Put It To Bed

Same ol', same ol'. We get days of banner headlines, but when it turns out they got it all wrong, there's a "retraction" on page 7, buried in the middle of the ads for bras and panties.

From a series of tweets by Kurt Einchenwald:

I began to read the New York Times's editorial today, "...But Her Emails" and was excited it was catching up to what I wrote in 2015 based on regs and documents, and acknowledging the Clinton email "scandal" was about nothing. They my heart sank. They got it wrong again.

I don't understand it. It's all right there. I figured it out in a day and a half, just by poring through the regulations that were supposedly violated. And. They. Weren't. 

So, one more time, let's go through this incredibly important error so many STILL make.

This is the key paragraph in the Times editorial, the "on the other hand" element that lays out why what Clinton did was supposedly wrong. The argument being made is, essentially, while the email imbroglio was not that important, there was still a violation of the regs.

This is true - NOW - as of 2013 - AFTER Clinton left office. This is like driving 50 MPH in a 50 mile zone, and then getting a ticket because the speed limit was changed a year later.

So, let's go to the regulation at issue here, the one that seeming no one has ever read.

This is 36 CFR Chapter XII, Subchapter B. Yes, its complicated. Yes, its hard to find the relevant section. But if reporters are going to write articles & broadcast stories that they know can affect the outcomes of an election, they have do to it.

So, to make this easier for all reporters handling this story in the future, you go to 36 CFR Chapter XII, Subchapter B, Subpart C, § 1236.22. Now, read it carefully:

In that reg, there are 19 words - 19 - that tell you the primary argument under the email "scandal" could be wrong. "Agencies that allow employees to send and receive official electronic mail messages using a system not operated by the agency.." 

Two questions are left ... sorry, 4 questions:

A. Was State an agency that allowed "employees to send and receive official electronic mail messages using a system not operated by the agency."

Yes. It was. 

B. Did regs allow for those documents to be printed out for preservation?

Yes. They did.

C. Are there records showing that Clinton's government staff in charge of document preservation used that method of printing out to follow the preservation rules?

Yes. There are. And yes. They did.

Finally, and most important - and the key to this entire ridiculous affair:

D. Are there two systems of emails for everyone with classified access, one for general business and one for classified?

Yes. There are.

Let's go through the last one so people understand how awful this reporting has been.

Regular emails, like those sent & received on HRC's personal email system, are general business. Those on the State system used that instead. It is not a classified system. The retroactively designated confidential emails would have gone through a nonclassified system.

In other words, no matter what was done, whether it was the State non-classified system or the HRC non-classified system allowed under the regs, those few retroactively marked emails in question would have gone through a permitted non-classified system no matter what anyone used.

Now, which was more secure? Not that it matters, since the regs allowed for HRC to do exactly as she did, but the answer is: HRC's. The State dot gov email was hacked by the Chinese and petabytes of information was taken by them. But not Hillary's. Her system was more...secure. 

OK, so if that is not where the classified emails were, where were they? Here is the system. Hold onto your hat, it's complicated: Those emails came through a highly secured system only accessible through 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. Hillary did. These arent 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. 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 but this was what was in Hillary's house for the classified emails.

The reason you get these imbecilic chants of "lock her up" is journalists almost never point out there are two systems, and that HRC was not just sitting around sending classified emails on her private system. 

Just like Colin Powell, who used a personal AOL account for his emails. 

Or the staff of Condoleezza Rice used personal accounts for their business emails. 

Reporters were just listening to Republican members of Congress, writing their outrage, and making it seem like there was something here. There was nothing there. There never was. And it was easy to figure out.

So it sure would be nice if, when journalists now apologize for overblowing the email "scandal," they stop repeating the very same errors that made them think it was a scandal to begin with.