Clinton did not claim executive privilege. She set up a secret email account in order to avoid disclosure laws. This criminal and corrupt action should disqualify her for presidential office.
18 U.S. Code § 2071 - Concealment, removal, or mutilation generally
(a) Whoever willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, or destroys, or attempts to do so, or, with intent to do so takes and carries away any record, proceeding, map, book, paper, document, or other thing, filed or deposited with any clerk or officer of any court of the United States, or in any public office, or with any judicial or public officer of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.
(b) Whoever, having the custody of any such record, proceeding, map, book, document, paper, or other thing, willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both; and shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States. As used in this subsection, the term “office” does not include the office held by any person as a retired officer of the Armed Forces of the United States.
I also work for an organization where FOIA laws mean anything I produce is available to anyone who asks (and knows what to ask for). The purpose of laws like this is to prevent your elected and/or unelected officials from doing things that are detrimental to society. Those "couriers... grey area communications mechanism, or... something else that is lost to the public record"? Yeah, you're fucked if someone can figure out how to request those, because they're subject to the same laws, and it sure looks like you're trying to hide something.
Leaders cannot lead if they're working against the public interest. If they're not working against the public interest, then they can justify why they're doing what they do. Period.
Government policymakers deal with issues that involve organized labor, various special interests, and business interests.
By making things operate in a such a way that people cannot function in a modern manner, you're pushing much of the deliberative process away from written mediums to telephone and in-person meetings. By doing this, you're empowering people who have access to power (lobbyists, etc), in the name of transparency that is almost meaningless.
Second, "cannot function in a modern manner"? If you're creating a public record, it's subject to FOIA. End of discussion. The point of FOIA is that you, as a creator of public records, cannot hide your work product from the people you serve. If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear, or so I've been told.
The advocates for full disclosure imo are biting their nose to spite their face. Normal people running everything from little leagues to major corporations use email for strategy development, information delivery, deliberative functions and other normal business processes.
Known figures in government cannot do that, because the second they do, that information is available to the universe. The consequence is that officials don't use email, and either go through couriers, use some grey area communications mechanism, or do something else that is lost to the public record. It's ridiculous that President Obama or any smart governor cannot have a computer on this desk because of this stuff.
I think the current law was designed for paper memos and letters and works counter to its intended goal. Leaders cannot lead if everything they write needs to be staged for this evening's news. There should be a long aging process for this type of material.