Information is born classified, markings are irrelevant. Clinton had to sign a document affirming her understanding of this in order to gain access to classified information in the first place.
As for the crimes she committed, here are a few good candidates:
1. Gross Negligence (doesn't require intent)
2. Espionage (requires knowledge you're compromising security; also chargeable as Gross Negligence)
3. Obstruction of justice
4. Perjury
5. Violation of the Federal Records Act
6. Violation of National Archive and Records Administration's regulations
7. Violation of Freedom of Information Act regulations
8. Materially False Statements to federal agents
9. Conspiracy (under 18 U.S. Code § 371)Exactly. I really wish the whole "it wasn't classified at the time" argument would die already.
Not sure what you mean by this. An enormous amount of effort is expended in government to mark classified and confidential documents properly, set their disposition dates, record who classified it and why, and so forth.
Classification is not just determined at the time of the creation of a document/artifact, it can be changed as a result of being coupled with other information, or by changes in circumstances, or simply by different readings of by different people.
The end being, proper handling.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classified_United_States_websi...
Yes, email classifications can be changed after the fact, but that in and of itself would not constitute wrongdoing by the Secretary. Colin Powell did exactly the same thing and wasn't punished after the fact either.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/03/us/politics/hillary-clinto...
Saying it was not considered sensitive at the time is exactly why the government defaults to sensitive and will change it later. Additionally, managing your own server off to the side when you are a high ranking government official just looks suspicious.
Can you be specific with what this means? I hear this comparison all the time yet it never seems to be articulated.
What did she do that would lead her to have been fired "on the spot"?
My understanding is that neither state.gov nor "Hillary email server" are "secure" for classified information. And it seems like over the course of investigating "Hillary email server" ~20 emails have been identified as containing information that should have been considered "Top Secret".
But that poses the question - why was that information being emailed around at all? Who sent it? Who is liable? How did it get on email systems connected to the open web?
Or is there just a certain level of classified information that is expected to be mishandled over the course of time?
And is this like information that is being directly copied from clearly classified reports? Or is this accidental references to topics that should not be discussed in email messages sent over the open web?
I imagine these are all questions are being confronted by the FBI. But it seems pretty common to encounter comments along the lines of yours: Hillary is definitely in the wrong and every one knows it. But I do not see that yet.
The problem with classified or even just sensitive information is that it is hard to know what is what. For example a list of naval ship names is likely not sensitive information. That same list with some grouping may suddenly be sensitive. For this reason, it is good to assume all government communications someone at that level is having are at a minimum sensitive and should always be on government property.
I understand somebody being paid by the Democratic party or one of Hillary's SuperPACs to try to push this argument, but for a regular citizen to attempt it shows just how successful the suggested partisanship of the US political system is in dividing regular citizens to act against their own best interests.
I mean, that's the only thing I can conclude. If you're assuming a priori that there's a crime, then you're putting the cart before the horse.
When you're assuming that counter points can only come from some sort of paid posters, you're being disrepectful.
This is why political topics are bad in HN. There's no news for nerds in here, just lots of people playing fast and loose with the facts to score political points.
then perhaps the reasonable thing to conclude is that it is not an act that somebody should go to jail for. I mean, that's the only thing I can conclude.
It's not a defense, it's a counter to the idea that "if anyone else did this, they'd be fired and charged". Obviously that's not true, because (as noted in the comment to which you replied) others did it and no one was fired or went to jail.
But Powell and Rice, occupying the same level of power as Clinton during her term, I understood it as a condemnation of the privileges of political power in general and not a privilege of a particular political party.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/03/us/politics/hillary-clinto...
Not really sure what the huge difference is in this case.
"Mrs. Clinton is not the first government official — or first secretary of state — to use a personal email account on which to conduct official business. But her exclusive use of her private email, for all of her work, appears unusual, Mr. Baron said. The use of private email accounts is supposed to be limited to emergencies, experts said, such as when an agency’s computer server is not working.
“I can recall no instance in my time at the National Archives when a high-ranking official at an executive branch agency solely used a personal email account for the transaction of government business,” said Mr. Baron, who worked at the agency from 2000 to 2013.
Regulations from the National Archives and Records Administration at the time required that any emails sent or received from personal accounts be preserved as part of the agency’s records.
But Mrs. Clinton and her aides failed to do so."
That is pretty much the most minor and least relevant issue with Clinton's case.
The State Department's review said they should have been classified at the time.
“These emails were not retroactively classified by the State Department. ... Rather these emails contained classified information when they were generated and, according to IC classification officials, that information remains classified today. This classified information should never have been transmitted via an unclassified personal system.”
That's from the inspector generals at the State Department.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-clinton-email...
> All criminal laws require a certain level of intent and, in the area of classified document cases, the intent to disclose it to someone not authorized to receive it," says Lowell, who has a long history of defending politicians in ethics cases, and served as chief counsel to the House Democrats during Bill Clinton's impeachment proceedings. "Secretary Clinton's use of an email server was [for correspondence with] her own staff and other officials. It was not [intended to be provided] to the press or to a foreign country or any other entity, so it would be ridiculous [for her to] even be considered charged under these laws.
The emails also weren't classified at the time.