Media Adopt Double-Standard With Demands For Independent Review Of Clinton Email

[LiberalFighter]

Media Matters for America

Even If Clinton Had Used A Government Account, Like All State Employees She Would Have Chosen Which Email Messages To Preserve

State Department Regulations: Employees "Must Decide Whether A Particular Message Is Appropriate For Preservation." According to the U.S. Department of State's official guidance for "e-mail communications," the specific creators and recipients of electronic correspondence "must decide whether a particular message is appropriate for preservation." The guidelines specifically note that the State Department does not intend to preserve "every e-mail message" sent or received by employees:

The intention of this guidance is not to require the preservation of every E-mail message. Its purpose is to direct the preservation of those messages that contain information that is necessary to ensure that departmental policies, programs, and activities are adequately documented. E-mail message creators and recipients must decide whether a particular message is appropriate for preservation. In making these decisions, all personnel should exercise the same judgment they use when determining whether to retain and file paper records. [U.S. Department of State, Foreign Affairs Manual, accessed 3/11/15]

All State Department Employees Choose Which Emails to Preserve

[2naSalit]

1. And furthermore...

All federal employees who have .gov email addresses are frequently advised to delete all emails that are not pertinent to the the job. In other words, if it's a personal email, you are expected to delete it and not leave it on the server. there are many agency-wide emails that go out to all users on a daily basis and I find that I end up deleting a good ten to twenty of them a day. there is a two hour training session I have to complete every year regarding this and a few other security concerns regarding email on the .gov account.

HRC might have had a little different situation because of the level of security in her position but I am certain that there is no there there with this latest gotcha campaign but then again, classified information and conversations do not normally take place online.

So, should we remove her brain so it can be scanned and reinterpreted for inquiring minds? I think not.

[LiberalFighter]

2. Classified information is something that the media is clueless about.

They seem to think that everything is done by email. And that she personally handles all email transmissions. If that were the case why would she need an administrative assistant, secretary(ies), or any other staff.

It is good to know from the perspective of another government employee what is expected of them.

[marshall]

3. Does the government not routinely back up is servers?

i assume that any email I send through my state government email is held on a server that is periodically backed up, and that even if I delete it from my queue and folders, it is still in one or multiple past backups. The only real way I can prevent that is to route it through another private email.

[LiberalFighter]

4. It depends on the policy they have apparently.

They might only have a 6 month retention policy. Or other period of time.

According to one resource finding the digital trail through servers is not easy. But, that doesn't mean there aren't other locations that it could be found. And it popping up later unexpectedly. People that think that only they have the email they sent are crazy. They forget the recipient also has it if they didn't delete it.

[pnwmom]

5. Yes, you could prevent it by routing it through another private email.

And the government expects its employees to decide which emails should be routed through the .gov accounts and which go into their private email.

So Hillary could have routed any number of work-related emails through her private account, and no one would know or care as long as she mostly used her .gov account. Right?

Wrong. Hillary would have been attacked by some no matter what she did.

[marshall]

6. I do think more attention should be paid by those who receive the emails

And that is what makes this a tempest in a teapot. The reason one used a .gov email address, among other things, is to signal to those who get your email that this is an official communication from someone in authority in the government. I don't know if Hillary is the only person at this high of a federal government level to not use a .gov email address, but presumably she is one of the very few--and why didn't somebody question this before now if it is that big of a misstep?

I know part of it is that she was already well known, so nobody probably questioned her credentials. But anybody could have manufactured a domain with some form of her name in it and started sending out emails claiming to be her. The only way one would have known for sure that it was from her would be if it was from a .state.gov email address. But nobody ever seems to have expected that until now.

[pnwmom]

7. It's just my opinion, but I bet it was common for Congresspeople to use

private accounts, as well as Cabinet members. It appears to be well known that the government system was clunky.

[2naSalit]

8. It would appear that

many officials at all levels have done and probably still do this. Didn't someone ask Gowdy-Doody if he does this and he refused to answer? Maybe there should be inquiry into all of the .gov users in DC, especially elected and appointed officials to see about that.

I highly suspect that the truth of the matter is that a vast majority of the groups mentioned above do use both types of accounts and that it was never a problem until someone decided to use HRC as a token scapegoat.