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Lost Emails - A Question
When I first read about the lost White House / VP emails one thing that jumped out at me is that the White House staff were using a non govern email addresses and server. Iy was reported that a RNC mail server that was contracted out to whomever was used.
The question I have is wouldn't this violate security laws?
I assume that government servers have special security protocols and protections that are administered under some sort of security guide lines. A private mail server would not have the same security protections.
If a Government official purposely sent any information classified at any level through a non secure mail server would that not violate criminal law?
If so why has this issue not been raised?
Also why were the RNC ( besides obvious political interference with law enforcement) servers not immediately seized until it could be proven that no illegal classified data were on them? If I remember the RNC was negotiating how they would check on themselves and get back to the government on whether they had any sensitive information illegally stored on their servers.
This is an honest question on my part not a rhetorical one. Other then raw political power protecting criminal activity how has this slipped by? Or am I completely wrong in my reading of the law?
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If you were sending classified info over an Internet connection (and you'd want to avoid doing that in the first place), you'd want to encrypt the data. Sending an unencrypted email in the clear (over a public connection) would be a really stupid move.
It probably is a violation of the Presidential Records Act of 1978, however, along with other possible violations.
Something you might enjoy reading:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27740220/
November 17, 2008 1:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
That is precisely my point.
Rove and the Cheney's staff admitted to using RNC email addresses etc to conduct Executive branch business ( and the unique office of VP business)
In fact this was part of the argument as to how so many emails, especially about the Valerie Plame affair, were "lost".
My understanding is that all internal executive branch email would have some level of security classification. So that means any executive branch email exchanged across RNC mail servers by definition were criminal violation of the laws you have cited and I would assume others as well.
This administration is so concerned about security that they have tried to classify public information yet they ignore the use of insecure email servers for classified information?
Can criminal charges be filed?
November 17, 2008 2:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
They're using the Hatch Act as their rationale. It's clearly a desperate attempt at getting around the law. But I don't expect they'll be busted for it. You'd need to use forensic recovery techniques to retrieve the data at this point. I don't know anything about how security classifications are applied to Executive Branch emails. I can't imagine an email containing a cookie recipe to the president (or some porn to Karl Rove) would be subject to any sort of classified status.
November 17, 2008 2:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
"My understanding is that all internal executive branch email would have some level of security classification."
Fortunately, not even the recent excesses of over-classification have gone that far. The only grounds for classifying a government communication relate to national security. White House communications are confidential, and sometimes fall within the bounds of executive privilege, but the domestic policy staff rarely produces anything that's classifiable.
But even in the highly unlikely event that someone were stupid enough to put classified information into an e-mail on an unsecured system transiting through a third-party server, that wouldn't be criminal. The statutes covering classified information all, to the best of my knowledge, require intent to disclose. I can write Top Secret information on a paper airplane and fling it down the hall to the office of someone else cleared to receive it - and though stupid, the act would not be criminal, even if the plane landed somewhere else. Or I could deliberately send an encrypted e-mail over a secure system to someone not authorized to receive the information, and that would indeed be criminal. Make sense?
November 18, 2008 8:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
One would think that blowing the identity of a covert CIA agent would be against the law too, wouldn't one?
November 17, 2008 2:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
hrebendorf is correct, they are using the Hatch act as an excuse for the use by Rove and others of outside e-mail addresses. This is a joke of an excuse. There are two separate issues of "missing" White House e-mails; one involves official e-mails from the White House e-mail system itself, the other involves the illegally used, outside e-mail addresses which were on servers in Tennessee. In the case of the WH e-mail system itself, Bushco claims to have "lost access" to them during a conversion of the e-mail system from Lotus Notes (used during the Clinton Administration) to Microsoft Exchange. However, all of these "scrambled" e-mails were put onto backup tapes, and a court has just ordered these be preserved. The Tennessee vendor who administered the illegally used outside addresses claims to have deleted old e-mails every 30 days with no backup; this is where the vast majority of Karl Rove's e-mails were done.
November 17, 2008 5:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
So what's all this we've been hearing recently about how Barack Obama won't be the first emailing President, due to security concerns? I'm not even sure what they're talking about, let alone how this would be different from current practice.
November 18, 2008 9:51 AM | Reply | Permalink