John R. Schindler:
These weren’t just ordinary secrets found in Clinton’s private server, but some of the most classified material the U.S. government has.
After months of denials and delaying actions, Hillary Clinton has decided to turn over her private email server to the Department of Justice. As this controversy has grown since the spring, Clinton and her campaign operatives have repeatedly denied that she had placed classified information in her personal email while serving as secretary of state during President Obama’s first term. (“I am confident that I never sent nor received any information that was classified at the time it was sent and received,” she said last month.) Her team also denied that she would everhand over her server to investigators. Now both those assertions have been overturned.
Hillary Clinton has little choice but to hand over her server to authorities since it now appears increasingly likely that someone on her staff violated federal laws regarding the handling of classified materials. On August 11, after extensive investigation, the intelligence community’s inspector general reported to Congressthat it had found several violations of security policy in Clinton’s personal emails.
Most seriously, the inspector general assessed that Clinton’s emails included information that was highly classified—yet mislabeled as unclassified. Worse, the information in question should have been classified up to the level of “TOP SECRET//SI//TK//NOFORN,” according to the inspector general’s report.
You may have seen acronym lists like these on declassified documents before—and glazed over them. This is the arcane language of the cleared cognoscenti, so let me explain what this means:
• TOP SECRET, as the name implies, is the highest official classification level in the U.S. government, defined as information whose unauthorized release “could cause exceptionally grave damage to national security or foreign relations.”
• SI refers to Special Intelligence, meaning it is information derived from intercepted communications, which is the business of the National Security Agency, America’s single biggest source of intelligence. They’re the guys who eavesdrop on phone calls, map who’s calling whom, and comb through emails. SI is a subset of what the intelligence community calls Sensitive Compartmented Information, or SCI. And these materials always require special handling and protection. They are to be kept in a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, or SCIF, which is a special hardened room that is safe from both physical and electronic intrusion.
• TK refers to Talent Keyhole, which is an intelligence community caveat indicating that the classified material was obtained via satellite.
• NOFORN, as the name implies, means that the materials can only be shown to Americans, not to foreigners.
In short: Information at the “TOP SECRET//SI//TK//NOFORN” level is considered exceptionally highly classified and must be handled with great care under penalty of serious consequences for mishandling. Every person who is cleared and “read on” for access to such information signs reams of paperwork and receives detailed training about how it is to be handled, no exceptions—and what the consequences will be if the rules are not followed.
In the real world, people with high-level clearances are severely punished for willfully violating such rules. At a minimum, those suspected of mishandling things like NSA “signals intelligence”—intercepts calls, emails, and the like—have their clearances suspended pending the outcome of the investigation into their misconduct. Any personal items—computers, electronics—where federal investigators suspect the classified material wound up, wrongly, will be impounded and searched. If it has TOP SECRET//SI information on it, “your” computer now belongs to the government, because it is considered classified.
People found to have willfully mishandled such highly classified information often face severe punishment. Termination of employment, hefty fines, even imprisonment can result. Yes, people really do go to jail for mishandling classified materials. Matthew Aid, a writer on intelligence matters, served more than a year in prison for mishandling TOP SECRET//SI information from the NSA, for example. The well-connected tend to avoid jail, however. Sandy Berger and John Deutsch—who both served in high-level positions under President Bill Clinton, did not go to prison for mishandling TOP SECRET intelligence (though Berger got probation and was fined $50,000).
All else aside, keep this in mind: this DOJ does not investigate anything Mr. Obama doesn’t want them to. Fast and Furious, Benghazi, IRS targeting… all fall into a black hole and are never heard from again. Most likely, there is but ONE reason the FBI is digging into this: Obama wants Hillary out of the race.
They all “fell into a black hole” because after months or years of continuous, in-depth investigations on the taxpayers’ dime, accusers couldn’t come up with a shred of evidence supporting any of the slanderous tales or cracked-brain conspiracy theories they promulgated continuously while the investigations were underway. They have, in fact, repeatedly and totally ignored the findings of their own investigative committees. That’s the one part of their investigations that they never refer to.
We’ve definitely got a pattern here, but it isn’t on the part of an administration that’s constantly being lied about and investigated. What we’ve had for years is a continuing investigative circus that serves the purpose of providing fodder for the right-wing propaganda machine. That’s what the Clinton email investigation is really about. It will continue as the center ring act until the 2016 election, unless, of course, a different Democratic candidate is selected. If that happens the focus of attention will suddenly shift.
Meantime, we being offered what serious alternative? Donald Trump? Bush the Third?
Greg, You will never understand how information is classified and the responsibilities of persons who have access to classified information. Do your self a favor and quit posting on subjects on which you are ignorant. When you are wrong, you always try to change the train of thought of the thread. Clinton professes to be the most intelligent woman in the world. She sent and received hundreds of thousands of email during her time as sec of State. I know because I was on the State Department email system during my time in Iraq. Most everything on the email site was classified secret or well above Top Secret. She is a criminal want will be found out when the intel community turns in their emails. Greg, stop wasting our time with your ignorant posts.
@Greg: Just because the same criminals that perpetrated the crimes also conduct the investigations and those investigating drag out an investigation does not necessarily mean that no wrongdoing is to be found. Obama, Holder, Lerner and Hillary all stonewall as the corrupt Obama DOJ looks on. So why, all of a sudden, is it time to find out that Hillary decided to wipe clean an email server she KNEW was going to be the focus of an investigation?
I’m not stating this as a fact, just pointing out how odd it is that an administration that has thrived on ignoring the law suddenly allows an investigation of the front-running Democrat candidate to move forward?
@Randy, #3:
I spent 3 months in the U.S. Army Southeastern Signal School at Fort Gordon, GA learning to operate the equipment used to transmit classified information. I then applied the training during my one-year tour in the Republic of Vietnam. Some of the equipment we used was classified. People such as myself handled classified military communications on a daily basis.
You folks often say things without knowing what the hell you’re talking about. One minimal-information reference picked up by a right-wing source is quickly is spun into elaborate imaginary scenarios, which are then taken as factual revelations; e.g., “Spy Satellite Secrets in Hillary’s Emails.”
I haven’t commented much on this topic because I don’t want to give the impression that I have some sort of insider knowledge about how SecState Clinton handled her classified communications. I don’t. I never sent her a message directly, and treated only with her staff. I met her on several occasions and sat in meetings with her, but never exchanged emails with her.
That said, I am troubled by what is clearly a big lie coming out from her and her defenders. While sitting in my Vegas hotel last night, I was watching some Democrat operative or another on CNN (I think)–can’t remember his name. He was saying something I am also seeing the Hillary troll force write on social media boards. Just to remind, we have reports coming out from intel IGs and DOJ that it seems that some of Hillary’s emails contained–despite repeated denials–highly classified information and were sent through her off-the-books home server maintained by a company, reportedly, with a shady past. We see her stooges claim that Clinton never sent any email labelled Top Secret/SCI. OK. Folks, please, that ain’t the point. Of course she didn’t send any email with that label on it. Nobody is saying she ran exact copies of State, NSA, CIA, DIA, etc., cables through her server. The accusation, and it seems to have validity, is that she DISCUSSED TS/SCI and other classified material over this unsecure, off-the-books server, AND discussed it with persons not cleared for it. That, my friends, is indeed against the law and punishable by jail.
Hillary Clinton is a liar who does not think the laws apply to her. Now we will see how our highly politicized DOJ handles the issue.
http://www.thediplomad.com/
@Greg:
Judas H. Priest, Greggie Goebbels, when you were in Vietnam, there was NO SUCH THING as a personal server. You make it sound like you were head of Langley.
But hey, go ahead and comment on the Diplomad’s blog. Tell him, after all his years in Foreign Service, which is under the State Department, that he doesn’t know what the hell he is talking about. Nothing would give me more pleasure than reading him taking you to the wood shed in true diplomatic fashion
What exactly do you gain by being the Democrat’s spin doctor on FA? Do you really think you convince anyone that you’re nothing more than a partisan hack who spins like a Dervish?
@retire05, #7:
The comment in #6 has to do with what was said about security classification protocols in post #3, not with personal servers. Perhaps you need a cup of coffee.
@Greg:
Ah, but it is Hillary’s personal server (or many two) that we are discussing as you recall your days in Vietnam long before personal servers were available.
Now, toddle on over to Diplomad’s blog and tell him that the evil conservatives are picking on your gal, Shillary Clinton.