> In the current investigation, they've discovered classified emails - some classified after the fact, some not

"some not"? If you are implying that Clinton's server held messages marked as classified when sent, could you provide some evidence to this effect? The Clinton campaign is quite adamant that this is not true.

This is a red herring. It doesn't matter if it was marked or not. It is up to the sender to take the precaution. That there are now thousands of emails marked after the fact as classified, wouldn't that tell you the assumption should have been made to err on the side of caution, and assume most everything you are discussing has high probability to be classified information?

And using your own insecure personal server for these emails essentially guarantees that it's been hacked by.. China, Russia, take your pick.

In fact there is a term called "born-classified" which applies to information about foreign governments provided by foreign sources. Here's some evidence:

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-clinton-email...

There's a fundamental misunderstanding about classified material, which is that it becomes de-classified once it is public. Not true.

For example, take the Wikileaks information dump, which came from a huge cache of State Dept. cables and has now been covered in hundreds of public newspaper articles. If one of her friends forwarded one of those articles to Clinton, boom, she now has classified information in her email. Why? Because those cables, despite being leaked, were never de-classified.

Another example: a lot of the stuff revealed by Snowden was classified at a very high level. It still is today, even though it is widely available public information. Can you see how this could cause problems for someone who is a government official, but has friends/family/contacts who wish to discuss these news articles?

The press is a well-known vector that leads to a lot of government staff having classified information in their unclassified email systems. Typically investigations are rare and prosecutions rarer, because it's basically impossible to prevent and does no practical damage (since the info is already out there).

This is why the mere fact of having classified material on an email server does not necessarily imply incompetence or malice.

I did not imply anything, I said it quite clearly: some of the emails contained information that was classified at the time she sent/received them.

According to CNN:

> Two government agencies flagged emails on Clinton's server as containing classified information, the inspector general said, including some on "special access programs," which are a subset of the highest "Top Secret" level of classification, but are under subject to more stringent control rules than even other Top Secret information."

Ref: http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/19/politics/hillary-clinton-email...

> some of the emails contained information that was classified at the time she sent/received them.

As far as I can tell, the article to which you refer says nothing of the sort. It says that the email contains information which was classified after the fact. The article is based on the Inspector General's letter (http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2016/images/01/20/2016.01.14.-....), which says the same thing. Do you have evidence that the information was classified at the time it was mailed to her server? Her campaign says it was not.

Well as long as the campaign is your source, you should definitely believe them. They're much better informed than the FBI, State Department, and Senate Select Intelligence Committee investigators.

What is classified after the fact? It's pretty straight forward in that letter. The emails contained info derived from classified info. Info derived from classified info is itself classified. There is no classified after the fact. It was all classified from the get go.

Classified after the fact means marked classified after the fact.

This matters because a lot of publicly available information--stuff we all know, stuff you can read in the paper today, or can be easily found on Wikipedia--is nevertheless considered classified information. There is no possible way that a single person can keep it all straight in their head, which is why State staff (and others) rely on the markings on documents (digital or otherwise) to know how to treat them.

If what the campaign says is true, then it sounds to me like a technicality. It seems to me implausible that 22 emails containing intel of the most secret sort had that intel classified after the fact (http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jan/20/hillary-clint...).

----------------

FROM: Important Official TO: Hillary Clinton

MESSAGE: Info you requested - JFK is still alive. He wants to meet you soon. Also, aliens. Lots of them.

----------------

In that ridiculous example, it seems like the Sec of State isn't thinking to herself, "I hope they don't classify this info later."

It's the official's responsibility to know what is and what isn't classified whether it is "marked". As a lawyer (and a Clinton!), she would certainly be parsing her words carefully.

Side note: I've read a few articles in which previous State employees have characterized State Department IT infrastructure as... less than functional.

Given that this is the federal government, an older and large department, and pre-USDS/18F, I consider that at least a somewhat plausible scenario.

Would be curious if anyone closer could lend a technical opinion on whether those claims have merit or are spin. (Given how bad signal:noise is on this issue)

Less than functional or not, it is the duty of people with access to classified information to protect it. You sign tons of paperwork to that effect.

Honest mistakes happen all the time. If you're lucky, your hand is slapped and people move along. But it is possible to have your clearance revoked - like Sandy Berger - or even serve prison time for purposeful malfeasance or disregard for the rules.

And this isn't a new thing... remember how when Obama took office everyone talked about securing his Blackberry - http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/23/us/politics/23berry.html?_... ?

> While lawyers and the Secret Service balked at Mr. Obama’s initial requests to allow him to keep his BlackBerry, they acquiesced as long as the president — and those corresponding with him — agreed to strict rules. And he had to agree to use a specially made device, which must be approved by national security officials.

Which works when you're the President and can have a custom device made. But what about when you're Secretary of State? Or even, god forbid, some poor functionary down at the bottom end of State? Or the Department of Indian Affairs?

I absolutely agree that protecting classified information by whatever rules are in place is of primary importance.

However, we've all seen dysfunctional organizations. So I'm also sympathetic to someone trying to get work done and ignoring soft guidelines in favor of an institutionally accepted interpretation that's conducive to accomplishing the job. And unsympathetic to telling someone at the time "we really should do that, but everyone does this" and than raking them over the coals from a future armchair that we were shocked (!) that they didn't following all guidelines.

Show me a successful, highly-productive individual's records and I'll show you somewhere they forgot to cross a t.

> ignoring soft guidelines

Except we're not talking about "soft guidelines" or simple recommendations but actual laws:

* Executive Order 13526 - https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/executive-order-...

* 18 U.S. Code § 793 - https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/793

* The 2009 Federal Records Act

* (probably) The Freedom of Information Act

in addition to a classified information non-disclosure agreement:

* https://foia.state.gov/searchapp/DOCUMENTS/HRC_NDAS/1/DOC_0C...

When >25% of government workers respond that private emails were used at least some of the time, that's an institutional problem.

http://www.govexec.com/insights/state-internal-workplace-com...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/clintons-experience-...

You don't use custom devices, of course; in fact, your phone stays at the front. I've never known of anyone to be able to move IT equipment in and out of classified environments. I'm assuming that they make exceptions just for these top leaders so that they can move about and interface with the world while still keeping connected to classified information.

So, if it's some poor functionary at the bottom of state, his ass is out on the street if his phone comes into the classified area. Some spillage can sometimes be met with a slap on the wrist, but there's very little chance that you'll get off easy after bringing a microphone/GPS/camera/networked/mass storage device in to secure areas.

Most of the NSA people are free to buy Huawei Nexus 6p (although I'll bet there's some statistically significant disinclination) because their phones should never be interfacing with any of the information they use in their work.

I once had my two-way pager destroyed because I forgot to check it in one day. I had to pay for the new one myself. :(

So, as another outside observer looking in, the use of the private email doesn't seem to be relevant to the document release itself, right? That's just the result of a FOI request, because public official's emails are subject to FOI, regardless of where they're stored.

So what I wonder is, do we see this with every candidate? Is there a similar archive of Jeb Bush's emails from his time as Governor of Florida? Or do the States not tend to have the same kind of FOI transparency as the Federal Government?

> the use of the private email doesn't seem to be relevant to the document release itself, right? That's just the result of a FOI request, because public official's emails are subject to FOI, regardless of where they're stored.

I think probably someone would have tried to obtain her emails, whether the server issue came up or not. But as it happened, IIRC the sequence of events leading to the release began when the server issue came up.

Also relevant is that because Clinton controlled the server, she originally controlled which emails were deleted as 'personal' and which were released to the public.

> do the States not tend to have the same kind of FOI transparency as the Federal Government?

Some states, at least, have open records laws. Also, I've seen many governmental organizations adopt the policy of deleting all email after, e.g., 30 days, to reduce 'liability' (transparency).

> Is there a similar archive of Jeb Bush's emails from his time as Governor of Florida?

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=jeb+bush+emails+site%3Anytimes.com

To the best of my knowledge, governors would rarely have access to classified information other than law enforcement or potentially terrorism matters, so the laws and rules would be different than a Cabinet Secretary.

I can't speak about Florida or any State specifically, my background is purely at the Federal level.

State laws vary, but jeb bush has been pretty transparent - iirc he actually released a book of his emails as governor.

It should be pointed out that the book contained only emails sent and received from his official account, but nothing barred him (or Hillary) from using additional email accounts.

As it should be. The problem is when you start blending the two.. conducting official business from personal accounts.

That's opening the door to trouble as we're seeing.