I have two questions about the email controversy

[paulthompson]

70. response

The post I was responding to just got deleted before I could finish a reply. Here's my reply anyway:

If you'd read my timeline, or even just my intro essay, you'd know more:

http://thompsontimeline.com/IS_CLINTON'S_EMAIL_SCANDAL_FOR_REAL%3F

Clearly, something strange was going on with Blumenthal. He had worked in the White House ten years earlier, during Bill Cliinton's time, so presumably he knew what was classified or not from then. But now that he was a private citizen with no security clearance, he shouldn't have had information like that in the first place. Again, if you read the timeline, it becomes clear he had active and retired sources in the CIA and NSA at least that were passing classified information to him and then he'd forward that on to Clinton. Presumably he could tell from the sources how classified that info was.

The proper protocol Clinton should have followed was that when she received an email from him like that, she should have flagged it to security personnel, who would have then taken steps to secure it by scrubbing it from nonsecure channels and moving it to secure channels, as well as investigating how Blumethal had that in the first place.

But she didn't do that, despite hundreds of emails from Blumenthal like that. The logical reason is that different government departments are often bad at shariing information with each other - it's a problem called stovepiping. Through Blumenthal, she had a secret window into what the CIA and NSA were up to, and she wanted to keep that information pipeline going because she found it useful. But that meant a lot of classified information was being passed along through nonsecure means, which is one reason she's being investigated now.