I can't believe there's even discussion about this. The facts are clear. Hillary Clinton didn't like the onerous security rules she had to follow so she ignored them.
details: http://observer.com/2016/03/hillary-has-an-nsa-problem/
If any of you have security clearance consider for a moment what would happen if you did the same. Your access would be suspended and you'd be called to account for every piece of information you mishandled. At the end you'd be prosecuted for any beech of secrecy that was discovered and your clearance would almost certainly be revoked.
If we treat her differently because of her name and her connections we call into question the very rule of law in this country. Maybe Anarchists would rejoice in such an outcome as proof of the utter corruption and uselessness of our justice system, but people who care about law and justice certainly shouldn't applaud it.
In her defense I agree that the security policies were silly and didn't actually increase security enough to warrant the disruption. I can totally understand that someone wouldn't want to comply.
On the other hand she was the goddamned Secretary of State, the person who should be most concerned about protecting information security in the State Department. Rather than thinking like a leader and working to set a policy that is both secure and usable she simply ignored the rules she didn't like.
Aside from questions of prosecution this behavior causes me to seriously question her ability to lead. If you had to classify her behavior in this case would you put in the category of things a leader does or things a petulant child does?
Question the rule of law -- has an upper or even upper middle white male ever received the death penalty in this country? It would be a good thing if poor black males weren't being executed left and right every year.
It's hard to understand if you haven't handled classified information before. If the average DoD employee or military member did what she did (allegedly), they'd already be in prison. The only reason it's taking so long is because it's a high profile person. And, well... politics.
The "classified" information wasn't regarded as such at the time. It is only now regarded as secret information through reclassification, likely stemming from political influence to ante up the charges against Clinton. That entails a responsibility to maintain secrecy from here on out but doesn't mean the original act (however stupid) was a breach of national security.
A big part of the whole security clearance process is determining the competency of the individual in recognizing incorrectly classified material. Saying that the designated markings were missing is no longer an excuse once you get the clearance. Over two thousand emails were determined to contain classified material, that is over two thousand opportunities to recognize how badly you've screwed up in using a private server for official government business. Twenty of those where classified top-secret, which is really difficult to mistake for uncontrolled information. I'm pretty sure that the issue of competency will be front and center during these interviews.
None of that has been established, as there are plenty of purportedly classified emails that have not been released. It would be highly irresponsible to claim that they were either classified after-the-fact or classified from birth, without knowing one way or the other.
One would assume that that would be one of the outcomes of this investigation. B
Then why do you have "many legal experts" in the LA Times article saying that there is little chance of prosecution?
Are they merely protecting a political allied? Can the current democratic administration delay the prosecution until after the presidential election or have I been watching house of cards too much?
I understand these questions are heavily political and touchy subjects; but I am just trying to understand what is going on. I really don't have an opinion on American politics.
It's because no one outside a small circle of people really knows what's going on. It's too many people speculating on what they know, or what they think they know, just to have something to talk about when the subject comes up. For every legal expert that says not guilty before knowing all the facts I can probably find you one that says guilty before knowing all the facts.
Presidents aren't immune to the law. But it's theoretically possible that she would be convicted and impeached, and then pardoned by Vice President Bill Clinton after he takes office.
This whole thread is a case study for why we just shouldn't host discussions like this on HN. There are a million better places to do it than here.
Clinton is probably not legally eligible to be Vice President --- a position that, were he to occupy it, would give him no authority over any prosecution (except possibly an impeachment trial --- over which he would preside, but not control).
Clinton is definitely not eligible to serve as President, even if he is the Vice President at the time his President is impeached. The next in succession after VP would be sworn in as President.
You'll have to verify your phone number to sign up, which will make moderation more effective (hard to make an additional account after getting kicked out).
If it grows and that isn't enough to keep it respectful, I will add a $1-2 signup fee for new users.
I'm also going to be spending most of my time recruiting quality people to join the discussions.
Feedback from one potential user: I won't sign up if I can't do it anonymously. 1) I don't like being tracked, 2) the bad behavior of others who track users has made me resent the practice, and 3) people need to be able to express political opinions without thinking they will be tied to their phone numbers. It threatens the civil rights of unpopular minorities, and I've come across several studies which conclude that people self-censor in those situations.
But how to promote quality? One thing I would like to see is a forum that cracks down on thoughtless posts, especially hyperbole ad rants. It's not only a waste of time but that kind of behavior spreads like a virus.
While I empathize, anonymity makes moderation very hard. Most people I've talked to prefer the tradeoff of reduced anonymity for improved moderation. If you email me at [email protected] I can set you up with a pre-verified account that you can use anonymously.
Quality is hard. I don't think there's any silver bullet, but you can check out the community guidelines at discoverboard.com/about which hope to curtail the thoughtlessness you're talking about.
Subsections (a), (b), and (d) [every succession category] of this section shall apply only to such officers as are eligible to the office of President under the Constitution.
That all applies when there is no Vice President to act as President. None of it applies to the scenario here, which is wholly covered by the 25th Amendment.
"In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President."
There are a couple ways to become president, and only one of them is through an election. Article 2 talks about "eligibility", but says nothing on term limits. Amendment XII only says "eligible" again. Amendment XXII brings up term limits, but only says "elected", never "eligible".
There's a "but obviously..." reply to be made, but I see plenty of opportunity to play word games here.
Note the pattern: Another attempt to trap a Clinton in a situation where it's illegal to lie (Bill to a Grand Jury, Hillary to an FBI officer).
Bill, way back in the 1990s before the testimony that caused all the problems, said that their only goal was to ask him damaging things under oath and then leak his responses or prosecute him for perjury. Remember that Bill was not testifying in a case about Lewinksy, but in an unrelated case regarding Paula Jones. But once he was under oath they just used it as a fishing expedition to achieve political ends.
Is this how we want our democracy to work? Probably law enforcement can find something to justify prosecuting or at least investigating anyone.
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EDIT: It turns out FBI Director Comey has a history investigating the Clintons:
Comey’s first brush with them came when Bill Clinton was president. Looking to get back into government after a stint in private practice, Comey signed on as deputy special counsel to the Senate Whitewater Committee. In 1996, after months of work, Comey came to some damning conclusions: Hillary Clinton was personally involved in mishandling documents and had ordered others to block investigators as they pursued their case. Worse, her behavior fit into a pattern of concealment: she and her husband had tried to hide their roles in two other matters under investigation by law enforcement. Taken together, the interference by White House officials, which included destruction of documents, amounted to “far more than just aggressive lawyering or political naiveté,” Comey and his fellow investigators concluded. It constituted “a highly improper pattern of deliberate misconduct.”
Comey parlayed the Whitewater job into top posts in Virginia and New York, returning to Manhattan in 2002 to be the top federal prosecutor there. One of his first cases as a line attorney in the same office 15 years earlier had been the successful prosecution of Marc Rich, a wealthy international financier, for tax evasion. But on his last day as President in 2001, Bill Clinton pardoned Rich. “I was stunned,” Comey later told Congress. As top U.S. prosecutor in New York in 2002, appointed by George W. Bush, Comey inherited the criminal probe into the Rich pardon and 175 others Clinton had made at the 11th hour.
Despite evidence that several pardon recipients, including Rich, had connections to donations to Bill Clinton’s presidential library and Hillary Clinton’s 2000 Senate campaign, Comey found no criminal wrongdoing.
> you'd prefer the US president be allowed to lie?
Of course I'd prefer a completely trustworthy person as president, but such people don't exist. I think law enforcement can find a reason to investigate anyone, including any candidate or President; once an investigation starts, it can be used as a fishing expedition and lead anywhere, for the reasons I described above. That's a risk to our democracy; law enforcement could have a veto, to a degree, over the American people's choices.
By the way, let's tone it down. By your demands, one might think I'm the one being deposed.
It's surprising that "law enforcement officials" would be sharing details about this incredibly high profile case, but only with a reporter for AJAM, a channel that is in its last weeks on the air. And that presented with such a big scoop, Al Jazeera apparently hasn't even bothered to post an article about it to their website. So there's just an unofficial clip of what the reporter said on the air in a brief report floating around. Not saying it's false... it's just very thinly sourced.
Yes it is. There were multiple estimates. The lowest was "roughly a dozen" the highest was "less than 50". The two ends of the range use different units and have different significant figures because they came from two different calculations.
In theory the author could have tried to unify those points on the same number line with the same sig figs, but I'm not even sure what the rules are for ranges built from two separate calculations. If there even is a rule you'd get something like "range from 10 to 50" and only math geeks would have a clear picture of what those zeroes really mean, and even they would've lost the "not 50" and "quite possibly less than 10" information the existing phrasing provides.
Some have speculated that it could be an honest Q&A with the former SoS based on their findings (to get an official response). Others are speculating that it could be a chance to actually catch her in a lie, based on their findings ("Five months ago, you stated X, is that still true?" having evidence that X is no longer true).
Pure speculation, of course, but man would I like to be a fly on THAT wall...
He was wrongly charged under the CFAA which does not apply here. Sen. Ron Wyden (OR) and Rep. Zoe Lofgren (CA) have been pushing for "Aaron's Law" to curb the judicial abuse of the CFAA in cases like Aaron's and many others. They need all the support they can get to have this legislation pushed through. They are both Clinton supporters, btw.
Someone is going to take the fall for Clinton if they actually press criminal charges against anyone even if, morally and ethically, it is really on her.
Honestly, Clinton should at a minimum be banned from handling classified information in the future.
It's very important that this business is concluded before the Democratic Party's convention, beginning July 25th.
Otherwise it is a threat to democracy. The FBI would essentially choose the next president if they took down one of the two nominees. Consider that they could do that in any election, federal, state or local. Also consider that the FBI's employees are, as far as I know, overwhelmingly Republican, and that in the past the FBI has illicitly tried to influence politics (under J. Edgar Hoover, for example).
Even now they are letting this go on much too long and exercising far too much influence. Crimes should be investigated appropriately; I don't think candidates should get a pass. I do question whether the investigation is out of proportion to the crime; many use personal email for official business and many mishandle classified info (including multiple past CIA directors) with no significant penalty.
Nor should their opposition have the power to delay proceedings until such a time as it is politically advantageous to them. This should have been dealt with last year.
If we treat her differently because of her name and her connections we call into question the very rule of law in this country. Maybe Anarchists would rejoice in such an outcome as proof of the utter corruption and uselessness of our justice system, but people who care about law and justice certainly shouldn't applaud it.
In her defense I agree that the security policies were silly and didn't actually increase security enough to warrant the disruption. I can totally understand that someone wouldn't want to comply.
On the other hand she was the goddamned Secretary of State, the person who should be most concerned about protecting information security in the State Department. Rather than thinking like a leader and working to set a policy that is both secure and usable she simply ignored the rules she didn't like.
Aside from questions of prosecution this behavior causes me to seriously question her ability to lead. If you had to classify her behavior in this case would you put in the category of things a leader does or things a petulant child does?