[Al_U_Card]

 kenberg, on 2016-July-08, 07:58, said:

It is true that I am naive. This I acknowledge. But life consists of choices between unbridled naivety and unbridled cynicism. People sometimes get away with a lot because of who they are or who they know. More often, perhaps, they get away with things because they have a legal team that keeps them technically on the right side of the law while engaging in actions that clearly dodge the law's intent. The principal effect of some tax laws seems to be to create well paid jobs for tax lawyers.

With the e-mail issue there is plenty to be cynical about. It seems pretty clear that the R interest in the matter is how it can be used to damage HC rather than any concern about national security. An interest in the latter might prompt hearings to determine needed revisions in cybersecurity. An obsession with the former prompts hearings to berate Comey for not being on the Get Hillary team.

But while there is much to be cynical about it appears to me, no expert on national security or the laws governing it, that Comey took his job seriously and came to conclusions based on serious investigation. I would like to believe that is true, which might be naivety. Or not.

We all want to trust in the nature of our better angels. Those that exploit this are the true cynics while the realists struggle to deal with the dichotomy posed by this. Intelligence will win out in the end but in the meantime the road of willful volition is arduous and painful for all. Just part of the evolutionary process I suppose

[barmar]

 cherdano, on 2016-July-07, 16:30, said:

Can you give an example of such a lie, where it is clear that it was an intentional lie?

She said she didn't send any classified emails, they found 110 of them. It seems unlikely that Hillary wouldn't know which of her emails contained classified information.

She said she turned over all the work-related emails, but Comey said they found thousands of work-related emails that weren't turned over. I suppose it's possible that her subordinates who were doing this screwed up and she didn't know about it. But in most organizations, there's a "buck stops here" policy -- the person in charge is considered responsible for what their people do.

She said she used just one device for convenience, she used several. Although in this case I think there may just be confusion -- I think she was talking about the server, not the devices she uses to access it.

https://www.youtube....h?v=wbkS26PX4rc

[Winstonm]

I think it is rather juvenile to look at Clinton's e-mail as secretary of state out-of-context as compared with activities of other historical characters in similar positions of power and influence. Personally, I don't think a squeaky clean personality would have the moxie to handle a job that requires a less-than-open interaction with the public. In Hillary's case, I would suspect a haughty and arrogant disregard for what she thought was silly-to-be-classified documents over a genuine disregard for safeguarding critical national secrets. To be fair, I think the same thing can be said for previous Republicans who held the position of Secretary of State. I think for the most part people in high positions of government genuinely try to do the right thing - there is no vast conspiracy to enslave the masses.

If anything, what this present penchant for trying cases in the media means to me is that we are quite close to losing our Republic and democracy to a tribalism supported by propaganda masquerading as news, and not just Fox, but all the major news organizations have joined in the hunt for ratings and profitability, casting truth and integrity of mission aside with disdain.

Without a just and even-handed free press, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to find middle ground. The Republic should not be placed at risk in a zero-sum game of chicken.

[cherdano]

 kenberg, on 2016-July-07, 19:30, said:

But the fact that some classification is nuts does not justify a cavalier attitude toward all classification.

But that's not what happened! Among these 30,000-60,000 emails the FBI read, there were 52 that were classified as "top secret". For all I know, these could have been "top secret" because these emails implied that the US was waging a drone war in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
You don't know whether making these 52 emails public would have at all been detrimental for US security. Comey knows, but he doesn't even hint at what their topic was, and he just asks us to trust his judgement in calling it "highly sensitive". Do you really think this information is still so highly sensitive 4 years later that he couldn't at least tell us the topic?

Meanwhile, somehow this is just the prototypical Clinton scandal. She gets investigated for using a private email server instead of the department's. As a result, she gets scolded for breaking the rules with emails that would have similarly broken the rules had she used the department's servers.

[cherdano]

 barmar, on 2016-July-08, 08:37, said:

She said she turned over all the work-related emails, but Comey said they found thousands of work-related emails that weren't turned over. I suppose it's possible that her subordinates who were doing this screwed up and she didn't know about it.

Did you read Comey's statement? Here it is:
https://www.fbi.gov/...l-e-mail-system

He makes it very clear that it required considerable forensic computer expertise to find these emails. They scanned the entire hard disk of retired servers, and found data snippets of emails that there were able to piece together. They found emails that were completely deleted from Clinton's servers and devices but were still saved on the email accounts of the recipients. Etc.

If you are asked to turn over all emails relating to "X", then you are required to make a reasonable effort to find all emails relating to "X" and turn them over. You are not required to hire a 10-man team of computer experts for 6 months and ask them to find all possible traces of such emails on all possible devices or hard disk that may have at some point had a cached version of said emails.

[cherdano]

 barmar, on 2016-July-08, 08:37, said:

She said she didn't send any classified emails, they found 110 of them. It seems unlikely that Hillary wouldn't know which of her emails contained classified information.

You pretend that the question whether some information is classified is black and white. If that were the case, surely the FBI would have been able to determine the status themselves, without asking the government agency "owning" this information for its classification? If the FBI does not for sure know which information is classified, it seems quite reasonable that the State department would not know either.

[cherdano]

 barmar, on 2016-July-08, 08:37, said:

She said she used just one device for convenience, she used several. Although in this case I think there may just be confusion -- I think she was talking about the server, not the devices she uses to access it.

Well, that assertion is also being disputed:
http://www.huffingto...4b0a629c1ab7bdb

Clinton may well have meant that she only used one device at the time (the quote I found said "it was just easier to carry one device..."); I don't think anything Comey says explicitly contradicts that.

To me, this all smells like Comey being full of ***** and making a big deal out of very little. I mean, just read the last two paragraphs of his statement. I have never seen an investigation that was completely independent and uninfluenced by outside pressure that had to shout out that the investigation was completely independent and uninfluenced by outside pressure. If that's what you do, you just present the facts and the logical conclusion.

[Zelandakh]

 kenberg, on 2016-July-07, 19:30, said:

Do you have a source for what you say? I completely trust your intent here, but I find it bizarre that there would be no rules governing e-mail communication of classified material. I have never heard this before."At the time HC took office". That was sometime in this century, was it not? I'm speechless. Well, not really.

The relevant rule at the time (2009) was the 1950 Federal Records Act. The act itself is media neutral, meaning that it states that records need to be handed over and not destroyed without reference to their classification level.

The point is however, that violating government policy is not in itself criminal activity. Even after the stricter 2014 Presidential and Federal Records Act Amendments, such violations lead legally to administrative penalties rather than criminal charges. This is why it is clear that a criminal prosecution would be impossible.

The other point is one that has been made here by others. The FRA was enforced in an unbelievably lax way, not only by at least 2 SoSs but also throughout their staff. There is even today still no centralised way of collecting and archiving email in the State Department. You could equate it to disqualifying a bridge player from all of their tournaments of the last 10 years because they alerted a call by pointing at it rather than doing the full procedure.

Of course it is easy to convince people that a leading politician is getting some sort of special privilege. Politicians are not exactly the most popular people and HC is hardly the most popular even amongst politicians. People want to believe this and they will. Few will bother to check the history of the various changes in regulation that have taken place since 2009 and why they are relevant. I am a little surprised that, apparently, no American news outlet is trying to go into the details but I guess it requires a level of attention that would see the average viewer changing the channel. But you Ken should do a little research into the matter and see for yourself how ridiculous and political the indignation from Republicans about no criminal prosecution really is.

[kenberg]

 Zelandakh, on 2016-July-08, 11:21, said:

The relevant rule at the time (2009) was the 1950 Federal Records Act. The act itself is media neutral, meaning that it states that records need to be handed over and not destroyed without reference to their classification level.

The point is however, that violating government policy is not in itself criminal activity. Even after the stricter 2014 Presidential and Federal Records Act Amendments, such violations lead legally to administrative penalties rather than criminal charges. This is why it is clear that a criminal prosecution would be impossible.

The other point is one that has been made here by others. The FRA was enforced in an unbelievably lax way, not only by at least 2 SoSs but also throughout their staff. There is even today still no centralised way of collecting and archiving email in the State Department. You could equate it to disqualifying a bridge player from all of their tournaments of the last 10 years because they alerted a call by pointing at it rather than doing the full procedure.

Of course it is easy to convince people that a leading politician is getting some sort of special privilege. Politicians are not exactly the most popular people and HC is hardly the most popular even amongst politicians. People want to believe this and they will. Few will bother to check the history of the various changes in regulation that have taken place since 2009 and why they are relevant. I am a little surprised that, apparently, no American news outlet is trying to go into the details but I guess it requires a level of attention that would see the average viewer changing the channel. But you Ken should do a little research into the matter and see for yourself how ridiculous and political the indignation from Republicans about no criminal prosecution really is.

First things first, thanks for the information.

I will see what I can do. My starting point is that surely there are cases where people are charged and successfully prosecuted for mishandling classified material. My provisional understanding is that the FBI investigated, and thoroughly investigated, whether this case rose to that level. "They", meaning Comey but presumably with the backing of his team, decided after looking through all of it that it did not.

I certainly agree that Rs are milking this for al it is worth, and milking what at least now is a dry cow. Whether this was clear from the start I am not so sure, but it is something I hope will get looked at. I would be very surprised if a person who is given access to classified information does not sign something making her (or generally her/him) legally responsible for handling that classified information in a secure manner. Perhaps no such obligation is attached but, as I say, that would surprise me. I would think just about everyone would find that surprising.

I was playing bridge today and I am playing tomorrow. I had to head out after the fourth set at Wimbleton ignoring HC and everything. Oh the tough life of the retiree. But I will try to see what can be made of this.

General comment: There are many many times where something gets blown out of all proportion. This is partly from ideology, left or right, and partly from the news people wanting ratings. And, no doubt, partly from the laziness of us in the public. I am not yet convinced that this is one of them.

[kenberg]

I have looked a bit.

in April of 1915, yes 1915, the Fact Check on NPR listed four issues. It is the fourth of these, Section 1924 Of Title 18 — Classified Information that goes along the lines that I was thinking.

Here is the final paragraph:

Quote

The bottom line is this: No one will likely ever know what was deleted from Clinton's server. Barring one of the 30,000 emails Clinton turned over to the State Department being deemed "classified," it's also unlikely she will ever be found to have violated the letter of the law.

Ok, saying that "Barring one of the 30,000 emails Clinton turned over to the State Department being deemed 'classified', it's also unlikely she will ever be found to have violated the letter of the law." suggests that once we find that some of these e-mails turn out to be classified, and a few of them Top Secret, she might well be found to have violated the law. Yes I know that "if A then B" is not equivalent to "if B then A". Still.

What I get out of this is what I have always gotten out of this. It depends on the details. It depends on the details of the law, and it depends on the details of her actions. From there I go on to figure Comey was right to look at all of what happened very closely, and I am willing to trust that at the end of it all he reasonably concluded no charges should be brought.

In short, it was not a witch hunt, not a waste of time and money, it was an investigation that came to a reasonable conclusion.

The NPR Fact Check is hardly the last word, but it is not some right wing propaganda outlet either, and it does seem to indicate that I am not crazy in thinking there was something worth looking into.

I very much think that after this thorough investigation, it is now time to accept the conclusion of the FBI. In general, I think that at some point just about any investigation should come to a close. John Kennedy is dead, he has been for over fifty year, I suppose Oswald killed killed him. Perhaps not, but I am done with thinking about it.

We can, each of us, think of what this all says of Hillary's judgment. But the legal case is over. Done. Finito. No further hearings are needed.

[mike777]

First off and most importantly given all the rules, regulations, laws as I have often stated I hate, really hate turning the law as a weapon against politicians that you disagree with. Far too often those in power use the law as a weapon to silence those whom they disagree with.


In this case it is the leading Democratic for President.


So many of these posts quoting irrelevant statues or case law is nonsense but not my main point.

Fair minded people may disagree whether Clinton given her vast wealth and vast power was treated with favor.
Fair minded people may say as many do that the FBI director did not want to go down in history as the destroyer of the first woman President. I just hope the next time an unpopular, out of favor politician is given an open mind and the doubt.


many many hated or disagreed with John Adams but I love how he defended the British, he stood up and defended a hated group of men and the hated English.

[barmar]

 cherdano, on 2016-July-08, 10:14, said:

You pretend that the question whether some information is classified is black and white. If that were the case, surely the FBI would have been able to determine the status themselves, without asking the government agency "owning" this information for its classification? If the FBI does not for sure know which information is classified, it seems quite reasonable that the State department would not know either.

I don't know how it works for online documents and emails, but in the traditional world of printed documents I think they stamped the classification level on every page of the document. It takes a judgement call to decide whether something should be classified, but once the decision has been made it's very clear about the status. I like to hope that an attempt has been made to transfer some of this process to the digital world.

In my early career, I worked on a computer system that had mechanisms to automate this -- each login session had a security level and so did every file, and you could only read files at your level or lower, and only write to files at your level and higher (so it was not possible for someone to inadvertently "leak" secret material to a file that a lower security user could read). When sending email, you could only send to your level or higher, not send down (if you want to communicate with a lower security user, you would have to logout and log back in at a lower level). There are some modern operating systems that incorporate similar mechanisms, e.g. SELinux (Security Enhanced Linux). However, these types of mechanisms don't translate easily to the world of the Internet (the original TCP/IP specification did incorporate security labels on packets, but this is not really much use if you're sending the data over insecure routers, so it was eventually removed from the protocol). Encryption can protect data as it's traveling over the wires, but doesn't help much once it gets to the destination and is decrypted for viewing.

The problem that the FBI had in this investigation is that they were working with forensic trails, not the original emails. They were scanning disks looking for deleted files, and that usually means you just get bits and pieces. So they probably had to make estimates about whether something was likely to be part of a classified document, since the actual label is no longer available.

[barmar]

Getting back to Trump....

I had Chinese food last night, and I got this fortune cookie: "A billionaire's joke is always funny."

If Trump wins, I'm not sure we'll be laughing....

[cherdano]

 barmar, on 2016-July-09, 17:41, said:

I don't know how it works for online documents and emails, but in the traditional world of printed documents I think they stamped the classification level on every page of the document. It takes a judgement call to decide whether something should be classified, but once the decision has been made it's very clear about the status. I like to hope that an attempt has been made to transfer some of this process to the digital world.

In my early career, I worked on a computer system that had mechanisms to automate this -- each login session had a security level and so did every file, and you could only read files at your level or lower, and only write to files at your level and higher (so it was not possible for someone to inadvertently "leak" secret material to a file that a lower security user could read). When sending email, you could only send to your level or higher, not send down (if you want to communicate with a lower security user, you would have to logout and log back in at a lower level). There are some modern operating systems that incorporate similar mechanisms, e.g. SELinux (Security Enhanced Linux). However, these types of mechanisms don't translate easily to the world of the Internet (the original TCP/IP specification did incorporate security labels on packets, but this is not really much use if you're sending the data over insecure routers, so it was eventually removed from the protocol). Encryption can protect data as it's traveling over the wires, but doesn't help much once it gets to the destination and is decrypted for viewing.

The problem that the FBI had in this investigation is that they were working with forensic trails, not the original emails. They were scanning disks looking for deleted files, and that usually means you just get bits and pieces. So they probably had to make estimates about whether something was likely to be part of a classified document, since the actual label is no longer available.

LOLLLLL. Nice lectures about SELinux etc. You are a really smart guy. So nice of you to share a bit of your wisdom with us.
Too bad what you say is directly contradicted by Comey's statement.

Quote

FBI investigators have also read all of the approximately 30,000 e-mails provided by Secretary Clinton to the State Department in December 2014. Where an e-mail was assessed as possibly containing classified information, the FBI referred the e-mail to any U.S. government agency that was a likely “owner” of information in the e-mail, so that agency could make a determination as to whether the e-mail contained classified information at the time it was sent or received, or whether there was reason to classify the e-mail now, even if its content was not classified at the time it was sent (that is the process sometimes referred to as “up-classifying”).

Nothing about forensics here. They got the entire emails, and had to check with the responsible government agency to learn whether the information was classified at the time. I guess FBI agents were unable to read the "TOP SECRET" markers in the email? (They of course did use forensics, but only to search for deleted emails that weren't initially turned over.)

https://www.fbi.gov/...l-e-mail-system

[Winstonm]

Quote

“I cannot in good conscience support someone that I know will be a disaster for our nation and our party,” said Beau Correll, a Virginia convention delegate who is suing that state to invalidate a law requiring him to vote according to the result of the March 1 primary, which Trump won.

“If we continue with Trump, it’s going to be total annihilation,” he said.

Many Republicans also worry that Trump’s disorganized campaign and high disapproval ratings make a victory all but impossible, but others have an even more fundamental concern.

“There’s even a greater fear,” one Republican National Committee member said. “What if he really gets elected? Now what do we do?”

Other Republicans are less shy about that possibility. It would be a catastrophe, they say, and it cannot be allowed to happen.

Quote

“Whatever Hillary Clinton’s faults, she’s not ignorant or hateful or a nut,” wrote Mark Salter, who was a senior strategist to Arizona Sen. John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign. “She acts like an adult, and understands the responsibilities of an American president.”

Can I get an amen!

[hrothgar]

 cherdano, on 2016-July-09, 18:09, said:

LOLLLLL. Nice lectures about SELinux etc. You are a really smart guy. So nice of you to share a bit of your wisdom with us.
Too bad what you say is directly contradicted by Comey's statement.

Nothing about forensics here. They got the entire emails, and had to check with the responsible government agency to learn whether the information was classified at the time. I guess FBI agents were unable to read the "TOP SECRET" markers in the email? (They of course did use forensics, but only to search for deleted emails that weren't initially turned over.)

https://www.fbi.gov/...l-e-mail-system

Also, many of the offending documents were retroactively classified
(By which I mean that the subject matter in the document was not considered classified at the time it was disseminated, but was later considered to be classified)

One could make the argument that Clinton should have recognized that that the emails that she was receiving contained information that might, at some future point in time, get classified and - based on this - shift over to some other email address for her personal communications. However, here we're dealing with poor judgement rather than a premeditated criminal act.

From my perspective, the really significant issue is that all sorts of folks KNEW that they were sending email to a private email address and NO ONE CARED.
(Because, guess what? This kind of ***** happens all the time and no one gave a damn until the Republicans decided that they could whip up yet another feeding frenzy regarding the Clintons)

[Winstonm]

Looks like I'm not the only one thinking that Trump may just bail on the whole "President thing".

Quote

[A]s the race has turned toward the general election and a majority of polls have shown Mr. Trump trailing Mrs. Clinton, speculation has again crept into political conversations in Washington, New York and elsewhere that Mr. Trump will seek an exit strategy before the election to avoid a humiliating loss.

Now he is refusing to rule out an even more dramatic departure, one that would let him avoid the grueling job of governing, return to his business and enjoy his now-permanent status as a news media celebrity.

[kenberg]

I was just watching the PBS Newshour with a video of Bernie Sanders endorsing Hillary Clinton.
It reminded me of why I never much liked him.
There he is, a couple for feet from Hillary, endorsing her while waving his right hand in front of her face.
No doubt she has to agree to some of his positions to get his endorsement but perhaps they could have put in a clause about not waving his hand in front of her face while doing this endorsement? I learned better manners when I was ten.
Perhaps the Sanders endorsement will help her, but I am not at all sure of it.
Please Bernie, exit the stage.

[y66]

 kenberg, on 2016-July-12, 17:22, said:

I was just watching the PBS Newshour with a video of Bernie Sanders endorsing Hillary Clinton.
It reminded me of why I never much liked him.
There he is, a couple for feet from Hillary, endorsing her while waving his right hand in front of her face.
No doubt she has to agree to some of his positions to get his endorsement but perhaps they could have put in a clause about not waving his hand in front of her face while doing this endorsement? I learned better manners when I was ten.
Perhaps the Sanders endorsement will help her, but I am not at all sure of it.
Please Bernie, exit the stage.

Have you had your depth perception checked recently?

[helene_t]

Depth perception or not, it was an awful endorsement speach. Just self promotion. Nothing about why he endorsed her.

Anyway, it is good news that he decided not to take the Green Party ticket.