two of the survivors from Benghazi --- gun running warmongers who got lucky.
On Tuesday, July 19, 2016 at 3:15:59 PM UTC-5, KeithInTampa wrote: > > After watching two of the survivors from Benghazi last night at the > Convention, there's no way anyone could vote for Hil Clinton unless > they're a traitor..... > > On Tue, Jul 19, 2016 at 2:54 PM, plainolamerican <[email protected] > <javascript:>> wrote: > >> In 2007, when Congress asked the Bush administration for emails >> surrounding the firing of eights U.S. attorneys, Attorney General Alberto >> Gonzales revealed that many of the emails requested could not be produced >> because they were sent on a non-government email server. The officials had >> used the private domain gwb43.com, a server run by the Republican >> National Committee. Two years later, it was revealed that potentially 22 >> million emails were deleted, which was considered by some to be a violation >> of the Presidential Records Act. >> >> The shocking truth about the last two Republican secretaries of state has >> finally come out: Colin Powell and aides to Condoleezza Rice trafficked in >> classified information on their personal email accounts. This is an >> enormous scandal! >> >> Oh, wait. No, it’s not. >> >> Try Newsweek for only $1.25 per week <http://www.newsweek.com/trial> >> >> This news involving Powell and Rice is meaningless except that it sets up >> a rational conversation (finally) about the Hillary Clinton bogus >> “email-gate” imbroglio. Perhaps the partisans on each side will now be more >> willing to listen to the facts. From the beginning, the “scandal” about >> Clinton using a personal email account when she was secretary of >> state—including the finding that a few documents on it were retroactively >> deemed classified—has been a big nothing-burger perpetuated for partisan >> purposes, with reports spooned out by Republicans attempting to deceive or >> acting out of ignorance. Conservative commentators have raged, presidential >> candidates have fallen over themselves in apoplectic babbling, and some >> politicians have proclaimed that Clinton should be in jail for mishandling >> classified information. The nonsense has been never-ending, and attempts to >> cut through the fog of duplicity have been fruitless. >> >> But Powell and Rice’s aides did nothing wrong. (I’m going to focus on >> them so that partisans who say Clinton broke the law have to attack >> respected Republicans first.) Start with this: Powell and Rice, like all >> modern secretaries of state, each had at least two email accounts—one >> personal and the other for communications designated as highly classified >> *at >> the time of their creation* . For classified information, both of >> them—and their aides with appropriate clearance—had a sensitive >> compartmented information facility, or what is known in intelligence >> circles as a SCIF. Most senior officials who deal with classified >> information have a SCIF in their offices and their homes. >> >> These are not just extra offices with a special lock. Each SCIF is >> constructed following complex rules imposed by the intelligence and defense >> communities. Restrictions imposed on the builders are designed to ensure >> that no unauthorized personnel can get into the room, and the SCIF cannot >> be accessed by hacking or electronic eavesdropping. A group called the >> technical surveillance countermeasures team (TSCM) investigates the area or >> activity to check that all communications are protected from outside >> surveillance and cannot be intercepted. >> >> SPONSORED BYNEXTADVISOR >> <http://eb2.3lift.com/pass?imp_id=1468954401_514779965_8359&redir=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nextadvisor.com%2Fblog%2F2015%2F04%2F02%2Fpay-interest-2017-credit-cards%2F%3Fkw%3Dtlift_dsk_paynoint17-1-3%2Bwww.newsweek.com> >> >> <http://eb2.3lift.com/pass?imp_id=1468954401_514779965_8359&redir=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nextadvisor.com%2Fblog%2F2015%2F04%2F02%2Fpay-interest-2017-credit-cards%2F%3Fkw%3Dtlift_dsk_paynoint17-1-3%2Bwww.newsweek.com>CARDS >> >> WITH 0% APR UNTIL 2017 >> <http://eb2.3lift.com/pass?imp_id=1468954401_514779965_8359&redir=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nextadvisor.com%2Fblog%2F2015%2F04%2F02%2Fpay-interest-2017-credit-cards%2F%3Fkw%3Dtlift_dsk_paynoint17-1-3%2Bwww.newsweek.com> >> >> Most permanent SCIFs have physical and technical security, called >> TEMPEST. The facility is guarded and in operation 24 hours a day, seven >> days a week; any official on the SCIF staff must have the highest security >> clearance. There is supposed to be sufficient personnel continuously >> present to observe the primary, secondary and emergency exit doors of the >> SCIF. Each SCIF must apply fundamental red-black separation to prevent the >> inadvertent transmission of classified data over telephone lines, power >> lines or signal lines. >> >> I could keep going for thousands and thousands of words explaining the >> security measures used for SCIFs. And all of this— *all *of this—is >> designed to protect the confidentiality of emails and communications >> determined to be classified at the time of transmission. >> >> In addition to the classified email system used in SCIFs, there are >> personal email accounts. Prior to 2013, these could be accounts inside the >> relatively unsecure State Department system or private email accounts. If >> they are private—running through a commercial or personal server—they have >> to follow some rules set up in the *Federal Register* . There are no >> guards, no red-black procedures, no construction rules, no special rooms, >> no TEMPEST, no TSCM. And most important: Until 2013, there was no rule >> against using them. In fact, the rules specifically allowed for them. Check >> out the relevant section in the Code of Federal Regulations (36 CFR Chapter >> XII, Subchapter B, section 1236.22b) for the rules regarding the use of >> personal email accounts by any State Department official. >> >> To give an idea of *how *insecure these communications could be, >> Powell’s personal email is an AOL account, and he used it on a laptop when >> he communicated with foreign officials and ambassadors, unless the >> information qualified for a SCIF. (Clinton sent only one email to a foreign >> dignitary through her personal account, and her communications with >> ambassadors were, for the most part, by phone.) >> >> So did Powell and the aides to Rice violate rules governing classified >> information, since the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) staff has recently >> determined that some of their years-old personal emails contain top-secret >> material? No. The rules regarding the handling of classified information >> apply to communications designated as secret *at that time* . If >> documents that aren’t deemed classified, and aren’t handled through a SCIF >> when they are created or initially transmitted, are later, in retrospect, >> deemed secret, the classification is new—and however the record was handled >> in the past is irrelevant. >> >> There is also an enormous difference between a secretary of state sending >> an email to someone inside the department and that same email being >> released to the general public. Put simply, as anyone who has filed a >> request for a document under the FOIA knows, not every email or other item >> can be handed out, even if it was not originally deemed to be so >> confidential that it required SCIF procedures. The determination of what >> State Department documents can be publicly released is handled by the FOIA >> staff, both in the State Department and, when deemed appropriate, by >> officials with the same duties in the intelligence community. In fact, the >> entire issue right now regarding the emails of every secretary of state >> concerns which ones can be released under the FOIA. People outraged by the >> (false) belief that Powell and Rice’s aides broke the law are creating a >> fantasy world where every official email, no matter its content, must go >> through a SCIF just in case the FOIA staff eventually determines, sometime >> in the future and applying different standards, that the information in the >> email should not be released to the public under a FOIA request out of >> classification concerns. Given the cumbersome procedures of using a SCIF, >> that would mean the secretary of state would have to spend a lot of time >> sitting inside a locked box and sending emails not yet designated as >> containing secret information, solely to avoid the partisan gnashing of >> teeth that could potentially occur if someday the FOIA staff were to >> retroactively decide they should not be released to the public out of >> classification concerns. >> >> Which brings us to the next most important issue here: classification. >> Members of Congress should—and probably do—know this, but the public >> apparently doesn’t. Just because the FOIA staff decides a document is top >> secret doesn’t mean it contains information of any import. (It’s widely >> known that, even in the creation of a document, the government >> over-classifies information, meaning communications are deemed secret that >> don’t need to be, but that’s another issue.) The FOIA staff is supposed to >> be extra-cautious when releasing a document to the public. As I mentioned >> in a previous column, that is why anyone wanting to obtain a document >> should file multiple FOIA requests for the information—one staffer might >> deem something secret that another staffer releases without concern. In >> fact, if someone were to submit a FOIA request for every email in the State >> Department that has been sent over a system without the extreme protections >> reserved for information determined to be top secret on creation, there is >> no doubt that the FOIA staff would call many of the emails classified and >> refuse the request. >> >> Plus, both Powell and Rice had the authority, granted by President George >> W. Bush through executive order, to classify and declassify any document >> created by the State Department. So if either of them had received an email >> from another agency containing information that had not gone through a >> SCIF, he or she could have independently declared that it did not need to >> be secret and sent it along to anyone they chose. >> >> In other words, just because the FOIA staff years later labeled emails >> sent from Powell and Rice’s aides as classified does *not *mean those >> records contain some crown jewels of critical intelligence. In fact, >> usually they are quite benign. I have seen emails called “top secret” that >> contained nothing more than a forwarded news article that had been >> published. (The Associated Press has reported that one of Clinton’s >> “secret” emails contains an AP article.) >> >> Then there is the issue of servers. Where did Powell and Rice’s staff >> have their servers? Who knows, and who cares? Maybe they were private with >> special security and no public access. Or maybe they were just an AOL >> server. Whichever it was, they would be just as open to hacking as the >> State Department servers. In fact, the State Department general email >> system has been hacked multiple times, with terabytes of information >> improperly downloaded in 2006 alone. There has been no indication that the >> email accounts of either Powell or Rice’s staff were compromised. >> >> Powell may have made one mistake in all this. He has said he never backed >> up his emails or printed them out; that was necessary to comply with some >> of the preservation rules detailed in the *Federal Register*. Of course, >> that doesn’t mean they can’t be recovered, since the FOIA staff is now >> reviewing his emails. >> >> The bottom line: Democrats may try to turn the revelations about the >> email accounts used by Powell and Rice’s staff into a scandal. They may >> release press statements condemning the former secretaries of state; they >> may call for scores of unnecessary congressional hearings; they may go to >> the press and confidently proclaim that crimes were committed by these >> honorable Republicans. But it would all be lies. Powell and Rice did >> nothing wrong. This could be considered a scandal only by ignorant or lying >> partisans. >> >> So there is no Powell or Rice email scandal. And no doubt, that will >> infuriate the Republicans who are trying so hard to trick people into >> believing Clinton committed a crime by doing the exact same thing as her >> predecessors. >> >> On Tuesday, July 19, 2016 at 1:34:02 PM UTC-5, Perplexed wrote: >>> >>> >>> http://dailycaller.com/2016/07/19/hillary-admits-email-scandal-hurt-her/ >>> >>> OMG there is simply no end to this woman's lies! >>> >>> She actually claims at the end she did nothing more than previous >>> Secretaries of State had done and blamed it on her subordinates. She also >>> claims that Comey clarified remarks in his testimony to Congress that she >>> seems to think resulted in him saying she wasn't "extremely careless". >>> >>> How can democrats vote for such a deluded, lying POS??? >>> >> -- >> -- >> Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. >> For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum >> >> * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/ >> * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls. >> * Read the latest breaking news, and more. >> >> --- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "PoliticalForum" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected] <javascript:>. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >> > > -- -- Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/ * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls. * Read the latest breaking news, and more. --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "PoliticalForum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
