Hillary was furious Obama got a custom Blackberry and she didn't

Just in case you're still under the impression that Hillary would at least represent a responsible choice for president, let's take a look at how this whole e-mail thing started. John P. Schindler has a report over at Observer News and Politics that provides stunning detail about just how big a diva Hillary was over IT security issues - and it all started with the insistence of Hillary and her entourage that they be allowed to use their personal Blackberrys anywhere and any time they wanted. That, unfortunately for them, was a gigantic violation of security protocols. Hillary's suggestion? Find a way that she and her team could be exempt from the protocols. The response of the NSA's Information Assurance Directorate? Essentially, pound sand, lady.

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This is kind of a long excerpt but it's necessary for context. Be sure to click over and read the whole thing, especially the part about Sid Blumenthal cutting and pasting entire passages of top secret information and sending them to Hillary's non-secure homebrew server:

The documents, though redacted, detail a bureaucratic showdown between Ms. Clinton and NSA at the outset of her tenure at Foggy Bottom. The new secretary of state, who had gotten “hooked” on her Blackberry during her failed 2008 presidential bid, according to a top State Department security official, wanted to use that Blackberry anywhere she went. That, however, was impossible, since Secretary Clinton’s main office space at Foggy Bottom was actually a Secure Compartment Information Facility, called a SCIF (pronounced “skiff”) by insiders. A SCIF is required for handling any Top Secret-plus information. In most Washington, D.C., offices with a SCIF, which has to be certified as fully secure from human or technical penetration, that’s where you check Top-Secret email, read intelligence reports and conduct classified meetings that must be held inside such protected spaces. But personal electronic devices—your cellphone, your Blackberry—can never be brought into a SCIF. They represent a serious technical threat that is actually employed by many intelligence agencies worldwide. Though few Americans realize it, taking remote control over a handheld device, then using it to record conversations, is surprisingly easy for any competent spy service. Your smartphone is a sophisticated surveillance device—on you, the user—that also happens to provide phone service and Internet access.

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As a result, your phone and your Blackberry always need to be locked up before you enter any SCIF. Taking such items into one represents a serious security violation. And Ms. Clinton and her staff really hated that. Not even one month into the new administration in early 2009, Ms. Clinton and her inner circle were chafing under these rules. They were accustomed to having their personal Blackberrys with them at all times, checking and sending emails nonstop, and that was simply impossible in a SCIF like their new office. This resulted in a February 2009 request by Secretary Clinton to the NSA, whose Information Assurance Directorate (IAD for short: see here for an explanation of Agency organization) secures the sensitive communications of many U.S. government entities, from Top-Secret computer networks, to White House communications, to the classified codes that control our nuclear weapons. IAD had recently created a special, custom-made secure Blackberry for Barack Obama, another technology addict. Now Ms. Clinton wanted one for herself. However, making the new president’s personal Blackberry had been a time-consuming and expensive exercise. The NSA was not inclined to provide Secretary Clinton with one of her own simply for her convenience: there had to be clearly demonstrated need. And that seemed dubious to IAD since there was no problem with Ms. Clinton checking her personal email inside her office SCIF. Hers, like most, had open (i.e. unclassified) computer terminals connected to the Internet, and the secretary of state could log into her own email anytime she wanted to right from her desk. But she did not want to. Ms. Clinton only checked her personal email on her Blackberry: she did not want to sit down at a computer terminal. As a result, the NSA informed Secretary Clinton in early 2009 that they could not help her. When Team Clinton kept pressing the point, “We were politely told to shut up and color” by IAD, explained the state security official.

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All you #NeverTrump people who are prepared to vote for Hillary because Trump is so awful, phone your office. I remember the whole thing about Obama being hooked on his Blackberry, and security officials not wanting to let him use it but basically being told they had no choice so they'd better find a way to make it work. The press was slobbering all over Obama at the time and the whole thing was largely seen as a case of the federal government being out of touch with modern times and modern technology, and the hip new president sort of forcing them into the 21st Century. That way of looking at it was probably a crock. The process of building Obama a totally secure Blackberry was both time-consuming and expensive. But we're talking about the president here. He probably shouldn't have demanded it, but as president he had the status to do it. For Hillary to demand that she get one too strictly for her own convenience is, well . . . it's classic Hillary. It harkens back to when Bill was president and she thought that made her co-president. So is the whole bit about how she simply didn't want to sit down at a computer terminal to check her e-mail. Why? Because she doesn't like to. And she's Hillary Clinton. Then, of course, we get into the question of what kind of information was going back and forth on her e-mail that she didn't want seen either by security personnel or by the media in the event of a Freedom of Information Request. The item in Schindler's report that deals with Sid Blumenthal's e-mails is pretty explosive in its own right - especially when you recall that Blumenthal was the guy Obama told Hillary in no uncertain terms she could not hire at State. She in turn used him as an ad hoc intelligence advisor, having him send information to the non-government, non-secure e-mail server that she used exclusively for all government business in order to get around security protocols and transparency laws. And who paid him? Not the government, and if you know anything about Sid Blumenthal and others who hang around the Clintons, you had better damn well know that nobody is doing anything for free. Monetizing public service is their whole reason for being. The more you find out about how she operated at State, the more any honest person would have to recognize that nothing justifies putting this woman in the White House - no matter how flawed the alternative. She is not the reasonable choice to prevent the ascension of the monster. She is the monster.

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