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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

#161

Post by dragonwriter »

danielweber wrote: post #155
dragonwriter wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 wh…

As to #3, quoting from the article, as of 2009 (emphasis mine): > agencies that allow employees to send and receive official electronic mail messages using a system not operated by the agency must ensure that federal records sent or received on such systems are preserved in the appropriate agency record-keeping system. How did they ensure this? As a few news stories, including the linked article, have reported, they…

> How did they ensure this?

Yes, that's exactly the question this raises.

> As a few news stories, including the linked article, have reported, they would have been immune from FOIA requests.

They would not have been immune. They may have been overlooked in the course of handling such requests, although assuming anyone in the State Department offices responsible for conducting document searches in response to FOIA requests (or subpoenas, etc.) was aware of the practice, they quite probably wouldn't have been, there just would have been an extra step involved in handling the requests.

Re: Using Private Email, Hillary Clinton Thwarted Record Requests

#162

Post by filoeleven »

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?

> will the law apply to her the way it has been applied to Petraeus?

Your phrasing is very apropos, since if the law is applied to her (which I believe is the question you are asking), it will almost certainly be applied to her "the way it has been applied to Petraeus", as opposed to the way it's applied to someone lower down the totem pole:

"[Former State Dept. official Stephen] Kim did not hand over a copy of the [classified North Korea] report — he just discussed it, and nothing else — and the report was subsequently described in court documents as a “nothing burger” in terms of its sensitivity. Kim is currently in prison on a 13-month sentence."[0]

For context, Petraeus "gave highly-classified journals to his onetime lover and that he lied to the FBI about it."[0]

[0]https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/03/03/petraeus-plea-...

Re: Using Private Email, Hillary Clinton Thwarted Record Requests

#163

Post by joshuaheard »

TillE wrote: post #90
joshuaheard wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good argument for changing the law. However, it is not a defense against Clinton breaking the current law. The President and other executive branch members can claim executive privilege which is the actual legal defense you describe. Clinton did not claim executive privilege. She set up a secret email account in order to avoid disclosure laws. This criminal and corrupt action should disqualify her for presid…

http://thehill.com/policy/technology/234487-hillarys-emails-...

It's not that she used a personal email account, it's that she set up a secret email server under a phony name in order to conceal her email records, which is a felony.

18 U.S. Code § 2071 - Concealment, removal, or mutilation generally

(a) Whoever willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, or destroys, or attempts to do so, or, with intent to do so takes and carries away any record, proceeding, map, book, paper, document, or other thing, filed or deposited with any clerk or officer of any court of the United States, or in any public office, or with any judicial or public officer of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

(b) Whoever, having the custody of any such record, proceeding, map, book, document, paper, or other thing, willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both; and shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States. As used in this subsection, the term “office” does not include the office held by any person as a retired officer of the Armed Forces of the United States.

Re: Using Private Email, Hillary Clinton Thwarted Record Requests

#165

Post by Vula_Design »

danielweber wrote: post #158
Vula_Design wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but that is self regulation. I think the point here is that, short of having convenient Romanian hackers break into the personal accounts of high ranking officials from time to time to update us, the state and the public have no way of knowing if they are using personal accounts for some of their communication. The only way to get around this would be to actively monitor all web activity by these officials to en…

Various news reports say that Clinton literally did not have a state.gov address, so everyone she communicated with professionally for 4 years, including people at State, knew that she was communicating with her personal account. Not all of them were reporting to her, either.

Indeed. I would say this makes the issue even more difficult to deal with. As you say, people who weren't even reporting directly to her maintained the code of silence over breaching email account rules. If memebers of the government themselves aren't going to be whistleblowers then how can the use of personal accounts be monitored?

Re: Using Private Email, Hillary Clinton Thwarted Record Requests

#166

Post by moioci »

zimbu668 wrote: post #54
sanderjd wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Her Presidential ambitions are irrelevant to the question of whether or not the behavior was appropriate. Considering what other officials in similar positions have done is, however relevant. And the answer seems to be that it's mixed: John Kerry uses the official account, Colin Powell reportedly didn't, Condoleezza Rice reportedly did.

"Secretary of State Colin Powell also used a personal email account, before the current regulations went into effect." http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/04/us/politics/using-private-...

Just as Secretary of State Clinton used a personal account, before the current regulations went into effect.
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