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Using Private Email, Hillary Clinton Thwarted Record Requests

nytimes.com

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Re: Using Private Email, Hillary Clinton Thwarted Record Requests

#141

Post by sanderjd »

mkempe wrote: post #100
sanderjd wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the reporting on it hasn't been great, because the details aren't the story, the story is the name "Hillary Clinton". I'm very curious about the details of how this stuff works for all officials. Are there rules? What are they? Who do they apply to? Are there actual laws? If so, what are they? But "An Investigation Into Government Email Policy" would never be run on its own.

Why do you think General Petraeus just pleaded guilty in court? because of "rules" or "laws"? did Hillary Clinton send and store classified material with her non-government email account? will the law apply to her the way it has been applied to Petraeus?

1. Because he shared classified information with someone who did not have clearance to have it, which is against the law.

2. I don't know, do you? My guess is that, yes, she did.

3. It depends on whether shared classified information with anybody who did not have clearance. My guess is that, no, she didn't, or this would already be a much bigger story.

Using a personal email address is not the same as sharing classified information.

Re: Using Private Email, Hillary Clinton Thwarted Record Requests

#143

Post by sukilot »

eitally wrote: post #91
jeremyt wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the specific law referenced here is a federal law which only applies to high ranking federal officials (e.g. Cabinet secretaries). It would apply to Clinton, but not to most of the people on your list. "The head of each Federal agency shall make and preserve records containing adequate and proper documentation of the organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures, and essential transactions of the age…

In the corporate world, the generally accepted internal policy is that email is not a system of record, and that when documents (including the email itself) are sent or received via email, those must be exported separately and saved in whatever is the system of record. This, of course, flies contrary to the trends in e-discovery from a prosecutorial point of view, but it does make sense.

That's more like saying "RAM is not durable storage, everything must be saved to disk for durability." It doesn't mean it's OK to run the office solely in RAM, it means the opposite.

Re: Using Private Email, Hillary Clinton Thwarted Record Requests

#144

Post by sukilot »

briandear wrote: post #113
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Palin used her yahoo account for state business. She did violate state law. I'm not familiar with the others, but the issue isn't so cut and dry.

Why exactly would Clinton go to the trouble to set up a mail server? Did state.gov run out of email addresses? Given the Clinton history of obfuscation and secrecy, Clinton's intent was far from innocent. She went out of her way to do this. The question is why? Pointing a finger at Palin is silly. Palin didn't hire some mystery person to hide Cabinet level communicatiins from public scrutiny. Palin wouldn't be smart…

Sarah Palin isn't as dumb as you think. She's got more political smarts than you have book smarts.

Re: Using Private Email, Hillary Clinton Thwarted Record Requests

#145

Post by sukilot »

danielweber wrote: post #94
joezydeco wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cuomo's case seems even more egregious. He's allowing the destruction of government emails while a federal corruption investigation is going on: http://www.ibtimes.com/amid-federal-corruption-probe-andrew-...

Given that's black-letter illegal, I think that article isn't being quite accurate. You can have and create a document-deletion policy, no problem. But -- and I've had this drilled into me at multiple employers, because it's really important -- once you are told by legal that an investigation is under way, you don't delete them, no matter what, until legal tells you otherwise. You take active steps to preserve them i…

When the penalty for destroying evidence is less than the penalty for what the evidence proves...

Did you know that people flush drugs down the toilet when cops knock on the door, in clear violation of the law?

Re: Using Private Email, Hillary Clinton Thwarted Record Requests

#146

Post by Spooky23 »

ohjesusthatguy wrote: post #117
Spooky23 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in a .gov and have had exposure to this issue directly in a few different contexts. The advocates for full disclosure imo are biting their nose to spite their face. Normal people running everything from little leagues to major corporations use email for strategy development, information delivery, deliberative functions and other normal business processes. Known figures in government cannot do that, because the…

Okay, you're out of your mind. I also work for an organization where FOIA laws mean anything I produce is available to anyone who asks (and knows what to ask for). The purpose of laws like this is to prevent your elected and/or unelected officials from doing things that are detrimental to society. Those "couriers... grey area communications mechanism, or... something else that is lost to the public record"? Yeah, you…

That's a very one-dimensional view.

Government policymakers deal with issues that involve organized labor, various special interests, and business interests.

By making things operate in a such a way that people cannot function in a modern manner, you're pushing much of the deliberative process away from written mediums to telephone and in-person meetings. By doing this, you're empowering people who have access to power (lobbyists, etc), in the name of transparency that is almost meaningless.

Re: Using Private Email, Hillary Clinton Thwarted Record Requests

#147

Post by hga »

briandear wrote: post #125
buttcoinslol wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I forgot which Cabinet post Palin was appointed to, can you refresh my memory?

It doesn't matter. Moral relativism is the name of the game. It would be interesting if the anti-Palin crowd would spend some time looking into all of the criminality from members of the Congressional Black Caucus. Have a look at this list of the most corrupt politicians in the US; then perhaps we can talk about Palin using yahoo. http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judic... The fact is this, Palin…

"Tom Delay was another bad one, however he was actually charged with a crime and he resigned."

And was then vindicated in the courts.

Texas has a weird arrangement where the very Blue Austin area prosecutor has a remit for political corruption in the entire state. The same officer recently indicted (now former) Governor Perry for threatening a veto, a rather unique take on a constitutionally enshrined executive action.

Re: Using Private Email, Hillary Clinton Thwarted Record Requests

#148

Post by flnet »

mootothemax wrote: post #6

Hilary Clinton's not the first nor only politician guilty of doing this, NY Daily News just put together five other notables: - Sarah Palin - Mitt Romney - Karl Rove - Andrew Cuomo - Chris Christie aide Bridget Anne Kelly http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/5-examples-lawmaker... It definitely seems less than ideal for these rules to be abused like this. The problem is, how do you stop it? It's unreasonable to e…

in extreme cases like Clinton's, would a felony be enough to put an end to it?

Re: Using Private Email, Hillary Clinton Thwarted Record Requests

#149

Post by dragonwriter »

danielweber wrote: post #131
dragonwriter wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only relevant question is, "are emails 'records'?" I don't know, I see other relevant questions. For instance, nothing in the quoted law says anything about how they shall "make and preserve" the records, only what purposes those records must be adequate to serve. So, using private email alone doesn't seem to be a violation, it seems to be something that might be the starting point for an inquiry as to whether…

Undoubtedly emails are records. This has been established in previous scandals from both parties that failed to retain them as required. In the corporate world, if there were a legal requirement for compliance, the auditor would verify that all work email is going over work servers, and then review the policies in place on those servers. You could technically let a special employee run their own server, but then that…

> In the corporate world, if there were a legal requirement for compliance, the auditor would verify that all work email is going over work servers

Legal compliance audits that I have been involved in tend to go beyond what is unquestionably prohibited by the law and also seek to identify and eliminate activities which might arguably violate the law (and thus create legal risk) including, but not limited to, those which violate organizations internal guidelines which are based on the applicable law but whose requirements may be (generally, should be) more strict than the law itself.

There are three different, but related, categories into which this might fall, in decreasing order of breadth:

1) Behavior that would be of concern to a compliance audit focused on the law in question,

2) Behavior that would violate administration guidance related to achieving compliance with the law in question,

3) Behavior that actually violates the law in question.

You are arguing, and I agree, that it is #1. There are reports that administration sources have indicated that it is #2 (I see no reason to doubt them, though I haven't seen the actual guidance, so I don't have an informed opinion.)

Neither of those, however, is the same thing as it being #3.

Re: Using Private Email, Hillary Clinton Thwarted Record Requests

#150

Post by ohjesusthatguy »

Spooky23 wrote: post #146
ohjesusthatguy wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, you're out of your mind. I also work for an organization where FOIA laws mean anything I produce is available to anyone who asks (and knows what to ask for). The purpose of laws like this is to prevent your elected and/or unelected officials from doing things that are detrimental to society. Those "couriers... grey area communications mechanism, or... something else that is lost to the public record"? Yeah, you…

That's a very one-dimensional view. Government policymakers deal with issues that involve organized labor, various special interests, and business interests. By making things operate in a such a way that people cannot function in a modern manner, you're pushing much of the deliberative process away from written mediums to telephone and in-person meetings. By doing this, you're empowering people who have access to pow…

First of all, the FOIA process take a long time to go from request to release of documents. And there's all sorts of fudging along the way to either not release everything requested or redact what gets released. I'm sure even you agree with that.

Second, "cannot function in a modern manner"? If you're creating a public record, it's subject to FOIA. End of discussion. The point of FOIA is that you, as a creator of public records, cannot hide your work product from the people you serve. If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear, or so I've been told.

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