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BainsBane (29,913 posts) http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026312714I've noticed a contradictionMany here believe the government has no right to keep secrets, or so they argued in the wake of the Wikileaks document dump. Yet now many of those same people are outraged that Hillary Clinton's email as Secretary of State was not secured entirely on government servers. If no government information or correspondence should be kept from the public, why does it matter whether it was secure?
Marr (17,139 posts) 1. This is a strawman argument. I don't think I've seen anyone here say the government has no rights to keep *any* secrets, much less "many" people.
Marr (17,139 posts) 12. Some of the information Assange made available were things the government should not have been allowed to kept secret. What's more, the objection to Hillary Clinton's private email system is not predominantly about information being available to hackers-- it's about her making information unavailable to the public.
BainsBane (29,913 posts) 23. Some, in the case of Wikileaks, is not all. That was my problem with the dump. If they had said, here are a mass of documents on illegal activity in Iraq, I would view it differently, but all the documents didn't even relate to Iraq. They were undifferentiated. If you learned Clinton's emails could be made public, were backed up on servers and attainable through FOIA requests, would you still object to her use of private email?
Marr (17,139 posts) 45. Not if it's held privately, no. If these messages are backed up on government servers and the process is otherwise within the rules, fine. But simply being stored somewhere is not in and of itself transparency at all. They can still choose what any review group can and cannot see. The same could be said of the Bush era emails that were so assiduously kept outside the realm of review.
DanTex (6,821 posts) 8. Operating your own email server is one way to ensure that your emails don't end up leaked to the public by an insider like Snowden.
former9thward (13,667 posts) 25. She defied the White House.Mrs. Clinton’s exclusive use of personal email for her government business is unusual for a high-level official, archive experts have said. Federal regulations, since 2009, have required that all emails be preserved as part of an agency’s record-keeping system. In Mrs. Clinton’s case, her emails were kept on her personal account and her staff took no steps to have them preserved as part of State Department record. “What I can tell you is that very specific guidance has been given to agencies all across the government, which is specifically that employees of the Obama administration should use their official email accounts when they’re conducting official government business,†the White House spokesman, Josh Earnest, said. “However, when there are situations where personal email accounts are used, it is important for those records to be preserved consistent with the Federal Records Act.†http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/04/us/politics/using-private-email-hillary-clinton-thwarted-record-requests.html?_r=0
tularetom (19,811 posts) 55. Hillary in 2016! Technically she didn't break any laws!And we're pretty sure she didn't put national security at risk!
treestar (54,705 posts) 66. Common sense would indicate That she has enough sense not to talk about classified material over email.
BainsBane (29,913 posts) 22. Okay, but take me as an exampleI think Snowden did a public service in informing the public about unconstitutional government surveillance. I am not supportive of the Wikileaks dump because it was undifferentiated, a mass release of documents. Arguments in defense of it revolve around the view, articulated by Assange, that ALL government activity should be known to the public. In regard to the Clinton matter, I don't know why it is such an outrage. I have been told I would be upset if it were a Republican. Why should I be upset? The laws compelling govt only use of email came into effect after Clinton left office, and State says Kerry is the first Secretary to exclusively use government email. That means Republicans and Albright did use their private emails for government work. To be upset, I would need to know more. I do not automatically assume nefarious intent as some here do. My position on the public's right to know is that we should eventually have access to all government correspondence. Not necessarily now, but eventually, and the tricky part comes in figuring out when particular documents should be released. The argument that private emails can't be retrieved would seem to be contradicted by the House Benghazi committee subpoena. Clearly they think the emails must be available. Now, I have explained my position, which is not as simplistic as described above. Will you explain yours?
leveymg (30,289 posts) 6. The only contradiction here is your misunderstanding.The unlawful conduct attached to Hillary's private email system is that it wasn't released to the Archives until about 2 months ago, and we have no assurance that records weren't deleted. Furthermore, it wasn't searchable for public release under FOIA. The point of the 1950 Federal Records Act is transparency, a public purpose which Hill's system defeated. Transparency is compatible with security, unless the system gets mucked up with overly secretive classification and systems, such as the HRC email. There are also problems with the security of the system -- as demonstrated by the Romanian hack of Sid Blumenthal's Libya reports to Hill -- which is another reason she should have used the Department system. The lawful .gov email would have allowed for FOIA as well as reasonable security.
lumberjack_jeff (29,436 posts) 65. What an odd argument.The issue with bypassing government email servers isn't that they'll compromise secrecy. The problem with illegitimate servers is that the communications hosted on them will never be made public.
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