Sure, in my day there was a tendency to classify damn near everything. So, yes, some classified information is probably not all that classified. But rules is rules, because when you're addressing policy matters or sources and methods issues, not paying attention to classification can in fact be very damaging.

I agree, with the caveat that her defense has been that she didn't know the information was classified. It sounds like you've worked with classified info (as have I), so you know the drill - some lunkhead summarizes classified findings, sends it to you on unclassified email, and bam: you've got classified data on your unclassified drive, and don't know it (especially since tons of data is over-classified, as you rightly note. I once saw the military classify a summary of a New York Times article -- no commentary, no analysis, just "here's what was in the newspaper" and it gets classified). If that's her story and it's true, then go after the idiots who sent the email. If she's blowing smoke, go get her.

[Hoyt]

284. Yeah, well I work for USA Security and we have bunch of prosecutors trying to find some law Clinton

supposedly violated. Not having any luck, but GOPers and Sanders' supporters keep telling us that she needs to be imprisoned.

[Gothmog]

286. Thank you for a very informative post