Could the NSA blackmail a potential future President Hillary Clinton?

[Uncle Joe]

I believe this article makes a good case for that possibility.

A few weeks after leaving office, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton may have breathed a sigh of relief and reassurance when Director of National Intelligence James Clapper denied reports of the National Security Agency eavesdropping on Americans. After all, Clinton had been handling official business at the State Department like many Americans do with their personal business, on an unsecured server.

In sworn testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee on March 12, 2013, Clapper said the NSA was not collecting, wittingly, “any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans,” which presumably would have covered Clinton’s unsecured emails.

But NSA contractor Edward Snowden’s revelations — starting on June 5, 2013 — gave the lie to Clapper’s testimony, which Clapper then retracted on June 21 – coincidentally, Snowden’s 30th birthday – when Clapper sent a letter to the Senators to whom he had, well, lied. Clapper admitted his “response was clearly erroneous – for which I apologize.” (On the chance you are wondering what became of Clapper, he is still DNI.)

I would guess that Clapper’s confession may have come as a shock to then ex-Secretary Clinton, as she became aware that her own emails might be among the trillions of communications that NSA was vacuuming up. Nevertheless, she found Snowden’s truth-telling a safer target for her fury than Clapper’s dishonesty and NSA’s dragnet.

In April 2014, Clinton suggested that Snowden had helped terrorists by giving “all kinds of information, not only to big countries, but to networks and terrorist groups and the like.” Clinton was particularly hard on Snowden for going to China (Hong Kong) and Russia to escape a vengeful prosecution by the U.S. government.

Clinton even explained what extraordinary lengths she and her people went to in safeguarding government secrets: “When I would go to China or would go to Russia, we would leave all my electronic equipment on the plane with the batteries out, because … they’re trying to find out not just about what we do in our government, they’re … going after the personal emails of people who worked in the State Department.” Yes, she said that. (emphasis added)

(snip)

This time, however, the equities and interests of the powerful, secretive NSA, as well as the FBI and Justice, are deeply involved. And by now all of them know “where the bodies are buried,” as the smart folks inside the Beltway like to say. So the question becomes would a future President Hillary Clinton have total freedom of maneuver if she were beholden to those all well aware of her past infractions and the harm they have done to this country.

(snip)

Clinton’s flouting of the rules, in NSA’s face, would have created additional incentive for NSA to keep an especially close watch on her emails and telephone calls. The NSA also might know whether some intelligence service successfully hacked into Clinton’s server, but there’s no reason to think that the NSA would share that sort of information with the FBI, given the NSA’s history of not sharing its data with other federal agencies even when doing so makes sense.

The NSA arrogates to itself the prerogative of deciding what information to keep within NSA walls and what to share with the other intelligence and law enforcement agencies like the FBI. (One bitter consequence of this jealously guarded parochialism was the NSA’s failure to share very precise information that could have thwarted the attacks of 9/11, as former NSA insiders have revealed.)

(snip)

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/04/30/hillary-clintons-damning-emails

[SFnomad]

1. Just throw everything against the wall and see if it sticks, eh?

It's just embarrassing to see what the BS cheerleaders have become.

[Uncle Joe]

2. Bernie nor his supporters had anything to do with Hillary's past decisions and

ill thought out choices.

This is a very real possibility whether you wish to acknowledge it or not.

[Broward]

3. Third Way sycophants along with rank-and-file GOPers have bowed down to the corporate elite

facilitating the economic destruction of all but the 1%. Great job.

[Desert805]

4. Can't blame Senator Sanders for Clinton's bad judgement.

Bill's or Hillary's.

[MineralMan]

5. Another Bizarre Fantasy Brought to You by commondreams.org

Watch for more soon!

[Uncle Joe]

6. What they have posted is a matter of record. Snowden exposed it and Clapper retracted

his testimony.

(snip)

U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., was one of the last senators to ask questions during the open portion of the committee hearing, before it went to a closed session.

Wyden: "I hope we can do this in just a yes or no answer, because I know Sen. Feinstein wants to move on. Last summer, the NSA director (Keith Alexander) was at a conference and he was asked a question about the NSA surveillance of Americans. He replied, and I quote here, ‘The story that we have millions, or hundreds of millions, of dossiers on people is completely false.’ The reason I’m asking the question is, having served on the committee now for a dozens years, I don’t really know what a dossier is in this context. So, what I wanted to see if you could give me a yes or no answer to the question: Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions, or hundreds of millions of Americans?"

Clapper: "No, sir."

(snip)

The Snowden effect

That changed on June 5 and 6. Using information leaked by Snowden, The Guardian and The Washington Post released the first in a series of stories that would highlight how the NSA collected metadata from phone companies on calls made by U.S. citizens. Included in the bulk data was who called whom, for how long and when. Subsequent stories showed that Internet data was being collected under different programs.

(snip)

Wyden said Clapper didn’t give a "straight answer" during the hearing, even though Wyden submitted his question in advance. Wyden said he wouldn’t have asked the question if Clapper’s staff had asked him not to.

In the days after the hearing, Wyden said he asked Clapper’s staff to clear the record, but they declined to do so publicly until after the Snowden leaks.

(snip)

While that might be true, Goitein said it does not excuse Clapper from an inaccurate answer.

"Anyone who happened to be watching the hearing had no reason to doubt the answer," she said. "The incident is generally framed in terms of whether Clapper mislead Congress. ... But he couldn’t have mislead members of the intelligence committee because they knew what was going on. The people who were misled were the American public."


http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2014/mar/11/james-clappers-testimony-one-year-later/

[Cheese Sandwich]

7. It would be surprising if they couldn't

On the other hand they could probably blackmail everyone.