Liberal Seeks To Understand #1: Private emails

[CrusaderFrank]

Look. If you want to get through the next four years with any shred of sanity left, just repeat after me: IT'S OKAY IF TRUMP DOES IT!

Now let's do some practice drills.

REPORT: President Trump has spent the day golfing on one of his golf courses.

YOU: IT'S OKAY IF TRUMP DOES IT!

REPORT: President Trump has circumvented Congress with an Executive Order.

YOU: IT'S OKAY IF TRUMP DOES IT!

REPORT: President Trump is taking a vacation today, with his family, at great taxpayer expense.

YOU: IT'S OKAY IF TRUMP DOES IT!

REPORT: President Trump has acquiesced to the demands of Vladimir Putin and ended sanctions.

YOU: IT's OKAY IF TRUMP DOES IT!

Read post #4

Like I said. It's okay if Trump does it.

Clue: get one today.

Do you know the difference between an email account and a server?

 

[kaz]

Hi folks! First, yes I probably fit the label "liberal" more than anything else. And yes, I've been in my fair share of stupid, pointless arguments on teh interwebs. But unlike some liberals, I want to understand instead of judge. That's why I'm going to start asking some honest questions to conservatives here. I may not agree with you, but I'm hoping to improve my understanding and empathy by seeking first to understand.

Case in point: private email servers for government officials.

Liberals see hypocrisy from conservatives on this. According to the right, Clinton was downright evil for having used a private email server for government business. Yet it appears that Trump and members of his staff are doing the same thing.

The question: Is there a difference between the two situations, or is Trump as guilty as Clinton in using a private email server?

If we can, let's skip other reasons why Clinton was immoral, illegal, etc. because that's not the issue here. I want to know if conservatives what Trump is doing vs. what Clinton did. I promise to return kindness and respect towards me with kindness and respect towards you. Cheers!

The issue was not that Hillary had a private e-mail server. The issue was that Clinton forwarded her official e-mail containing top secret and secret information to it. You really didn't know that?

 

[kaz]

Yeah, as long as she doesn't destroy civilization she's good. That's your standard for Republicans, right? Yeah ...

 

[wjmacguffin]

The issue was not that Hillary had a private e-mail server. The issue was that Clinton forwarded her official e-mail containing top secret and secret information to it. You really didn't know that?

Yeah, I get that. That's why I'm not defending her.
FBI tears holes in Hillary Clinton's email defense

My goal is to understand the conservative prospective on Trump. If I may paraphrase, you're saying it's OK for a government official to use a private email server for gov't business **as long as** nothing classified (whichever classification is applied) is sent through the server. Is that correct?

 

[CrusaderFrank]

The issue was not that Hillary had a private e-mail server. The issue was that Clinton forwarded her official e-mail containing top secret and secret information to it. You really didn't know that?

Yeah, I get that. That's why I'm not defending her.
FBI tears holes in Hillary Clinton's email defense

My goal is to understand the conservative prospective on Trump. If I may paraphrase, you're saying it's OK for a government official to use a private email server for gov't business **as long as** nothing classified (whichever classification is applied) is sent through the server. Is that correct?

There's no law prohibiting an employee from maintaining a private email account

 

[NightFox]

Trump's most senior staff use a private email server
Trump White House senior staff have private email accounts: report

So what you're saying is the key is whether Trump and his staff are using these accounts for official government business and/or work-related stuff? Because that makes sense. My concern is how to determine if such emails are being used for work or not.

Yes that's what I was saying, government employees are free to own personal email accounts however they are subject to government record keeping statues and rules relating to what types of information they can send using those accounts (i.e. NO official government correspondence on private accounts). This is the same type of situation you'd have for any private business (that has it's email usage, DLP and related information security policies straight), nobody wants confidential data leaking out into the wild and government employees also have the limitation that official correspondence needs to be kept for FOIA purposes.

As far as how you determine whether or not those private accounts are being used for official government business, that's a bit trickier without actually having access to said private accounts, Companies that want to enforce common sense policies have to take a number of steps to do it (Data Loss Protection (DLP) mechanisms, blocking internal access to external email providers/cloud storage/etc..,, Digital Rights Management (DRM), etc..,) it's a tough (and expensive) task in today's environment.

Bottom line is, that if Trump and/or his staff are using private email accounts to send/receive official government correspondence knowing all the problems that it created for Clinton they're about the stupidest people on Earth (which I don't rule out), however until there is some hard evidence there is no reason to even speculate that this is going on.

 

[wjmacguffin]

The issue was not that Hillary had a private e-mail server. The issue was that Clinton forwarded her official e-mail containing top secret and secret information to it. You really didn't know that?

Yeah, I get that. That's why I'm not defending her.
FBI tears holes in Hillary Clinton's email defense

My goal is to understand the conservative prospective on Trump. If I may paraphrase, you're saying it's OK for a government official to use a private email server for gov't business **as long as** nothing classified (whichever classification is applied) is sent through the server. Is that correct?

There's no law prohibiting an employee from maintaining a private email account

I never said they cannot have private email accounts. But at least as far as the State Dept goes, all employees must conduct day-to-day business on government-owned servers. A private email is just that — private, not government.

Also, all emails (public or private) used to conduct gov't business must be saved and archived. That's one thing Clinton did wrong, as did Bush by deleting around 22 million emails stored on RNC servers.

 

[Hutch Starskey]

Look. If you want to get through the next four years with any shred of sanity left, just repeat after me: IT'S OKAY IF TRUMP DOES IT!

Now let's do some practice drills.

REPORT: President Trump has spent the day golfing on one of his golf courses.

YOU: IT'S OKAY IF TRUMP DOES IT!

REPORT: President Trump has circumvented Congress with an Executive Order.

YOU: IT'S OKAY IF TRUMP DOES IT!

REPORT: President Trump is taking a vacation today, with his family, at great taxpayer expense.

YOU: IT'S OKAY IF TRUMP DOES IT!

REPORT: President Trump has acquiesced to the demands of Vladimir Putin and ended sanctions.

YOU: IT's OKAY IF TRUMP DOES IT!

Read post #4

Like I said. It's okay if Trump does it.

Clue: get one today.

Do you know the difference between an email account and a server?

Clue:

Do you understand that an email account on the RNC server is indeed a private server.

 

[g5000]

The issue was not that Hillary had a private e-mail server. The issue was that Clinton forwarded her official e-mail containing top secret and secret information to it. You really didn't know that?

Yeah, I get that. That's why I'm not defending her.
FBI tears holes in Hillary Clinton's email defense

My goal is to understand the conservative prospective on Trump. If I may paraphrase, you're saying it's OK for a government official to use a private email server for gov't business **as long as** nothing classified (whichever classification is applied) is sent through the server. Is that correct?

There's no law prohibiting an employee from maintaining a private email account

I never said they cannot have private email accounts. But at least as far as the State Dept goes, all employees must conduct day-to-day business on government-owned servers. A private email is just that — private, not government.

Also, all emails (public or private) used to conduct gov't business must be saved and archived. That's one thing Clinton did wrong, as did Bush by deleting around 22 million emails stored on RNC servers.

It's okay when Republicans do it!

 

[kaz]

The issue was not that Hillary had a private e-mail server. The issue was that Clinton forwarded her official e-mail containing top secret and secret information to it. You really didn't know that?

Yeah, I get that. That's why I'm not defending her.
FBI tears holes in Hillary Clinton's email defense

My goal is to understand the conservative prospective on Trump. If I may paraphrase, you're saying it's OK for a government official to use a private email server for gov't business **as long as** nothing classified (whichever classification is applied) is sent through the server. Is that correct?

I'm not a Trump supporter or a Republican, so you'd have to ask one of them since you're specifically saying you want a Republican perspective.

As for me though, as long as she used her government account on government systems for government business, I don't give a shit what she does with a private server.

You realize though, she was specifically doing it to avoid public scrutiny of her government business, such as Clinton Foundation fundraising. That's why she came up with the lame excuse it was so she didn't have to carry two phones. The woman has an entourage and can't carry two phones? Yeah, you'd have to be an imbecile to believe that

 

[kaz]

The issue was not that Hillary had a private e-mail server. The issue was that Clinton forwarded her official e-mail containing top secret and secret information to it. You really didn't know that?

Yeah, I get that. That's why I'm not defending her.
FBI tears holes in Hillary Clinton's email defense

My goal is to understand the conservative prospective on Trump. If I may paraphrase, you're saying it's OK for a government official to use a private email server for gov't business **as long as** nothing classified (whichever classification is applied) is sent through the server. Is that correct?

There's no law prohibiting an employee from maintaining a private email account

I never said they cannot have private email accounts. But at least as far as the State Dept goes, all employees must conduct day-to-day business on government-owned servers. A private email is just that — private, not government.

Also, all emails (public or private) used to conduct gov't business must be saved and archived. That's one thing Clinton did wrong, as did Bush by deleting around 22 million emails stored on RNC servers.

On Hillary, the only tweak I would make is Hillary didn't just need to store the e-mails, she needed to store them on government systems. The reason for that is the freedom of information act. If she stored them privately, they still aren't complying with the freedom of information act because no one could retrieve them. Everything else you said I agree with.

On Bush, I'm not an expert in that. My understanding was that it was a server to conduct party politics, not official business. What are you basing it on that they actually conducted official business? I'm not denying it, just want more to back it up. I don't believe Bush staffers fundraising for their campaign is considered "gov't business." Of course that can be abused, such as when Gore was fundraising from the Chinese government and when Hillary was soliciting funds from Saudi Arabia which are clear conflicts of interest