There sure is a lot of finger-pointing and partial truths making the rounds about the topic of control of classified information lately. There is nothing funny about any of it-but what is somewhat humorously ironic is that the same deep state swamp government that spent basically the balance of 2013-from July-on, and the entirety of at least 2014 and 2015-if not longer-conducting a massive Intelligence Community (IC)-wide and beyond damage control assessment on the Edward Snowden leaks that demonstrably showed our intelligence agencies-led by the National Security Agency (NSA)-were spying on American citizens using the authority and cover of the PATRIOT Act, while lying to congress about it, then turned around in 2015 and did the opposite.
Of course, technically (of the winky, winky variety,) NSA was not spying on Americans, but rather simply aggregating parameters and meta data associated with phone calls and other electronic transactions (like social media, emails, you know-the etc. variety) that were discoverable in the event that a foreign contact-triggered search was linked to items in the data base. Of course-procedures and protocols were in place in cases where the links turned out to be American citizens: much like the controls on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Activity court.
But just like the door on my barn, these only work for the purpose intended if invoked (like when it is closed.)
The “NSA” spying happened when some agencies with contractors working for the FBI and CIA supporting the FBI or CIA and DOJ-as well as Obama administration officials who had little to no business being involved in such efforts, uncovered the contacts and then illegally shared the information with their friends, “peeps,” or favorite fake news outlet.
The precedent for such an action somewhat based on the 2012 election when Fakebook approached and accommodated the Obama campaign tapping their platform to work social networking issues. My favorite quote related to this effort came several years later when genius congressman Maxine Waters observed that “President Obama has something on everyone.”
This Snowden thing was a very big deal and a huge embarrassment for our government, and we don’t yet have an “official” count on how many documents the traitorous weasel actually stole, nor how many were released. We do have insights into many of them because in the agency coordinated damage assessment portion of the investigation, many of us whose work products were identified as compromised had to provide assessments of the magnitude of the damage. Particularly in the case where one of the documents was the Congressional Budget Justification Book with all exhibits, so a Five-Year Defense Plan’s worth of investments, program dollars and technical efforts for intelligence programs.
Our government is terrible on sending strong and consistent messages on our behalf in these instances where people violate oaths or clearance agreements and often receive somewhat of a slap on the wrist, and in many cases minimal punishment and probation, apparently under the category that they have suffered enough.
For those who may have forgotten about it, Hillary Rodham Clinton (HRC) never did opt to do business using government provided resources on a Sensitive-But Unclassified (SBU-For Official Use Only-FOUO) email account when she became Secretary of State in 2009. There has been much propaganda about this fact that should be an absolute cosmic no-no message from our government to the public, but she began using an illegal civilian account on an illegal home-brew server early-on and continued throughout her tenure with the government.
It was illegal from the start-unless the President of the United States of America (POTUS) specifically authorized it for some compelling need or exigency-that he would have had to make up, since there is no such thing authorized-for good reason. Unless it was something like Fast and Furious, where the Obama White House initially denied involvement or knowing anything about the operation and yet later-in response to congress holding Attorney General Holder in contempt of congress for stonewalling and not producing documents related to the operation-he declared Executive Privilege over the matter and directed our government not to cooperate.
The illegal server was discovered during the congressional Benghazi Hearings that disclosed email exchanges as early as 2012, but strangely never became a “real thing” until March 2015 when President Obama was put on the spot about the discovery and he responded that he “heard about it the same time and way everybody else did, through news reporting.”
Which was a pretty strange and bodacious and audacious lie when you consider that: (1) White House Communications Agency personnel had to deliberately configure Obama’s Blackberry to communicate with an outside, non-government email address (2) as did all other civil serpents that communicated with her via that email address (3) he strangely concocted a pseudonym to exchange emails with her via the system he did not know about (4) government system emails are all “.gov” (5) HRC was disapproved for a specially provided, NSA cleared Blackberry (like Obamas) that would have been a “.gov” email system (6) he is a terrible-and unconvincing-but very confident liar.
The only thing that would have been worse for Obama-who I long ago stated had a Jethro Tull, Aqualung problem with HRC’s illegal server and her campaign staff (“and the all-time winner, has got him by the bagles-”) was if he had repeated incessantly-a million times or so-“if you like your illegal server, you can keep your illegal server.”
Your response to the above may be Bernie Sanders-like: “so what-enough about the emails,” which obfuscates the fact that it was an illegal server that was deliberately engineered-likely to avoid Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests-also an illegal act for an appointed government official to take deliberate steps to avoid being subject to FOIA regulations.
The reason HRC gave for the illegal server that she undertook with scant disregard for her boss-President Obama-or the information she was entrusted to safeguard regarding State Department business-was that she did it for “convenience.”
But among the items enumerated as prohibitions under US Code in Title 18 related to security clearances and obligations, there is no “convenience” clause or waiver to accommodate servants with “special needs:” that she did not have nor qualify for nor was she legally authorized to do.
In contrast to the Snowden case, every effort made on behalf of the US government-in particular the Department of Justice and the FBI-focused on damage control to protect now presidential candidate HRC. In the very shadow of the Snowden leaks-which occupied several years and more than tens of thousands of manhours of government and contractors attempting to categorize what was compromised and assess the potential damage, isn’t it strange that there was no such fanfare and big deal about the potential compromise of the State Department business-the HRC emails?
Many of us are under the impression that the IC conducts a damage assessment whenever classified documents are compromised. It is the only way to determine whether sources and methods were thereby compromised, but more importantly whether the specific information was sensitive to the point of causing damage to the United States of America, or our friends, allies and coalition partners.
This is not complicated, controversial, unusual or anything but “perfunctory.” Were anyone with a top-level clearance to do something similar to HRC’s illegal server-let’s say my buddy Max-the first thing that would happen is a security interview to review the agency agreements that had been signed to get the clearance-and accesses-granted in the first place (is this your signature?) The interview would include a statement-under oath-that provides all the details relating to the “incident”. There would be an administrative “debrief”-a suspension of Max’s clearance and any accesses-as a precaution against any future activity.
Max renews his clearance and is polygraphed a minimum of every five years-but his access privileges (e.g., special access programs and/or compartments) include verbiage-an agreement-that he can be polygraphed at any time, for any reason, without advance notice. Which only happened once in nearly ~forty-two years-for a very good reason-and I like the fact that the government was willing to step up and pursue draconian measures to get to the bottom of a serious national security issue.
Note that I didn’t mention any legal precautions-like “they would read him his rights” or have him sign an agreement to be interviewed-none of that kind of legal blather applies because the paperwork associated with clearances-particularly at this level-signs away the normal or ordinary rights that protect all other citizens, exchanged for the privilege of being granted access to classified information. You can fight it in court-good luck with that-it becomes an issue of “were you lying then, or now? The “or for purposes of evasion” clause.
The above is specific to agency related security investigations but efforts like this are routine, happen frequently and there is one standard-one approach. And-OBTW-every time a government employee or a contractor who is given access to and signs in to a restricted government system, applicable provisions of USC Title 18 warn the individual that this is a government computer system and by virtue of “signing on to this system you are waiving your rights to privacy and are subject to monitoring to ensure that you comply with required security agreements that were agreed upon as a condition of access” (or words to that effect.)
But the HRC case was handled totally outside the framework of the above description. One of the most incompetent, worst, amateur IC elements when it comes to classified information-the FBI-somehow was given the task to look into this illegal email server. And true to political form and precedent, they colluded with the politicians involved in the effort-establishing a pattern of malfeasance that became akin to their operations playbook-including the White House, DOJ, CIA, DNI and State Department-to whisk that problem away.
The only applicability of the norm-a damage assessment and if necessary, damage control-that was done was on behalf of HRC to make her problem go away, in what had all the earmarks of a choreographed operation timed so that President Obama could join an FBI exonerated HRC on the campaign trail 5 July 2016: just by coincidence the same day that FBI Director Comey pre-empted the Department of Justice in declaring HRC’s email problem-not a problem at all!
It is a little known fact that many top government officials-like the heads of the top agencies (DIA, DNI, CIA, NSA, NRO, NGA, FBI) and others on a select and case-by-case basis-have the option of having a secure classified information facility with secure communications capability installed in their residence: so it is not a “vapors inducing” issue finding classified information within the confines of these houses since they contain alarmed facilities that are tied to security monitoring sites. Any classified documents are to be read, maintained-stored-within the facility and obviously not left outside like some monthly periodical or magazine.
The heads of agencies such as those listed have Original Classification Authority for the products-documents-produced by their agencies, as delegated by the classification authority for the government-the President of the United States (POTUS.) This is the ultimate trust our government bestows upon these appointed officials to do the people’s-our-business and a very big baseball bat should be used to provide course correction and rutter adjustments to any graced with such trust who turn out to be absolute scumbag, reprobate, slimeball, bad actors who prove unworthy to represent us.
Speaking of HRC, she had such vaults installed in two of her residences and of course at work. The one that was apparently most used was reportedly regularly serviced by an assistant who did not have an appropriate clearance and was not witting to the procedures required to safeguard or secure the “vault,” which was only on rare occasions secured or locked, anyway: which is most appropriate and par for the course.
Particularly given that HRC herself revealed to the FBI that she was unfamiliar with rudimentary classification markings and protocol, telling them she thought the “(C)” in front of a sentence or paragraph was a sequence listing like A-B-C, rather than what the lowest General Civilian Service worker in the government with a clearance knows is a portion marking in a classified document (thus the need for the aforementioned very big bat.)
Trust me on this-I could rant for days over the criminality, chutzpah, malfeasance and disqualifications related to HRC. To spare you a Max rant in this regard, it is best to let National Review’s (which I have otherwise disavowed and sworn off for repeated hackery, quackery and idjiotcy against Trump unchecked by balance or common sense) Andrew McCarthy run down the myriad issues, problems, illegalities and unconscionable malfeasance perpetrated by the DOJ and FBI on what should have been a security 101, by the book (nothing but the Joe Friday facts) investigation over HRC’s illegal server and concomitant illegal emails.
Here is a teaser from the above piece:
Among the most eye-popping claims Clinton made to the FBI was that she was unfamiliar with the markings on classified documents. Yes, you read that correctly: one of the highest ranking national security officials in the United States government – an official whose day-to-day responsibilities extensively involved classified information; who had secure facilities installed in her two homes (in addition to her office) so she could review classified information in them; and who acknowledged to the FBI that, as secretary of state, she was designated by the president as “an Original Classification Authority,” meaning she had the power to determine what information should be classified and at what level – had the audacity to tell the interviewing agents that she did not know what the different classification symbols in classified documents signified.
Hahahaha-I can’t tell you the number of my former friends who were outraged-outraged I tell you-that Comey caused her to lose the election to Bad Orange Man by focusing on these “innocent and silly” emails as if they were a big deal.
If a government General Services table employee tried to pull the above related to a security violation, we would start the sixty-day remedial action clock with a prescription of things that “must be demonstrated” so fast there would be spinning heads!
But wait-there’s more! Security violations and disclosures are trending….
2 February 2023
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It’s the same epidemic, just a different chapter. It could be Covid, one day, Hillary, or a Biden, giving secrets away the next, and the only wild card is the one portraying Bob Woodward in a movie about Watergate, which is a narrative we got shoved down our throats for far too long.
Lather,
Rinse,
Repeat!
Exactly right Mark! I already used the flying squirrel picture for a previous story-but its same day, different squirrel!
And our main response is like the movie, “Groundhog Day” Never learning the first thing, and always resetting to nothingness. Perpetually starting over.