Hillary Clinton is Done: part 3

[Skeptic Ginger]

I think it is a valid distinction but only to those that already understand the distinction. I would be very surprised if the majority of the population would be able to tell what the difference between the two actually is.

Given that I would not be surprised if as far as Clinton was aware they are the same thing. I can well see her telling her staff "I was talking to Colin and he said I should use a private email, can you set that up please." And then as far as she was concerned that is what was set up.

Besides what Foolmewunz said about Clinton's POV tell me how you think having the server is somehow more evil or more corrupt on Clinton's part if you think there is a meaningful difference beyond a technical difference?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Technical terms Nitpick:

The correct word is Classified. Information may be classified as Confidential, Secret or Top Secret, with and without information compartmentalization caveats and code words. Industrial and commercial secrets and interpersonal communications are referred to as "confidential" , little c, with zero relationship to government classification standards.

Thanks for your pedantic expertise, but it doesn't change the meaning of my post.

 

[Fudbucker]

Besides what Foolmewunz said about Clinton's POV tell me how you think having the server is somehow more evil or more corrupt on Clinton's part if you think there is a meaningful difference beyond a technical difference?

I don't know if it's evil or more corrupt, but it certainly begs the question: why go through all the hassle of installing and maintaining a private server when you can just use Google's?

 

[beren]

A reasonable person would have done what previous SoS's have done when they didn't want to use govt. email: create an email account using one of the various companies that specialize in emails: AOL, Google, etc. It would have taken Clinton two minutes to set up a Gmail account. Why did she want a private server for her non-government emails? No one else in her position has ever done that before.

I can't tell you why she made that choice, but I support it in the following sense:

I would far rather have the SoS using a private server than using gmail. Far, far, rather. It exposes her emails to far fewer people. It makes hacking them harder* and less likely. That said, I don't consider the choice of any private email to have been great. Mind you, I do mix my private email and work a lot.



*1. hacker has to know server exists, 2. one of the most frequent ways to "hack" email is to call customer support and trick them into resetting the password using social engineering. This was far less, if it all possible, when she had physical control of the server, equally possible when it was at a hosting company - at least in theory.

 

[Fudbucker]

I can't tell you why she made that choice, but I support it in the following sense:

I would far rather have the SoS using a private server than using gmail. Far, far, rather. It exposes her emails to far fewer people. It makes hacking them harder* and less likely. That said, I don't consider the choice of any private email to have been great. Mind you, I do mix my private email and work a lot.



*1. hacker has to know server exists, 2. one of the most frequent ways to "hack" email is to call customer support and trick them into resetting the password using social engineering. This was far less, if it all possible, when she had physical control of the server, equally possible when it was at a hosting company - at least in theory.

I don't think Clinton's motive was national security.

 

[beren]

I don't think Clinton's motive was national security.

I don't either. Not sure why that is a reply to my post though.

 

[W.D.Clinger]

I'm not particularly knowledgeable about computer stuff, nor am I particularly knowledgeable about the fine details of Powell's (or Clinton's) e-mail practices, so my impression of the differences between what Powell did and what Clinton did may be totally off. But here's my take on the "private server" situation.

I think the broad picture you painted is about right.

I am no expert either. I understand my limitations well enough to know better than to run my own private email server. At any given time, I am acting webmaster for about half a dozen extremely small-volume web sites. To improve security, those web sites are configured to serve only static HTML. I could configure two of those sites as email servers, but haven't because I don't want the security headaches that would follow.

Without getting into why anyone might bother to hack my sites, let's just say I'm a far less tempting target than a secretary of state would be. When a secretary of state is less concerned about the insecurity of a private email server than I would be, something's out of whack.

Second we have private servers, but I think that's too broad a category and that we need to break that down a bit. On one hand we have servers owned and run by third parties, especially companies which make a business of providing internet service; and on another hand we have servers owned and run by people connected to the government folks using the servers.

...snip...

Perhaps we could refer to the first kind of private servers as third-party servers and the second kind as personal servers. Powell, if I understand correctly, used a third-party server; Clinton used a personal server.

As I understand it, Clinton's email server was situated within one of her private residences until 2013, when Platte River Networks took over and ran it out of a server in New Jersey.

I think Clinton's choice to set up and use her own personal server was a poor one, especially in light of the stink the Republican use of the RNC server had caused. But people, even politicians, often make bad choices.

Agreed. I think this was mostly cluelessness and poor judgment, compounded by a predisposition to ignore advice from experts outside her inner circle.

We saw similar cluelessness at work when FBI Directory James Comey was calling on tech companies to weaken their users' security by incorporating "back doors" that would allow the government and other hackers to bypass encryption. Most of the presidential candidates, including Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, tried to outdo one another in supporting Comey's proposal. As I recall, Rand Paul was one of the few presidential candidates who understood why Comey's proposal would make us less secure.

 

[Jrrarglblarg]

Thanks for your pedantic expertise, but it doesn't change the meaning of my post.

Don't let this blow your mind, but not every post responding to you is disagreeing with you. I just wanted to help people use the correct terms, what with this forum's ostensible focus on critical thinking. Classified information, big C, is not small c confidential information. Small c confidential is a specific word with specific legal meaning but is often used generically as in your example.

It doesn't change the meaning of your post, other than changing it from inaccurate to more accurate. But yes, your point stands.

 

[Travis]

You are all overlooking that this was always about establishing a narrative and not getting into any sort of truth. And to a certain extent it worked. Go to a Trump rally now and you'll find that the people there most likely believe that Hillary was personally, and purposely, emailing huge secrets directly to enemies.

 

[Darat]

Besides what Foolmewunz said about Clinton's POV tell me how you think having the server is somehow more evil or more corrupt on Clinton's part if you think there is a meaningful difference beyond a technical difference?

Eh?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I don't know if it's evil or more corrupt, but it certainly begs the question: why go through all the hassle of installing and maintaining a private server when you can just use Google's?

IOW, you got nothing. The server was already in the house, it was set up years earlier. I can give you several reasons not to use a regular provider.

They data mine the content.

They are not safe from hackers.

If you want to change your provider, unlike a phone number, you can't take your email address with you.

It's up to the service provider how many emails and how far back they will store them (though there are work arounds for this).


In addition, there was a trade off, have every right wing organization picking through every single word in your emails (like is being done now), releasing cherry picked stuff continually during the campaign season and beyond, or take some control over the content and take the hits for having the server. FOIA requests when it comes to Clinton are not about transparency, they are about the double standard not applied to any other legislator, that is the constant attacks by the right wing that have been going on for decades.

Judicial Watch is not about government transparency.[/url] Just like the Benghazi Committee, Gowdy and Issa, they have the one sole purpose: supporting extreme right wing causes which currently amounts to attacking Hillary Clinton.

Judicial Watch is funded by billionaires who launder their money through various right wing foundations. I was just reading about the Scaife Foundation in the book, Dark Money. The Scaifes are like the Kochs. In addition, they've turned their foundation into a tax haven.

You set up a trust fund. It runs for a specified period of time whereas the money goes to charity. In this case the charities are right wing influencing organizations. At the end of the set time, the trust reverts to the heirs, with the inheritance tax absolved.​

Sorry for the sidetrack, but it's very much relative to why Clinton would want an extra layer of privacy with her emails that other politicians and legislators not subject to the Clinton double standard would need.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Eh?

Why does it matter that is was a server vs a commercial service?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

You are all overlooking that this was always about establishing a narrative and not getting into any sort of truth. And to a certain extent it worked. Go to a Trump rally now and you'll find that the people there most likely believe that Hillary was personally, and purposely, emailing huge secrets directly to enemies.

Exactly. Even the arguments here, "but but it was a private server, , that makes it evidence of evil," are stuck on this same narrative.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Don't let this blow your mind, but not every post responding to you is disagreeing with you. I just wanted to help people use the correct terms, what with this forum's ostensible focus on critical thinking. Classified information, big C, is not small c confidential information. Small c confidential is a specific word with specific legal meaning but is often used generically as in your example.

It doesn't change the meaning of your post, other than changing it from inaccurate to more accurate. But yes, your point stands.

Which is why I replied like I did, clarifying the semantics were not relevant to my post, lest anyone think they were.

 

[Bob001]

Besides what Foolmewunz said about Clinton's POV tell me how you think having the server is somehow more evil or more corrupt on Clinton's part if you think there is a meaningful difference beyond a technical difference?

It's not a question of evil or corrupt. The relevant words are careless and irresponsible. Colin Powell became SecState in 2001, and Clinton in 2009. Eight years is an eternity in the tech world. During that time government regulations and requirements changed substantially, and Clinton failed to comply with them. Powell's successor and Clinton's predecessor, Condoleezza Rice, was the most obvious person for Clinton to consult and emulate, and Rice did not use private email. And as Comey observed, even a Gmail account is protected from intrusion by Google's vast resources, while Clinton's basement server was protected -- if at all -- by one ex-campaign worker.

Once again, it's obvious that Clinton was evading federal record-keeping and Congressional access requirements, and her subsequent numerous, conflicting explanations are a smoke screen. Whether Powell or anybody else also did something wrong doesn't mitigate Clinton's misconduct.

 

[acbytesla]

It's not a question of evil or corrupt. The relevant words are careless and irresponsible. Colin Powell became SecState in 2001, and Clinton in 2009. Eight years is an eternity in the tech world. During that time government regulations and requirements changed substantially, and Clinton failed to comply with them. Powell's successor and Clinton's predecessor, Condoleezza Rice, was the most obvious person for Clinton to consult and emulate, and Rice did not use private email. And as Comey observed, even a Gmail account is protected from intrusion by Google's vast resources, while Clinton's basement server was protected -- if at all -- by one ex-campaign worker.

Once again, it's obvious that Clinton was evading federal record-keeping and Congressional access requirements, and her subsequent numerous, conflicting explanations are a smoke screen. Whether Powell or anybody else also did something wrong doesn't mitigate Clinton's misconduct.

Yawn I've been sending and receiving emails since the early 80s. Who cares? Unti,you you can show me that Clinton did something really bad I could give a damn. This is all smear by innuendo

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

It's not a question of evil or corrupt. [snipped everything not relevant to the question on the table]

I know all that, you're just repeating what has been posted a gazillion times already in the thread.

The question on the table is, why is having her own server (regardless of all your other HDS emotional opinions) somehow worse than if she had Gmail or AOL or whatever?

 

[acbytesla]

I know all that, you're just repeating what has been posted a gazillion times already in the thread.

The question on the table is, why is having her own server (regardless of all your other HDS emotional opinions) somehow worse than if she had Gmail or AOL or whatever?

Only someone with HDS can really understand the mind of someone else suffering with HDS.

So far, the worst thing the haters have to say about Hillary Clinton is that she set up her own private email server and her family may have been a little zealous in promoting a charity that had their name on it.


Oooooh, so bad.

 

[Bob001]

I know all that, you're just repeating what has been posted a gazillion times already in the thread.

The question on the table is, why is having her own server (regardless of all your other HDS emotional opinions) somehow worse than if she had Gmail or AOL or whatever?

So the FBI Director and State's IG suffer from HDS?

None of these e-mails should have been on any kind of unclassified system, but their presence is especially concerning because all of these e-mails were housed on unclassified personal servers not even supported by full-time security staff, like those found at Departments and Agencies of the U.S. Government —or even with a commercial service like Gmail.

https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/p...-clinton2019s-use-of-a-personal-e-mail-system

...the State Department Office of Inspector General, which issued a report on May 26 that contradicts several of Clinton’s claims about her emails:

http://www.factcheck.org/2016/05/ig-report-on-clintons-emails/

The point is that her personal server was less secure against hacking than ordinary commercial systems. But if she had been using Gmail, she probably would have been equally subject to criticism for the same reasons. She wasn't supposed to be conducting government business on anything except government computers, and people working for her knew it. The point is that if someone else also did something wrong, that doesn't get her off the hook. And to keep chanting "Colin Powell" doesn't explain anything; why didn't she find out what her immediate predecessor, Condi Rice, did and build on that?

Shame on Hillary Clinton for trying to drag Colin Powell into her mess.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blog...l-into-her-email-mess/?utm_term=.29ad74e2745e

No secretary of state — up to and including Colin Powell — handled their email setup like Clinton. That's a fact.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...e-of-her-email-practices-is-just-plain-wrong/

 

[Bob001]

Only someone with HDS can really understand the mind of someone else suffering with HDS.

So far, the worst thing the haters have to say about Hillary Clinton is that she set up her own private email server and her family may have been a little zealous in promoting a charity that had their name on it.


Oooooh, so bad.

Apart from her emails, if she was using her position as one of the highest officials in the government to solicit contributions to her private foundation, directly or indirectly, or to even hint that she would bestow official favors in exchange for such contributions, that's way more than "a little zealous." And she shouldn't have been promoting her private interests at all, zealously or otherwise, to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest.

The Clinton Foundation accepted millions of dollars from seven foreign governments during Hillary Rodham Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state, including one donation that violated its ethics agreement with the Obama administration,

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...937c1e-bc3f-11e4-8668-4e7ba8439ca6_story.html

While Clinton was secretary of state, her department approved $165 billion worth of commercial arms sales to Clinton Foundation donors.

http://www.salon.com/2015/05/31/the_cash_donations_hillary_simply_has_no_answer_for_partner/