Here's what you need to know about the 7 Clinton emails ...

Last edited Fri Jan 29, 2016, 11:53 PM - Edit history (1)

...which the State Department is withholding due to classification issues.

1) There was no government rule which prevented Hillary from setting up and using a private email server to handle her government emails.

2) Other State Departments heads including Colon Powell used the exact same set up. I don't hear the Republicans complaining about him.

3) Hillary's server was used to send and receive messages to and from other government employees in the State Department and for her personal email traffic as well.

4) Any official State Department emails set to or received from Hillary's server were also maintained the State Department's government servers - therefore there is a government record of each and every one.

5) Investigations determined that Hillary's server had the exact same security protections required on all State Department government servers.

6) Investigation have also concluded that that there was no security breaches of Hillary's server - yes IT security experts can determine if such a breach occurred.

7) Because an email server is most vulnerable to security breaches cause by user error - such as opening a document on a fake email which releases a virus which allows 0the server to be hacked - the less people having access to a server, the more secure it is. So Hillary's server was probably more secure than the State Department's email machines. (Note: There have been several reports of government servers being hacked and very sensitive data being lost. This did not happen on Hillary's server.)

7) The 7 emails in question were not classified when they were sent and received.

8) The State Department is not withholding the 7 emails because they believe they that the emails should be classified; it is another government agency that is claiming that they should be classified. It is a well known fact that there is a propensity in many government agencies to over classify data - often because the information in question may make the the agency look bad if it was ever publicized. It is their way of making sure that the public never knows that they screwed up. I am not saying that is what is going on here, but I certainly wouldn't be surprised me if it were the case because that is often a prime reason why different agencies disagree on information classification.

9) The State Department is not saying that they will never distribute the emails. They are saying that they are withholding them for now until they can do their own investigation as to whether the emails should be classified.

Bottom line: The entire affair was totally blown totally out of proportion by Republican seeking political advantage. If Democrats are repeating Republicans talking points on this issue, they should be ashamed of themselves.

And yes, I am an IT professional who knows what he is talking about when it comes to cyber security.