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[Loud Whispers]

I dunno, transferring nuclear secrets to the USSR seems worse than being Hillary Clinton

[wierd]

Just as soon as they actually find something to indict. Given the current record, odds seem to be good on "Never."

See, that's the problem with state secrets. You cant say "See, this is a state secret, right here!" because the thing you will be pointing at will be a big wall of blacked out, redacted text that "Could be anything, really."

Unless the prosecutor is willing to out state secrets himself by refusing to allow redaction on court documents, it is impossible to create a case without using a secret court.

So, instead we have intelligence insiders, who DO have access to the unredacted data, saying "No, for realz yo, she broke the rules majorly!" and people poohpoohing it because "clinton 2016!" and "That could have been anything!"

Basically, people saying "Intelligence agency insiders aren't a reliable source" and or "Seriously, it's just a bunch of emails, what's the big deal?" and or, demanding a burden of proof that is undeliverable (again because Clinton 2016!), and in all cases, substituting their own opinion over that of actual intelligence agency experts.

If you accept the expert testimonies of intelligence agency employees working the scandal, clinton is dirty.

If you dont accept their testimony, "See, there is nothing to indict over!"

That really is what it boils down to. It is too unpopular to prosecute Clinton right now. At best, she will be indicted when the secrecy hold dates on those documents expires, 50 years from now.

She will probably be dead of old age by then.

So, indictment: never.

[hector13]

See, now you just seem to be assuming that intelligence experts don't have political leanings, or are incapable of lying.

[Baffler]

A lot of us will probably be dead of old age by then. That's the beauty of declassifying things after 50 years. It doesn't really seem like a very long time if you don't think about it too much, but by the time it sees the light of day anyone who might possibly remember the actual incident and was old enough to care at the time will be too old to really want to do anything about it. And that's assuming that they aren't just dead. And the people who don't remember it won't be pissed off because whatever it was didn't affect them personally, and "that was 50 years ago, a lot has changed since then!"

[wierd]

If there was a just grounds for things like Wikileaks, this would be it.

A wikileaks leak of the full, unredacted email cache would put the issue to bed succinctly. (It would also shit in a great many people's cheerios.)

[mainiac]

You can set up a simulated economy, but forget to plug in one factor or another (or plug it in incorrectly) and it may come out wrong.

I was a hanger-oner to the EPA economy simulations team for a while. (There wasn't a spot for me on that group but I just read their work and attended their meetings because I was interested.)  What I learned from the experience was that the state of the art in economic simulation is still distressingly close to this:

[smjjames]

If there was a just grounds for things like Wikileaks, this would be it.

A wikileaks leak of the full, unredacted email cache would put the issue to bed succinctly. (It would also shit in a great many people's cheerios.)

Except, you know, what if there's something that actually IS extremely damaging to US security and not simply embarrassing?

Not being an advocate for NSA, just saying that if something is 'beyond top secret' then there may be a good reason that it has that, maybe not, we won't know anytime soon.

[Baffler]

If there was a just grounds for things like Wikileaks, this would be it.

A wikileaks leak of the full, unredacted email cache would put the issue to bed succinctly. (It would also shit in a great many people's cheerios.)

Except, you know, what if there's something that actually IS extremely damaging to US security and not simply embarrassing?

Not being an advocate for NSA, just saying that if something is 'beyond top secret' then there may be a good reason that it has that, maybe not, we won't know anytime soon.

If that's the case then it definitely shouldn't have been stored improperly in such an insecure place, and the criticism stands.

[Rolan7]

Yes, it would mean Clinton fucked up, and also possibly that people would die and we'd lose global influence

I don't know much about this controversy, to be honest though.  Why is it specifically Clinton's fault?  She knowingly approved a bad data security policy or something?

[Wolfhunter107]

Classified information contained in insecure emails. It's a favorite subject of her opponents.

[smjjames]

Yes, it would mean Clinton fucked up, and also possibly that people would die and we'd lose global influence

I don't know much about this controversy, to be honest though.  Why is it specifically Clinton's fault?  She knowingly approved a bad data security policy or something?

Yes, that. Also according to the republicans: BENGHAZI BENGHAZI BENGHAZI and 'everything OCblaimtaon (the words Obama and Clinton smashed together) did is fail and wrong, and fail.... and wrong, and bad..... and fail."

[wierd]

That's the gist of the controversy, yes.

It goes something like this:

Clinton becomes Secretary of State.
She creates email server for personal use.
Aides and other staffers tell her that the server violates policy, and why.
Clinton uses it anyway.
(More fun fact as an aside, an aide in the clinton secretary of state run state department is booted out for similar offense. Documents indicate clinton was aware of this.)

After ceasing to be secretary of state, the issue of her continued use of this server, reaches political rhetoric level, and scandal erupts.

Investigators demand the server in question, which was mysteriously cleaned of its original email contents. (surprise).  However, forensic experts are able to reconstitute the contents from filesystem metadata and other methodologies. Thus begins the long, arduous process of vetting and investigating all of the recovered emails the server processed.

Since this process is being done by the intelligence agency staff themselves, they are the ones who have the unrestricted access, and are thus the authoritative sources of information concerning what has and has not been found in the system's recovered contents.

That is why the argument against them as credible sources of testimony is rather weaksauce. By that logic, they shouldnt even be in possession of the server anyway.

The bad thing, is that much like the "Show me the birth certificate!" idiots, the clinton email scandal has reached DERP level proportions in certain groups, which means mentioning it gets you smeared with their derpyness.

[Reelya]

You have people claiming that Clinton's emails contained potential information, that if her server had been hacked, could potentially have jeopardized some intelligence operations. But I'm seriously doubting there was anything in there more damaging than the wikileaks diplomatic cable leaks of a few years ago.

Still, man this is chicken feed compared to stuff people got away with under Bush. Valerie Plame affair? You had multiple White House personnel who deliberately outed a CIA agent's identity in order to undermine a political opponent. That's not just a slip up, that's outright treason.

And don't forget the Valerie Plame affair involved Jeff Gannon, a fake journalist implanted in the white house press corp by the Bush administration. We should never let them forget Jeff Gannon. Washington journalists not friendly enough? Simply make a fake one out of a gay hooker, then give them special day passes to get into the whitehouse press corp without any actual credentials and a fake identity.

[smjjames]

Not to mention that the fact that the Republicans have so heavily politicized it that Clinton would actually have a pretty good defense that it's a political thing rather than legal.

[Reelya]

"Senate Democratic leaders have painted a very bleak picture of the U.S. economy. (Senate Minority Leader) Harry Reid was talking about soup lines. And (Senator) Hillary Clinton was talking about the economy being on the verge of collapse. Yet in the same breath they say that Social Security is rock solid and there's no crisis there. How are you going to work – you've said you are going to reach out to these people – how are you going to work with people who seem to have divorced themselves from reality?"

^ Jeff Gannon question to George Bush in 2005.