Clinton Email Case Gets Nutty: Clinton Offers Faux Support For Faster Release... That She Could Have Done Herself

from the let's-try-this-again dept

The whole saga over Hillary Clinton's emails is getting more and more bizarre. Last night, FOIA ninja (it beats the "FOIA terrorist" label some have given him), Jason Leopold revealed that in his FOIA lawsuit over the release of the emails, the State Department was claiming that it would take at least until January of 2016 to release the piles and piles of emails that Clinton gave them... in printed form. (In case you were living under a rock, Clinton used her own personal email server while Secretary of State, and only just recently handed over copies of the emails to the State Department -- after her own staff vetted them -- and then nuked the entire server).

The State Department went into great detail [pdf] explaining why it's going to take so damn long. In large part, it's because Clinton handed them all over in printed form, rather than digital form, and the State Department had to staff up just to go through all the emails.

As noted above, the Department received the 55,000 pages in paper form. The documents were provided in twelve bankers’ boxes (approximately 24” x 15” x 10 ¼” in size) with labels placed on the outside of the boxes that corresponded approximately to the timeframe of the documents within a given box. The Department initially performed tasks necessary to organize the records. This included foldering, boxing, and creating a box level inventory of the records. In consultation with the National Archives and Records Administration, the Department also conducted a page-by-page review of the documents to identify, designate, mark, and inventory entirely personal correspondence, i.e., those documents that are not federal records, included within the 55,000 pages.

Given the breadth and importance of the many foreign policy issues on which the Secretary of State and the Department work, the review of these materials will likely require consultation with a broad range of subject matter experts within the Department and other agencies, as well as potentially with foreign governments. These records are comprised of communications to or from the former Secretary of State, who was responsible for the overall direction and supervision of the full range of activities of the Department, which operates in approximately 285 locations around the globe. The Department is committed to processing the 55,000 pages as expeditiously as possible, while taking into consideration the Department’s other legal obligations.

The Department has taken multiple steps to facilitate its review of the 55,000 pages. It has developed an approach for addressing the review, upgraded the capabilities of the Department’s processing software, and dedicated staff. Currently, this project is staffed fulltime by a project manager and two case analysts, as well as nine FOIA reviewers who devote the entirety of their time at the State Department to this effort, plus other analysts and information technology specialists who provide collateral assistance to this review in addition to their regular duties. The team managing this project has met daily since early April to implement and oversee this large undertaking.

Each page of the 55,000 must be individually hand-processed in order to ensure that all information is being captured in the scanning process. The scanning process itself involves five steps that are time-consuming and labor-intensive. These are: (1) scanning (inserting barcode separator sheets between each document and its associated attachments and then scanning the documents, which includes converting them for optical character recognition [“OCR”], and then inputting the resulting OCR-ed files into the system in batches based on search segments); (2) scanning quality control (the scanned material is checked to ensure that each document is scanned properly and to flag documents that need to be re-scanned); (3) indexing (indexers review each scanned document to manually input bibliographic coding, such as the “To,” “From,” “CC,” “BCC,” “Date Sent,” and “Subject” fields associated with that document into the system); (4) indexing quality control (a senior indexer reviews the indexed documents to ensure that the bibliographic coding has been properly input into the system); and, (5) duplicate detection resolution (the computer analyzes the indexed documents to identify possible duplicates between the document being ingested and those documents that already exist in the system). Any possible duplicates that cannot be resolved (identified as an exact duplicate, near duplicate, not a duplicate) by automated means are pushed forward for individual review for manual adjudication. This process was made even more complicated by the fact that some, but not all, of the paper records that the Department received were double-sided. It took the Department five weeks to perform the scanning process, which was completed recently in May. There will be further work required to load these into a searchable database, which will be completed by mid-June.

When asked about it by reporters this morning, Clinton gave a really ridiculous answer, urging the State Department to speed up the work of releasing the emails, saying that she wanted them released:

“I have said repeatedly: I want those emails out. Nobody has a bigger interest in getting them released than I do,” she told reporters at a campaign stop in Iowa in a rare question-and-answer session. “...[A]nything that [the State Department] might do to expedite that process, I heartily support.”

You know what would have expedited the release? First, using the State Department's own email system while you were Secretary of State, so this wouldn't have even been an issue. And, second, when all of this became an issue handing over the emails in electronic form, rather than in printed form in a bunch of boxes.

Meanwhile, the judge in the case, Judge Rudolph Contreras, is not impressed. This morning he issued a minute order telling the State Department that waiting until January of next year was unacceptable, and ordering the State Department to set a renewed schedule with rolling releases every 60 days:

As stated on the record at today's status conference, Defendant shall file a notice to the Court on or before May 26, 2015, that includes the following: (1) a new production schedule for the Secretary Clinton e-mails that accounts for rolling production and updates from counsel every 60 days, (2) a proposed deadline for production of the Secretary Clinton e-mails relating to Benghazi, and (3) a proposed order that encapsulates the parties' agreement on the narrowing of Plaintiff's request concerning searches for records beyond the Secretary Clinton e-mails. SO ORDERED. Signed by Judge Rudolph Contreras

In the end, there may turn out to be nothing much of interest in all of those emails (though, of course, the fact that Clinton's own staff went through them and got rid of a bunch first will keep conspiracy theorists in business for ages), but the way that Clinton has handled this whole thing is really ridiculous. Who the hell thinks it's a good idea to print out 55,000 pages of records that were original electronic unless you're trying to hide stuff and make life difficult for those going through it?

Filed Under: clinton email, email, foia, hillary clinton, jason leopold, print outs, state department

Dear Politicians: Responding To The Clinton Email Scandal By Proudly Affirming You've Never Used Email Isn't Helping

from the dumb-dumbs dept

Hey, politicians who read Techdirt... look, can we talk for a moment? As someone with a keen interest in DC machinations and politics on a national level, I feel like I know you guys well enough to have a heart to heart with you. And I get how the DC game is played. Some story comes out creating a national outrage with some percentage of the country and the whole thing seems designed to thieve the attention you might otherwise be getting from the press and the constituency. It's not only tempting, it's downright irresistible to react to such a story in an insane way, even if only to momentarily draw attention, any kind of attention, back on yourselves. I get it, believe me. When I first saw the trailer for the new Game of Thrones while sitting in my living room with my family, for instance, I immediately stood up, took my pants off, and ran around the block a few times until my wife clotheslined me on the third lap. Because, let's face it, that's how we roll, am I right?

But, guys, seriously...there's enough meat on the bone in the Hillary Clinton super-secret unofficial email fiasco-steak to work with. You really don't have to lose your minds and draw all the wrong kind of attention to yourselves as a result. For example, don't be Lindsey Graham.

If you click that link, there's a video of Senator Lindsey Graham (we'd embed it here, but NBC still hasn't figured out how to allow HTTPS embeds, because it doesn't care about your privacy, apparently). Here's the key part of Graham's exchange on Meet the Press.

Chuck Todd asked Graham, "Do you have a private e-mail address?"

Graham's answer: "I don't email. No, you can have every email I've ever sent. I've never sent one. I don't know what that makes me."

Well, Senator, it quite likely makes you the most unqualified member of the subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law for starters. Because email is ubiquitous enough at this point that I'm not even sure it should be called "technology" without being prefaced by the qualifier "super old and probably due for displacement." To at once sit on that committee and proudly state that you've never sent an email during your time in office sounds like you're begging to be replaced on that committee.

But my point is a larger one: the Clinton email scandal is one that should not result in any thinking person believing that having never sent an email to anyone ever is a bragging point. Put this kind of reaction into other contexts and see how far it gets you. One wouldn't, for instance, react to the cluster-bomb that has become Obamacare by proudly stating, "I've never even gone to a doctor!" One wouldn't criticize our foreign policy in the Middle East by proudly shouting, "Dude, I've never even been out of our country!" That's just stupid.

And so is proudly claiming that you've never sent an email. You want to have some kind of massive reaction to get attention? Fine, just don't say stupid things like Lindsey Graham. My suggestion? Take your pants off and go for a jog. You'll feel better when you do, I promise.

Filed Under: clinton email, email, hillary clinton, lindsey graham, politicians

Hillary Clinton Finally Answers Questions About Her Email... And It Only Raises More Questions

from the that-doesn't-make-sense dept

Hillary Clinton and her team apparently felt that it was finally time to have the Candidate* address the whole email thing, which she did with a press conference, in which she tried to brush the whole thing off as nothing. Here's the key bit from her prepared remarks:

Now, I would be pleased to talk more about this important matter, but I know there have been questions about my email, so I want to address that directly, and then I will take a few questions from you.

There are four things I want the public to know.

First, when I got to work as secretary of state, I opted for convenience to use my personal email account, which was allowed by the State Department, because I thought it would be easier to carry just one device for my work and for my personal emails instead of two.

Looking back, it would've been better if I'd simply used a second email account and carried a second phone, but at the time, this didn't seem like an issue.

Second, the vast majority of my work emails went to government employees at their government addresses, which meant they were captured and preserved immediately on the system at the State Department.

Third, after I left office, the State Department asked former secretaries of state for our assistance in providing copies of work- related emails from our personal accounts. I responded right away and provided all my emails that could possibly be work-related, which totalled roughly 55,000 printed pages, even though I knew that the State Department already had the vast majority of them. We went through a thorough process to identify all of my work- related emails and deliver them to the State Department. At the end, I chose not to keep my private personal emails -- emails about planning Chelsea's wedding or my mother's funeral arrangements, condolence notes to friends as well as yoga routines, family vacations, the other things you typically find in inboxes.

No one wants their personal emails made public, and I think most people understand that and respect that privacy.

Fourth, I took the unprecedented step of asking that the State Department make all my work-related emails public for everyone to see.

I am very proud of the work that I and my colleagues and our public servants at the department did during my four years as secretary of state, and I look forward to people being able to see that for themselves.

Again, looking back, it would've been better for me to use two separate phones and two email accounts. I thought using one device would be simpler, and obviously, it hasn't worked out that way.

Later, in the Q&A session she added a few "details." On the question of which emails she kept private (which she says she deleted), she claimed it was just stuff that don't need to be shared, such as emails between herself and Bill Clinton:

And the process produced over 30,000 you know, work emails, and I think that we have more than met the requests from the State Department. The server contains personal communications from my husband and me, and I believe I have met all of my responsibilities and the server will remain private and I think that the State Department will be able, over time, to release all of the records that were provided.

As for the security of the emails, she insists they were fine because they were guarded by the Secret Service:

Well, the system we used was set up for President Clinton's office. And it had numerous safeguards. It was on property guarded by the Secret Service. And there were no security breaches.

So, I think that the -- the use of that server, which started with my husband, certainly proved to be effective and secure.

Now the proper follow up to that is how the hell do you know there were no security breaches. Having Secret Service agents guard the physical machine is one thing. Making sure there were no online breaches is another thing entirely. Trevor Timm, over at the Guardian, notes that Clintons statements only raise a lot more questions.

For example, she claims that the private emails were things like emails with Bill. But, as Timm points out, just hours earlier, Bill Clinton's spokesperson said that the President still doesn't use email.

The former president, who does regularly use Twitter , has sent a grand total of two emails during his entire life, both as president, says Matt McKenna, his spokesman. After leaving office, Mr. Clinton established his own domain that staff use–@presidentclinton.com. But Mr. Clinton still doesn’t use email himself, Mr. McKenna said.

So, was Hillary lying when she said other emails were just her and Bill chatting -- or was Bill's own spokesperson wrong?

Timm also digs in on that "no security breaches" claim, and finds that Clinton's people did a followup with a caveat: "there is no evidence there was ever a breach." Which could mean there was one, and they just never knew about it. Furthermore, the better question (and one a reporter in the press corp. should have asked) is not about the Secret Service guys guarding the box, but who set up the computer security for the email server. But no one did. Here's Timm:

Also: what type of security professionals were looking after the server? Clinton said the secret service guarded it, but we have no idea the expertise of the person actually running it. Experts have already pointed to basic holes in the email server’s security based on public data, and as any systems administrator will tell you, running your own email server is never simple.

Another point raised by Timm: Clinton seems to be willfully misstating the rules when she claims she didn't violate them:

Clinton also said at the press conference she “fully complied with every rule I was governed by”. Well, actually: a 2005 State Department directive said “It is the Department’s general policy that normal day-to-day operations be conducted on an authorized [Automated Information System], which has the proper level of security control to provide nonrepudiation, authentication and encryption, to ensure confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the resident information.”

Sources told Politico the rules were “clear-cut”. An ambassador was harshly criticized in 2012 for breaking this rule in the same manner Clinton did and subsequently fired in part for using a private email account at work. And Clinton herself signed a State Department cable in 2011 saying that all ambassadors should avoid personal email for professional business.

In the end, this response tried to answer questions, but only served to raise a bunch of new ones.

* Still not officially running

Filed Under: bill clinton, clinton email, email, hillary clinton, security