It looks like this email story about HRC has got some legs. Most of it is because it's about Hillary Clinton and gosh! She could be president some day, or not. Feinstein faults HRC's silence. It's going to hurt her. Why isn't HRC saying anything about this controversy? Well, think about it, what could she possibly say that won't get picked apart, slammed, criticized or ridiculed? There is no explanation she could make that will satisfy an insatiable press or her salivating political opponents. Any explanation she offers will simply be twisted against her, so I understand her silence. Not that silence is much better than an attempt at an explanation. By not talking she leaves the door open to supposition, insinuation, fairy tales, fables and boogie man horror stories of what could have happened.
What could have happened.
Not what did happen.
Fear trumping actuality.
I'm not buying it.
Whether you love Hillary Clinton or hate her, support her or support someone else, whether you find her to be too centrist or objectionable in another way; Hillary Clinton's private email issue is less about the email issue and more about all things Clinton. America needs a sustainable energy policy, a rebuilt infrastructure, a renewed voter rights law, better health care policy, and lots more, but what are we talking about? HRC's private email account when she was Secretary of State. A post she left over two years ago.
A lot of friends and family have tried to engage me about HRC's private email, but it's a non-issue for me. Maybe it's because I've worked IT, IT security and deal with data breaches and risk management, but I just don't see this as a criminal case or even as gross negligence. What I see is a hoard of nosy people miffed at being thwarted by a woman who knows exactly who she's dealing with.
Over the last week I've been baited and nudged on this subject. Usually the lead up is if I've read about it and if I'm properly horrified about the whole mess. And I reply something like this:
Yes, I'm up on the story and no, I'm not overly upset about it. I learned that we can live without a few million official emails stored in our archives and the nation is just fine.
This usually gets a reaction that runs a gamut from "What are you talking about!" to "How can you say that!" to "Are you out of your ever lovin' mind!" (or worse). I'm not particularly upset about the private emails because we've seen this before and again and again and again. I reply:
Back in 2007 G.W. Bush administration had the gwb43.com domain hosted on the RNC servers. That email had no government security and anywhere from 5 million to 22 million emails were lost or deleted for all posterity. Our government is still here. We're still safe. Bushco's private email issue was aside the eight U.S. Attorneys that were fired for partisan reasons. Back then, the GOP pundits said the private email issue was a nontroversy. Today, half of the same players are running around with their hair on fire, leaving the other half clutching their pearls. I call BS. If it wasn't a problem back then for the GOP, then why is it a problem now (other than the person with a private email today is a Democrat)?
That response usually earns me some blow back about the law. That GW Bush didn't break the law and that Clinton needed to comply with a new law enacted the year she became SOS and blah, blah, blah. I find this type of argument particularly galling (in light of the torture thing) and usually say something like:
It's not that I don't take compliance seriously, because you know I do. What bugs me is this double standard applied to HRC. "BushCo didn't break the law, HRC did"; but that isn't true. At the most, HRC was out of compliance with a regulation until she submitted the missing records last December. What exactly are the consequences of being out of compliance with CFR Section 1236.22 of the 2009 NARA requirements? Supply the missing records. There's no fines, jail time ... nothing, just cough up the records. You want me to believe Mitt Romney's, Scott Walker's and Rick Scott's private emails don't matter (and Rick Scott's violations have codified consequences) but Hillary Clinton's emails do? ....I'm so done with that. You say GW Bush is ok because he complied with the law such as it was in 2007? Well, HRC complied with the law such as it was in 2009. She was told last October they were missing her emails and she took 2 months to printout 55,000 pages and gave them to the State Department. She did what she was obligated to do and that isn't good enough because it wasn't done in real time and although no one is saying this, it was done in hard copy instead of a easily searchable electronic version. (I don't get to go through all this explanation without interruptions, but I say all these points. What I really want to say is, "Oh, Boo Hoo. Get over it!"; but don't because that would be as abrasive as James Carville. so....
No one wants to hear that the 2009 law about email record keeping was inadequate. They don't want to hear that the consequences for failing to comply with the regulation derived from the law (the CFR) on a day-to-day basis is simply to supply the missing records to the best of your ability. So much of the media coverage about these emails deals with the spooky unknown. "HRC may have broken the law." The talking heads incorrectly cite a law instead of a regulation, which is significantly different than a law. They imply the penalty is criminal rather than simply supplying what was missing. "It's possible that..." or "We only have her word for what she turned in" or my favorite, "We don't know...." These are the attacks of concern trolls. People who say they want the best for our nation, but what they really want to do is stir the shit pot. No proof, no substance, just supposition and a call for HRC to prove a negative. To that end I say,
It wouldn't have mattered had she sent a million printed pages, you'd still be saying, "Well, we can't confirm there isn't any more....." Either you like HRC's policy positions and trust her enough to vote for her or you don't. If you didn't have a problem with GWB's lost emails, then you shouldn't have any problem with HRC's found emails. She found the emails in question, printed them and turned them in. GWB didn't do that. Mitt Romney deleted many of his private emails during his governorship. Rick Scott is trying to get away without giving any of his emails up. Jeb Bush only released 10% of his private emails and he did it carelessly. His email dump included 12,000 people's names, birth dates and social security numbers. Jeb Bush's debacle barely lasted a few days in the news, he's a presidential candidate, too. Why focus on HRC's emails that she requested be released to the public after review but ignore Jeb Bush's irresponsible data breach? I get you can't stand Hillary Clinton, but really, if you can easily excuse Jeb's screw up and justify him self-selecting what private emails are to be released, why can't you afford HRC the same privilege?
I never get a good response as to why we are focusing on HRC's email and not the bevy of men (plus Sarah Palin) who've done the same thing. What typically happens is a pivot to what "could have happened", but didn't. "She could've been hacked", her private email system didn't have government grade security. They called her email server "home brewed". Others compared Network Solutions to GoDaddy or mentioned the company was hacked five years ago in 2010.
You know, you get better at computer security as you go along. I wouldn't say our government has an unblemished cybersecurity record. The State Department's unclassified email system was shut down for a few days last November due to a hacking episode. Let's talk about Chelsea Manning or Edward Snowden. If that doesn't score any points with you, then, how about: The Clinton's have been under a microsope for decades. They know email is discoverable and admissible. They chose this path and it tells me Hillary Clinton is a careful, prudent woman just like Mitt Romney is careful about his email. If she turns around and dumps 100% of her emails, her opponents will simply say she's a weak willed flip flopper.
Creating a home server is not rocket science. Data storage is cheap these days and there are dozens of IT professionals in the NYC tri-state area who are qualified to put together a system that would support a private email account on a private domain on a private computer (with adequate redundancy) in a private home of a former POTUS that is guarded by the U.S. Secret Service. I have everything I just described here in my own home except for the former POTUS and Secret Service Parts. Could something have gone wrong? Sure, but it didn't. If there were any breaches, lost data or any error at all you'd better believe someone would've leaked it and the NYT would have had a real story instead of peddling cyberfiction.
Ok, I know, sarcasm is best left unsaid. I'm just so done with the Hillary Clinton bashing. I watched James Carville duke it out with Andrea Mitchell today. Carville's abrasive style isn't doing HRC any favors, but really, Mitchell wasn't covering any new ground. I will answer the pressing question that Andrea Mitchell kept asking Carville.
Why should we take Secretary Clinton's word for it that there are no more private emails that should be turned over to the State Department?
As you know Ms. Mitchell the U.S. legal system is based upon proof. Do you know of any proof that Ms. Clinton held back records she is required to submit to the State Department? Do you have proof of probable cause that would get the FBI or the DOJ a warrant to seize the clintonemail.com computer system? Do you have proof that Secretary Clinton sent classified information through her private email system? Can you explain why the press feels entitled to peruse HRC's personal emails? Do you have anything more than smoke to blow up my nose? Because, I'm finding this turkey to be done.
I'd like to see some honesty among the newsers admitting that the consequences of violating this rule was what? exactly? Nothing? Oh, no, we gotta have a better story than that! Even Mother Jones doesn't say what the consequences are in violating this regulation. I know the stories about another State Department employee being reprimanded and forced to resign, but that conveniently left out the fact that he was a managerial asshat. What is to be done? Retroactively reprimand or fire HRC? I don't see that happening. Well hindsight is 20/20 and I guess Trey Gowdy is PO'd that congress didn't codify any criminal consequences to NARA, so all he's got is supposition, innuendo and insinuation; he's running with it and the media is cheering him on, hoping if he keeps digging it will become more than a bigger hole.
I'm still not buying it.