By Al Kaltman ——Bio and Archives--May 27, 2015
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Hillary Clinton is an avaricious, secretive serial liar whose integrity, such as it is, has been severely compromised by her indebtedness to foreign interests. But putting all that aside, she has, by her reckless use of a personal communications apparatus for the conduct of state affairs, not only compromised the national security in ways that may not be known for years, but also irretrievably disqualified herself for any high office by offering herself as a candidate for blackmail--Dennis J. ConklinThe regulations require that State Department operations be conducted on an authorized automated information system, "which has the proper level of security control to provide non-repudiation, authentication and encryption, to ensure confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the resident information."The regulations state that all State Department employees "are expected to use, approved secure methods to transmit SBU information when available and practical. At no time during her four years as Secretary of State was it impractical for Hillary Clinton to use the State Department's secure Intranet to conduct Department business. The foreign Affairs Manual includes the following reasons why SBU information should not be transmitted via the Internet.
What is crystal clear from all of the above is that Hillary Clinton had to have known that she was expected to only use the Department of State's Intranet when receiving, sending or storing both classified and SBU information.Mrs. Clinton chose not to use the department's secure transmission facilities because she wanted to be able to delete any emails that might later prove embarrassing such as ones involving donations to the Clinton Foundation and emails having to do with facilitating lucrative business deals for Clinton Foundation donors, her brother, Tony Rodham, and individuals, corporations and foreign governments paying $250,000--500,000 to Bill Clinton for making a single speech. Mrs. Clinton's supporters have repeatedly stated that there is not a "shred of evidence" that she received, sent or stored classified emails using her private server.Since she has shredded the evidence by deleting any emails which she thinks could be incriminating and has refused to turn over the server, we will likely never know if she conducted confidential, secret and top secret business involving the foreign policy and national security of the United States over the unencrypted Internet via her private server. What we do know for certain from the 296 redacted emails that have been made public is that she sent and received emails that contained SBU information.Since Mrs. Clinton was the point person spearheading the reestablishment of diplomatic relation with Libya, she likely received emails over her private server containing the design specifications, construction drawings and floor plans for our embassy in Tripoli and our consulate in Benghazi.We will never know if her private email account was hacked by Ansar al-Sharia or another al-Qaeda affiliate, and whether information contained in her emails helped them plan the attack on our consulate in Benghazi. It would be naïve to assume that the Chinese, Russian, Israeli and German intelligence agencies did not hack Hillary Clinton's private email accounts, and not too much of a stretch to believe that the Iranians and North Koreans did as well.All we know for certain is that to allow her to hide her activities from public scrutiny Mrs. Clinton at a minimum made it possible for SBU information and probably classified information as well to fall into the hands of foreign governments and terrorist organizations.By using a private server to email foreign policy and national security information over the unencrypted Internet, Hillary Clinton chose to risk jeopardizing the security of the American people in order to keep her and her husband's personal financial dealings and those of the Clinton Foundation and its donors, especially its foreign national and government donors behind a veil of secrecy. Mrs. Clinton is likely to not only be guilty of mishandling classified information but also of public corruption as well. However, without a Justice Department investigation, which with the current administration isn't likely to be conducted, she will never be charged, much less convicted for her wrongdoing.An even more important concern is that if she were to be elected President some of the recipients of emails involving influence peddling and donation solicitations could in time attempt to blackmail her, and through her position as President, the United States as well. The last time the American people elected a president who owed favors to unsavory individuals was in 1920. The story is told that before the Republicans nominated Warren G Harding, several senior members of the party asked him if there was any reason why he should not be nominated, did he have anything to hide. Harding said he didn't have anything to hide and went on to win the election. The payoffs he made to people he owed favors led to multiple cases of corruption including the infamous Teapot Dome scandal. We know that Hillary Clinton has a great deal to hide; she has already hidden it. If as Mrs. Clinton's supporters allege, she has done nothing wrong, then her recklessness in using a private server is an indication of paranoia, and the last paranoid president was Richard Nixon. At this point it really doesn't make too much difference whether Mrs. Clinton is guilty of mishandling classified information and public corruption or merely paranoid, in either case she certainly is not qualified to be the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party. What is puzzling is why there is not a single Democrat who has had the courage to tell her that she is tainted goods and needs to withdraw for the sake of the party and the country.
- Unencrypted information transmitted via the Internet is susceptible to access by unauthorized personnel;
- Email transmissions via the Internet generally consist of multi-point communications that are routed to their destination through the path of least resistance, which may include multiple foreign and U.S. controlled Internet service providers (ISP);
- Once resident on an ISP server, the SBU information remains until it is over-written;
- Unencrypted email transmissions are subject to a risk of compromise of information confidentiality or integrity.
- The regulations require that all SBU information transmitted between State Department facilities be encrypted, and that the following must never be sent unencrypted via the Internet:
- Certain information relating to the design and construction of diplomatic missions abroad, such as graphic depictions of floor plans and specifications for foreign affairs offices and representational housing overseas
- Certain information relating to the design and construction drawings and specifications of General Service Administration (GSA) facilities
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Al Kaltman is a political science professor who teaches a leadership studies course at George Washington University. He is the author of Cigars, Whiskey and Winning: Leadership Lessons from General Ulysses S. Grant.