to be thrown in jail. Like arguing with a brick wall.

governing secure handling of communications and a COMPLETE VIOLATION OF FOIA! Every government employee MUST conduct under a .gov email for public transparency. Problem was Hillary was too busy "working" her Foundation contacts, political supporters and corporate marketing like pushing Fracking on foreign countries like Khazakstan etc.. and did not want anyone to know about it. Using her SOS position to do favors for various supporters perhaps? That is what the major issues under investigation entail. If there is still JUSTICE for ALL then there will be some accountability held to her and punition dispensed.

I am sure after they read your post they will drop the investigation immediately.

v

With state department being run out of Hillary basement? I don't think you understand how Hillary's email was set up. This is not like Hillary using her gmail or hotmail account to periodically sent work related emails. She exclusively used an email system outside the purview of the state department and public eye.

BTW when Hillary says personal she means her political and Clinton foundation emails. Just because she combines all these things into one thing (building of power and personal wealth) doesn't we should accept conflict of interest from our public servants.

... personal and private. It would be interesting to see if he made any mistakes. After all, the VA scandal in which 40 people died occurred under his watch (something the Republicans are sure to bring up), and it would be worth finding out what warnings he may have received. We have no idea how others use their email. If Hillary had used a .gov email, we would have no idea if she abused her email privileges, now would we?

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/02/05/the-veterans-scandal-on-bernie-sanders-s-watch.html

Your point makes no sense. Guess what? I don't send personal emails using my work email because my employer will have access to it then. Clinton is solely to blame for this.

How do we know that he didn't use his personal email for official business or his official email for campaign business or send out confidential information on one of the accounts? Those questions which are being raised about Hillary have nothing to do with her email server. Those questions could be raised regardless of the kind of email she used.

to turn her emails over to the state department as they are government property.
Members of congress aren't subject to FOIA.

They are being made public because of a FOIA suit.

When Bernie releases all his emails, then she will then ask for all the Republicans to release their emails.

Many of your points should be considered common sense; it's a shame politics doesn't allow for that, only double-standards need apply.

and common sense would have kept HRC out of this mess.

The FBI isn't doing an investigation because of politics and the IC IG isn't lying about what he found.

1.) No other cabinet-level government official has EVER used a private, insecure email server. Never. Yes, some have used personal email accounts, but never a private email server. There is no precedent for what Hillary Clinton has done. And if you actually think this is ok, then you have another thing coming.

2.) Why are they upset that Hillary used a private email server, you ask? Because the Russians and the Chinese are regularly trying to break into government email. There are threats and attempts all of the time. This is why Clinton couldn't have her Blackberry in some of the areas in which she worked. It's prohibited because it's not secure. There are rules for how you can send classified information; even worker bees with low-level government jobs. Setting up a private server that was insecure and vulnerable--when you're talking about classified and top secret information--is a huge no-no.

I read through the rest of your points, and I don't think you have a very clear understanding of the situation and what is at stake here. I am still learning, but you are worse off than I am. I suggest that you do some reading and educate yourself.

There are almost 200 FBI agents working on this case. This is not nothing.

Are you aware that Hillary was told to hand over all emails? There were 30,000 that she deleted and did not hand over. However, the government has recovered them. And did you know that a hacker named Gussifer hacked into Sydney Blumenthal's emails? When he hacked in he unearthed emails between Hillary and SB. It was discovered that Clinton did not turn over these emails that were from SB. Blumenthal was ordered to turn over all of his email between he and Hillary--and he also included an "inbox print out" of all of those emails. Blumenthal's print out, as well as the emails he turned over--make it clear that Clinton did not turn over everything as she should. She deleted those emails. Those were not personal emails. They were emails about Libya.

That's certainly not legal.

And on and on. Again, I am just learning---but you seem to have very little grasp of the situation. If you don't understand the difference between Colin Powell sending email once or twice through a Gmail account and Hillary hosting all of her State Dept emails on a personal, private, insecure, vulnerable server that was in her home--that even the President didn't know about--then...wow.

It's very succinct and cuts to the core of Clinton's problem.

Is an example to everyone on this site.

We ALL will be explaining this issue to far too many people who will poo poo it.

It is an issue any other candidate would have dropped out of the race because of the the seriousness surrounding it.

It will haunt her now, and if she is elected, it will dominate her Presidemcy. With the mindeset of the present day GOP: I see impeachment and endless investigations.

I want a President unimpaired by scandal: one of the reasons, many reasons I voted for Bernie Sanders.

(1) She was told not to use the blackberry. She agreed not to, then she did. It was tethered to her private server which went for quite some time without proper security.

(2) Well if she had followed protocol, no it would not have happened. If you're referring only to mishandling of classified info, there is the email where she instructed her staff to remove the markings and make the info nonpaper when they could not get a functional secure fax.

(3) It's not just that she used a private email server. Sheesh

(4) Um, did you mean to leave this? I started replying to these, but wow now I'm wishing I hadn't.

(5) Wow. Guess you proved it's just a big old right-wing conspiracy with that one.

(6) 1984 newspeak much?

(7) I don't think you're correct on this one, and it certainly doesn't substantiate your claim.

(8) Yes, other had private email accounts used for personal email. They did not have a private unsecured server located in their basement that they used for official business.

None of your points help prove it's just some 'fraud' as you put it. They're more just cheap knockoffs of the talking points that were spouted out by propaganda outlets like Blue Nation Review and Correct the Record.

You also ignore various things exposed in the actual emails such as the pay-for-play Clinton Foundation arms deals stuff, her telling staff to strip off the classified markings and make "nonpaper", her lobbying for the Colombia Free Trade Agreement after promising unions to fight it, etc...

... after all, we have no idea what he has on his private email account and we don't know if he abused his .gov email account. After all, the VA Scandal that happened on his watch while he was in charge of the oversight committee resulted in the deaths of dozens of people. I'm with you, let's be paranoid!!!!

The VA scandal "happened on his watch"? WTF. He's a senator in the legislative branch not an official in the executive branch. The VA is run by executive branch officials, not the congress which merely has oversight. Sanders was one of many in the oversight process, but they get their information from officials from the VA.

In fact, the VA scandal happened on Obama's watch. Do you want to blame Obama? Really?

You either don't know what you are talking about, are a troll, or you are totally dishonest.

It would have been ok for Hillary to use a private email account for personal emails - there is a difference between a private email account used for personal emails and a private email server that is used for all emails including state and sensitive ones.

Bernie's private personal emails are none of our concern, much as Hillary's private personal ones. The ones that are a concern are her government ones, and for that I'm sure you can get a FOIA request and get Bernie's. He didn't have a secret private server in his basement...

And as a 40% disabled veteran, hearing you guys try to use the new talking point about Bernie being on the committee with the "scandal" happened is both comical and ridiculous. Aside from my personal knowledge as a disabled vet which I will touch on in just a minute, are the remaining members of that committee at fault for supposed long waits for VA service? Is President Obama? President Bush? Where does the blame stop on that one?

Unlike Clinton's war votes, nobody voted for long VA waits - but her votes certainly helped cause them.

Now onto my personal experiences and knowledge of the VA system and its hospitals and CBOC's in multiple states... Enrollment processes are actually quite simple but many vets don't pursue things as they should. Budget cuts restrict some things such as number of doctors, resources, etc.. that may cause additional wait times, that said however the way appointments are booked is that once enrolled in the VA healthcare system, appointments are scheduled for you and a letter is mailed. In 22 years I have never had to wait more than 2 weeks to see a doctor. I don't think I've ever even waited that long for specialists for non-critical stuff and I have received emergency room care at multiple VA's as well. The modern VA is amazing in that I can renew prescriptions online, securely talk with my primary care doctor or any specialist assigned to me, request supplies from the prosthetics or supply dept, or do most anything online through their site now.

Recently they've started doing phone call reminders for appointments as well, but I'm not sure if that system was in place during the so-called scandal. If you fail to show up for a certain number of appointments without rescheduling then you may be dropped from the rolls in the system, or if not then you are just not rescheduled for any appointments until you see a primary care physician in the system.

This is what happens to many vets. They miss the letters, or just don't go to an appointment. They may be homeless, in another hospital for something, moved, etc... The VA should not be expected to chase you down if you miss an appointment. I might be dead now if it wasn't for VA care, and my service has always been excellent, prompt and courteous.

I don't appreciate the ill will from so-called Democrats toward the VA system who are just trying to use it to shame someone that has done so much for veterans and had nothing to do with the actual so-called scandal. I know Republicans try to use the VA as a weapon in some fights, but I expect more from Democrats.

my personal experiences.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511607744

I had to check to see which thread you were responding to. This is an email thread, not the VA scandal thread. My point is simply that one can make an issue of anything if they want, and some Bernie supporters make a big issue of the email scandal. Yet, that really makes no sense. If the email scandal is about Hillary using a private server (which was legal) that's one thing, but the issue now is about the contents of her email. So, since content has nothing to do with what kind of email she used, that same issue can apply to anyone. Let's have Bernie release all his private and public emails, like Hillary has had to do, and we can get clarity to see if his faith in the VA system while it was under his watch was simple naivete or was something more serious.

As far as war votes, Sanders supporters don't seem to acknowledge his support for Kosovo, his vote for authorizing funds for the Iraq and Afghanistan War, his vote for the AUMF, or his vote for the coup government in the Ukraine, and his support for some of Israel's battles.

My point is really that if we want to paint Hillary as some sort of corrupt right wing Wall Street shill, we can play the same game with Bernie. Both of them are quite liberal (Bernie more so), but if you carefully isolate votes and statements you can paint any picture you want.

As far as you using your story as a disabled veteran to defend the VA and attack homeless vets ("The VA should not be expected to track you you down if you miss an appointment&quot , well the VA should be expected to hook you more fully into the services you need, whether that's local, state, or federal. And, if someone has trauma or other limitations, the VA should be expected to track people down with phone calls and even with police. As someone who has worked in community mental health, if I could not reach someone who was very unwell, I could simply call the police and ask them to check on the person.

And as far as "so-called Democrats" using ill-will to "try to shame someone who has done so much for veterans," well that's exactly what Bernie supporters do to Hillary on a whole range of issues. What goes around comes around.

http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/bernie-sanders-troubling-history-supporting-us-military-violence-abroad

which is visible by either looking at the lines or in the upper right corner of the comment. That comment said "After all, the VA Scandal that happened on his watch while he was in charge of the oversight committee resulted in the deaths of dozens of people." among other things - and I was responding to the VA scandal part of their comment. Sorry if you got confused on that.

Bringing up irrelevant votes is just that irrelevant. I think there is easily more justification in stopping active ethnic cleansing than pursuing imaginary weapons of mass destruction. So there's that as far as differences in "war" votes...


Fortunately you cannot "play the same game" with Bernie, because he isn't right-wing or corrupt. Unfortunately the same cannot e said for Clinton in may cases.

Does your doctor track you down with police if you miss an appointment? Is that really what you expect from a healthcare system? If so, you may have other issues...

There is a clear difference in pointing out corruption and lies and trying to use the deaths of veterans as a cudgel. Most would easioly see that, I'm sorry you are unable to.

His personal emails, like Hillary's are personal. Fortunately he didn't blend the two and run a private email server in his basement.

I mean, everyone does it, right?

a prosecutable offense, right?
The IC IG says he found, at least, 2 emails that were classified when originated.
There were 20 more that were found on her server, some that were only accessible via a secure system.

That's how it reads to me. I think that's interesting.

Write what you know about.

Also advice to people who respond to writers who know nothing about which they write:

Don't bother.

handle her duties while Secretary of State, is truly laughable.

reflects directly on her ability to be President of the United States. At worse, she broke laws and put the security of the nation at severe risk. I personally don't think it should be an issue in the race for the Democratic nomination, but to say it's a complete fraud is to whistle past the graveyard. She fucked up, plain and simple. Whether it rises to the level of a crime that should warrant prosecution or possible jail time is what the FBI is attempting to sort out.

Hillary fucked up because of the political fallout, not because she did anything wrong. She legally used a private email account and her own server (which was probably better than using a public server, but who knows?). Now, the Sanders campaign has joined with the Republicans to go through her emails searching for any mistakes she may have made. I think the same should be done for all the presidential candidates since, after all, whether one uses a government server or a private one for their email has no bearing on their ability to abuse email.

Total misuse of taxpayer resources. Really shameful.

(1)

Use of private email accounts is allowed, but only for personal (non gov't related) email (with an exception discussed further on).


It is not hard to figure out which is which. But if there's a doubt, it is supposed to go through the gov't account.

You seem to be missing the main point here. It is perfectly legal to send personal email on the gov't account, no one cares. But it is not acceptable to send gov't business through a personal account. Gov't business are official records that are supposed to be accessible to the public (through FOIA). Yes, they need to be cleared before release, and can be redacted or withheld for security purposes when need be, but as a whole, they are supposed to be public records. By using her own personal email and her own private server, her emails were not available to the government or the public for this purpose, unless the person on the other end of the correspondence was using a government account and so had a copy on *their* official account. This is part of Clinton's defense, that if she sent or received official email, the other party would have used a government account, which means it got stored on the other end. But that's not always true, as it is possible to have email that deals with official government business that did not come from or is not going to another government official. Plus, you're not supposed to count on someone else doing the right thing to make up for the fact that you're doing the wrong thing. If nothing else, what if they're doing the wrong thing too?

(2)
They are ALL violations--that is, every instance of government-related correspondence sent on a non-government system--is a violation, as described above. Only a handful were *classified*, and the violation in those cases is more severe, with penalties more substantial, but that doesn't obviate the fact that all the rest are problematic as well, if only from a FOIA perspective, if not necessarily from a national security perspective. (BTW, even a *single* distribution of classified material over an unsupported system is legally problematic, so "only a handful" isn't a defense for the classified ones, either.)


Since you were talking only what you saw as the "handful of emails that are possible violations" you're obviously talking about the classified ones (even though, as I said, others are violations as well). The answer to that is, simply, there is no law against sending classified material on a secure government system. There is a law against sending classified material on a less secure non-government system. That's why that problem would not have occurred if she had used government email.

(3)
The fact that nothing is ever guaranteed 100% secure does not mean that theres no difference between using a system that is 1% secure versus one that is 99% secure. The fact that there's always some way to break into a house or building doesn't mean you might as well not bother ever locking the door. (And again, security isn't the only issue, there's also the point about availability of public records.)

(4)
I don't think the left typically argues that (unclassified) government records should be restricted from public view, nor that classified material should be accessible to the world.

(5)
All the non-classified ones are *supposed* to be publicly available. The only person who is calling for even the classified ones to be made public is Hillary, which she is doing to prove that they aren't *really* sensitive, and their classification is a result of over-classification run amuck. (As an aside, realistically, the people who decided they were too sensitive to release are not going to change their minds so that Hillary can make a political point, and Hillary knows that, so her call for them to do so is just PR.)

(6) -- point about transparency misses the point. Her use of a private server was a way to *avoid* the transparency that is supposed to be provided via the FOIA.

(7) and (8) -- true, an official may use a personal email account for government business, that *alone* is not a violation... that is permitted because there may be times someone must send an email and, for some reason, the official account is not readily available. It is an "exception" thing, it is not supposed to be the rule, much less 100% of the time (Hillary did not use an official .gov account at all). Moreover, if an official DOES use their personal account for some exceptional purpose, s/he is supposed to take additional steps to make sure that that email is *also* entered into official gov't records, so that it will be available for FOIA, and she did not do that.

Your right-wing law and order post is full of misinformation, but I'll just respond to a couple since the others are less accusatory towards Hillary.

(1) It was completely legal for her to use her private email account for official business according to the rules at the time. She made no attempt to keep it secret and no one protested until well after the fact. In fact, there were specific rules for people using a system not operated by the government. When people argue that she violated the National Archives rules, they are arguing that she violated their rules for people using non-government email for official business.

(2) If there are violations, I get it. But, since she wasn't breaking the law by using her private email, let's ask all candidates to release their private and government emails to make sure that the same standard Hillary is being held to is held to by all candidates. There is no evidence yet that she broke the law -- the only people saying that are her right-wing opponents and her so-called left wing law and order enthusiasts.

(3) There is no evidence that she sent classified email when it was in fact classified, and in fact classified information is supposed to be sent on a secured classified government email system. So even regular government email isn't good enough for that. I don't know what the rules for Bernie were, but nonetheless given the VA Scandal, he should make all his personal and private emails public (and Hillary should make her Wall Street transcripts public), just to make sure he wasn't breaking any rules. It should be a standard for all presidential candidates, like taxes.

re:

I myself said it was legal, in both the first paragraph and last paragraph of my post. But as you say, there were specific rules for doing so (having to do with making sure copies of those emails were preserved as public records). She did not follow those rules.

re:


As far as anyone knows, all the other candidates' government emails are available as needed via the FOIA (just as hers were supposed to be). The other candidates' private emails are private. Hillary's private emails would be private too. She created a problem by intermingling her private and government emails, such that it is impossible to easily separate them. But I'm not aware that anyone is calling for the public release of her private, personal emails. AFAIK, that is not something being asked of Hillary or of anyone else.

re:


That's a whole other issue which has been the subject of much debate elsewhere. The short version of the counter argument to your statement is that some information is "born classified." That is, it should be recognizable as classified even if it has not yet gone through any agency that has marked it so. For a ridiculously obvious example, if someone--even accidentally--sends an email to an official that, say, includes the name and location of an undercover agent, one should be smart enough to know, hmmm, even though it hasn't been reviewed by the appropriate department and designated as such, this should clearly be handled as classified information.

Respectful and informative.

These answers which show facts need a thread all their own.

Good job!

I've seen several references to the "147 FBI agents investigating Clinton" here. It's a RW lie.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/3/30/1507916/-WaPo-Sorry-we-lied-about-147-FBI-agents-investigating-Clinton-s-emails