Hillary: How could you be so stupid?

Discussion in 'West Mall' started by Crockett, Mar 3, 2015.

  1. Crockett

    Crockett 5,000+ Posts

    I remember thinking it stupid and a little bizarre that while governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin conducted state business from a Yahoo account (an easily-hacked yahoo account it turned out.) I thought that revealed her as unsophisticated and the crude attempt at evading open records laws showed how little respect she had for transparency and accountability.

    It turns out that Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, according to the front page of the New York Times, conducted State Department business from a private email account and is only now turning over records (self selected) for her time in office. Huh?! In a position where the stakes were higher, the public scrutiny inevitable, the consequences of security breach more disastrous ...

    My reaction: I'm hearing Vince Lombardi yell "What the hell's going on out there?" I hear John Wooden Screaming "Goodness Gracious! Sakes Alive!" and Jenny talking to Forrest and Hillary, asking sweetly "Are you stupid or something?"
     
  2. WorsterMan

    WorsterMan SEC here we come!!

    Hillary and Bill shrewdly calculate everything they do from a political perspective.

    Of course it was stupid & reckless, but I strongly suspect she used a personal email account because she wanted the privacy it provided, security risks be damned. The privacy the personal email account provided means she will only have to turn over emails that will not taint or damage her in any way.
     
    Last edited: Mar 3, 2015
  3. Crockett

    Crockett 5,000+ Posts

  4. Mr. Deez

    Mr. Deez Beer Prophet

    I'm afraid WorsterMan is correct. I don't see a defensible reason to use a personal e-mail account.
     
  5. huisache

    huisache 2,500+ Posts

    They are both real smart people who went to Ivy League universities and therefore are not only a lot smarter than the rest of us but also entitled to do things as they please

    Did you know that Hilary and Ira Magaziner totally re organized the way health care is provided to all Americans? The stupid congress refused to go along (the stupid non-Ivies) and so this groundbreaking accomplishment was left for Nancy Pelosi to do years later. But Hillary was the genius behind the first great effort. Such a brilliant public "servant."
     
    • Like Like x 1
  6. Dionysus

    Dionysus Idoit Admin

    This is not to defend anyone but it wouldn’t surprise me if a lot of folks don’t even know about these requirements. You would think they would know and enforce this kind of thing at the highest levels of government, but I can tell you that IT governance and compliance in large organizations is frequently a barely-managed mess. I can see someone just using the email account they have always used because it is familiar and nobody in IT is keeping up with every aspect of what the users are doing.

    I used to get around some corporate IT policies because I knew what I was doing, and quickly discovered that nobody was monitoring my activities. They often just don’t have the time, resources, or systems in place to track everything.
     
    • Like Like x 1
  7. Mr. Deez

    Mr. Deez Beer Prophet

    Dion, I get what you're saying, but that's awfully hard to accept for a federal employee, especially someone who is cabinet-level. The mere appearance of using a personal e-mail account seems bogus and ghetto. If I got an e-mail from someone with a Hotmail or Yahoo account that claimed to be from the Secretary of State, I'd assume the "Secretary of State" was some delusional Nigerian at an internet shop trying to hustle a few hundred bucks out of me. She just can't be that dumb.
     
    • Like Like x 3
  8. Crockett

    Crockett 5,000+ Posts

     
  9. Dionysus

    Dionysus Idoit Admin

    I agree, it’s highly unlikely. But I’ve seen some very smart C-level folks that were absolutely clueless about seemingly routine tech matters.
     
  10. Dobeyville

    Dobeyville < 25 Posts

    She's from Arkansas...that's how.
     
    • Like Like x 1
  11. WorsterMan

    WorsterMan SEC here we come!!

    just a technicality, Hillary was born and raised in Illinois... graduated from Wellesley College if I recall. She didn't move to Hooterville until after she married Bill. But she did spend a lot time in Arkansas.
     
    Last edited: Mar 3, 2015
  12. Musburger1

    Musburger1 2,500+ Posts

    "What difference does it make."
     
    • Like Like x 2
  13. Dobeyville

    Dobeyville < 25 Posts

    I stand corrected.
     
  14. NJlonghorn

    NJlonghorn 2,500+ Posts

    When I first heard this being discussed on the radio, I assumed she accidentally sent a few emails from the wrong account. Then I read that she didn't even have a State Department email, and exclusively used her Yahoo! account.

    Wow. Just wow.
     
  15. n64ra

    n64ra 1,000+ Posts

    Exclusively using her Yahoo! account can't be legal, can it?
     
  16. Crockett

    Crockett 5,000+ Posts

    I read it was a "private" email account. Surely it was something more tony than a Yahoo account (like Palin used) ? If it really was Yahoo, I think I'm going to need to go hurl. My daughter graduated from Wellesley College.
     
  17. Clean

    Clean 5,000+ Posts

    Her actions are just too nuanced for us to understand.
     
    • Like Like x 2
  18. WorsterMan

    WorsterMan SEC here we come!!

    The Clinton's are far too important to have to answer to We The People... after all, to them, we are still the little people.
     
    Last edited: Mar 3, 2015
  19. Musburger1

    Musburger1 2,500+ Posts

  20. Seattle Husker

    Seattle Husker 10,000+ Posts

    This has to be a purposeful obfuscation of security policies.

    Like Dionysis, I too see C-Level leaders give so little credence to their OWN security policies compared to the companies they manage. Sony fell victim to this thinking. In this day and age its scary that leaders are so fast and loose with security. They obviously have a backwards false sense of security.
     
  21. Dionysus

    Dionysus Idoit Admin

    After reading this link from @Musburger1 it seems very shady that the “clintonemail.com” domain was registered for her. This is absurdly irresponsible for someone at that level. It also reflects very poorly on the State Dept’s security protocols that they either (1) didn’t know the SoS was using a non-standard/insecure email service, or (2) knew about it but didn’t do anything.
     
  22. texas_ex2000

    texas_ex2000 2,500+ Posts

    I don't how big or small a deal this is, but it is definitely weird and completey out of the norm.

    Aside from the transparency issues, even if the correspondence is unclassified, there are OPSEC reasons why State Department employees, foreign service officers and such, use their state.gov e-mail for business. It flies in the face of all the stupid quarterly IT OPSEC training those folks are forced to take.

    It makes no sense.

    (although if it weren't on the State server Snowden couldn't get to it...so maybe she's an accidental security genius)
     
    Last edited: Mar 3, 2015
  23. towersniper

    towersniper 100+ Posts

    As with everything Clinton, this is a bit overheated. First, as much as the tech savvy don't like it, this is not uncommon http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/colin-powell-personal-email-secretary-of-state-115707.html Second, the law requiring emails be archiveable wasn't passed until AFTER Hillary left office. This was pretty a high profile "Lois Lerner" law, and I'm surprised that no one has mentioned that this is a recent development, unless I am mistaken (and I could be) http://www.govexec.com/technology/2014/12/obama-signs-modernized-federal-records-act/100112/ I agree that protocols, as they existed, could use beefing up, but the selective outrage is a little tiresome.
     
  24. towersniper

    towersniper 100+ Posts


    "Clinton was not the first secretary of state to use a private account. The State Department said Clinton’s successor as top diplomat, John F. Kerry, is the first secretary to use a standard government e-mail address ending in “state.gov.”http://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...5d13d8-c156-11e4-9271-610273846239_story.html
     
  25. texas_ex2000

    texas_ex2000 2,500+ Posts

    Sniper, the Bush adminstration (Karl Rove for example who, btw, was just a counselor) was raked over the coals for pulling the same stuff.
     
  26. Dobeyville

    Dobeyville < 25 Posts

    It will be another dead horse to beat in next years' run up to the election. She is getting it all out early so people will forget about it. It would seem that using a personal account for "secret" government business would be illegal. Those emails will contain info about Benghazi, it is only a matter of time before they are recovered.
     
    • Like Like x 1
  27. towersniper

    towersniper 100+ Posts

    That is pretty much right, though the Bush emails concerned matters that were subject to the Presidential Records Act of 1978 (regarding political activities). The Sec. of State (Hillary) was not subject to that kind of requirement until 2014. Regardless, Bush defenders are shocked at HIllary's stupidity (see thread title) and the Hillary defenders, who were probably outraged at the Bush admin, are less critical of the use of outside accounts. The point is, he outrage reflected in this thread is way over the top.
     
  28. texas_ex2000

    texas_ex2000 2,500+ Posts

    I think it disengengious to imply a political counselor and a Senate-confirmed cabinet Secretary are the same thing, and hence, the attention is overblown.

    I'm pretty sure Obama never had the "followed the letter of the law" defense in mind when he promised the most transparent administration ever.

    You either like her or you don't. This isn't going to change anyone's mind. But this e-mail thing is certainly "Hillary."
     
    Last edited: Mar 3, 2015
  29. Crockett

    Crockett 5,000+ Posts

    I'm not one of this board's frequent Hillary or Obama detractors. In fact, I've defended them more than criticized.
    When Sarah Palin, whom I hardly respect at all, was outed for doing public business on a private email account, I criticized her. In 2008 and beyond a political figure should know better.
     
  30. towersniper

    towersniper 100+ Posts

    Its not disingenous, Texas_ex2000, its the law. I was merely pointing out that the Bush thing was not "pulling the same stuff." What the Bush people did was illegal. What Hillary did, so far as I can tell, was not. Moreover, if we are all over Hillary over this we should likewise be all over every email era Secretary of State until John Kerry, and probably Secretaries of Defense and Secretaries of Everything else because this was common practice until John Kerry. Yes, it is overblown, and partisan. It is likewise ridiculous that our political heroes are so so lax when it comes to e-security. I suspect that it is generational, and future officials will "get it" better.
     
  31. texas_ex2000

    texas_ex2000 2,500+ Posts

    As I said, no one cares about the "letter of the law" as it relates to the character of our leaders. Going 65 in a 55 is illegal, but Goldman traders selling CDOs to their institutional clients and then shorting them 5 mins later isn't illegal.

    No one in the public or in this thread is saying Hillary should go to jail. And no one in this thread has accused her of breaking the law. What people care about is their leaders' proclaimed commitment to transparency.

    For me, this was in 2008 - I'm more disturbed at the disregard for OPSEC than any transparency stuff.
     
    Last edited: Mar 3, 2015

Share This Page