Newspaper: Defense secretary used personal email at Pentagon

[webfact]

Newspaper: Defense secretary used personal email at Pentagon

WASHINGTON (AP) — A news report published Wednesday said Defense Secretary Ash Carter used a personal email account to do some of his government business during his first months at the Pentagon.

The New York Times reported it obtained 72 work-related emails that Carter sent or received from his personal email account.

Carter's press secretary, Peter Cook, told the Times that Carter believes his use of personal email for work-related business was a mistake. Cook declined to say whether it was a violation of Pentagon email policies. Cook said Carter stopped the practice, but Cook did not say when.

Hillary Clinton came under heavy criticism when it was revealed in March that she had used a personal email account as secretary of state. Carter took office in February.

The Times said Cook provided a written statement in response to the newspapers' inquiries about the emails.

"After reviewing his email practices earlier this year, the secretary believes that his previous, occasional use of personal email for work-related business, even for routine administrative issues and backed up to his official account, was a mistake," the statement said in part. "As a result, he stopped such use of his personal email and further limited his use of email altogether."

The Times said the emails it received under the Freedom of Information Act were exchanges between Carter and Eric Fanning, who was his chief of staff at the time and is now the acting secretary of the Army.

The emails were on a variety of work-related topics, the Times said, including speeches, meetings and news media appearances. In one such email, Carter discussed how he had mistakenly placed a note card in a "burn bag," the Times reported. Such bags are typically used to destroy classified documents.


-- (c) Associated Press 2015-12-17

[ezzra]

What's wrong with these supposedly smart people that that they don't grasp the severity of using personal

Emails account and compromising all other security apparatuses put in place jus to prevent the very folly

of the doings? security and safety 101, don't use your personal email accounts idiots.... as any beginner

hacker can get into it....

[Chicog]

What's wrong with these supposedly smart people that that they don't grasp the severity of using personal

Emails account and compromising all other security apparatuses put in place jus to prevent the very folly

of the doings? security and safety 101, don't use your personal email accounts idiots.... as any beginner

hacker can get into it....

After this years efforts by the Chinese, the emails on his personal account are probably less likely to have been stolen than the ones at work!

[bangkapi]

Let's face it. Most people in high government positions are criminals.

[bendejo]

Running your own mail server is such a pain in the ass I'm surprised at this popularity. From the Hillary inquisitions I gather they hire co-lo places to maintain the systems. Generally people do a better job when they are dealing directly with the person who signs the checks, in my experience.

Then again the .gov system is being run by un-sack-able civil servants, I imagine conversations like this:

Did you notice anything wrong with the system?

Yes, I spotted some suspicious activity, but it was ten minutes to five on a Friday and my boss said absolutely no overtime so I left it until after the weekend.

[Chicog]

Running your own mail server is such a pain in the ass I'm surprised at this popularity. From the Hillary inquisitions I gather they hire co-lo places to maintain the systems. Generally people do a better job when they are dealing directly with the person who signs the checks, in my experience.

Then again the .gov system is being run by un-sack-able civil servants, I imagine conversations like this:

Did you notice anything wrong with the system?

Yes, I spotted some suspicious activity, but it was ten minutes to five on a Friday and my boss said absolutely no overtime so I left it until after the weekend.

It doesn't say "Personal mail server" it says "personal mail account".

[Berkshire]

It will probably come out that high ranking government officials have been using personal e-mail since e-mail was invented. Both Dem and Rep administrations. But it was just recently that the Rep have been hounding Mrs. Clinton, mostly because they figured she would be the Dem Presidential nominee. This whole e-mail nonsense would fit the classic definition of the right wingers making a mountain out of a molehill.

[chuckd]

It will probably come out that high ranking government officials have been using personal e-mail since e-mail was invented. Both Dem and Rep administrations. But it was just recently that the Rep have been hounding Mrs. Clinton, mostly because they figured she would be the Dem Presidential nominee. This whole e-mail nonsense would fit the classic definition of the right wingers making a mountain out of a molehill.

You don't know a lot about legally handling government documents, do you.

[Berkshire]

It will probably come out that high ranking government officials have been using personal e-mail since e-mail was invented. Both Dem and Rep administrations. But it was just recently that the Rep have been hounding Mrs. Clinton, mostly because they figured she would be the Dem Presidential nominee. This whole e-mail nonsense would fit the classic definition of the right wingers making a mountain out of a molehill.

You don't know a lot about legally handling government documents, do you.

Funny. I made that comment having been a relatively high ranking government official in my previous life.

[chuckd]

It will probably come out that high ranking government officials have been using personal e-mail since e-mail was invented. Both Dem and Rep administrations. But it was just recently that the Rep have been hounding Mrs. Clinton, mostly because they figured she would be the Dem Presidential nominee. This whole e-mail nonsense would fit the classic definition of the right wingers making a mountain out of a molehill.

You don't know a lot about legally handling government documents, do you.

Funny. I made that comment having been a relatively high ranking government official in my previous life.

Which government did you serve as a "high ranking official"?

[Berkshire]

It will probably come out that high ranking government officials have been using personal e-mail since e-mail was invented. Both Dem and Rep administrations. But it was just recently that the Rep have been hounding Mrs. Clinton, mostly because they figured she would be the Dem Presidential nominee. This whole e-mail nonsense would fit the classic definition of the right wingers making a mountain out of a molehill.

You don't know a lot about legally handling government documents, do you.

Funny. I made that comment having been a relatively high ranking government official in my previous life.

Which government did you serve as a "high ranking official"?

USA.

[Srikcir]

Use of personal email account to do some of government business is allowed policy. It is only when email contains classified or most probably classifiable information that it is not permissable to use personal email accounts.

Classified content is typically flagged as such and easy to identify. It is the most probably classifiable content that is either under current review or left to interpetation. And even when classified, content may be so more from an automatic electronic designation than from any human designation.

Until more specifics are known about what content was, this is just hyped reporting to sell news.

[chuckd]

Use of personal email account to do some of government business is allowed policy. It is only when email contains classified or most probably classifiable information that it is not permissable to use personal email accounts.

Classified content is typically flagged as such and easy to identify. It is the most probably classifiable content that is either under current review or left to interpetation. And even when classified, content may be so more from an automatic electronic designation than from any human designation.

Until more specifics are known about what content was, this is just hyped reporting to sell news.

If it is discovered that Secretary Carter's 72 emails contained classified materials then he will be in the same boat that Hillary currently is trying to keep from sinking.

His email traffic pales into insignificance when compared to Secretary Clinton's over 30,000 but the principal remains the same. Over 1,000 of her emails were found to contain classified information and two of them were classified Top Secret.

The good thing for both of them is the main stream media is fixated on destroying the Republican candidates so their powers of concentration are focused elsewhere.

It won't go away easily.

[chuckd]

You don't know a lot about legally handling government documents, do you.

Funny. I made that comment having been a relatively high ranking government official in my previous life.

Which government did you serve as a "high ranking official"?

USA.

And were you a high ranking elected official, diplomat, political appointee or bureaucrat?

[Publicus]

One notably absent aspect of the personal email use, whether a server or an account held by an official, is the congress maximus.

How about the many many members of vital committees of the congress maximus. Namely, the Armed Services committee of the House and of the Senate. The Intelligence Committee of each chamber. The Committee on Foreign Affairs/International Relations of each chamber that oversee the State Department. The Committee on the Judiciary that oversees DoJ to include FBI and its work. Committee on Finance that oversees Dept of Treasury. Committee on Homeland Security. Each committee legislates for its executive department and oversees the execution of the laws of each department, agency, commission, board.

Each the Senate and the House have a committee of each of these among other committees of other jurisdictions.

House committees typically have 30-40 or so blabbing members of both parties. Senate committees of these jurisdictions typically have 14 or as many as two dozen gregarious members.

With congressmen and some Senators sending emails around of themselves in their underwear or to pages etc, it's past time a special or select committee of the congress itself, or a blue ribbon panel might be organized by the White House to check out these too often screwy members of the congress maximus.

Or an independent committee of citizens mutually appointed by the congress and the White House to perhaps include a member or two of SCOTUS in on the appointing process.

How many emails have the total 535 members of the House and Senate sent to their paymaster lobbyists in Washington and elsewhere over many years. A decade?

Ted Cruz got off the hook just today after Sen Marco Rubio took him up on some figures he presented during last night's debate which happened to have been published in the Washington Post. The Post is of course protected by the First Amendment (except in criminal matters, which applies across all media). A member of congress is protected by the Constitution for anything s/he says on the floor of the House or the Senate, and en transit to or from the Congress.

If however a member of the House or Senate makes a speech in Las Vegas disclosing nuclear secrets s/he is subject to being arrested on the spot. Cruz was cleared by the Republican chairman of the Intelligence Committe for the statement Cruz made, with the concurrence of the Democrat vice chaiman of the committee, Sen Diane Feinstein. Who really knows about this kind of stuff.

One can suspect this personal email stuff is a bunch of rotating blades churning at a high speed and not just a double edged sword.

[Ulic]

Use of personal email account to do some of government business is allowed policy. It is only when email contains classified or most probably classifiable information that it is not permissable to use personal email accounts.

Classified content is typically flagged as such and easy to identify. It is the most probably classifiable content that is either under current review or left to interpetation. And even when classified, content may be so more from an automatic electronic designation than from any human designation.

Until more specifics are known about what content was, this is just hyped reporting to sell news.

I learn something every day.

[Berkshire]

Which government did you serve as a "high ranking official"?

USA.

And were you a high ranking elected official, diplomat, political appointee or bureaucrat?

Not an elected official. Just a career civil servant. Let's be clear: all of us who have a classified clearance understands how to handle classified material. But we also had private e-mail accounts. Occasionally, work and private accounts would become commingled. It doesn't mean state secrets were compromised. It just means that work and private accounts become commingled. I don't expect anyone to understand. But if you guys think that the Sec of State/Defense were doing anything radically different from their predecessors, you're mistaken.

[connda]

Hillery told him it was Ok.

[Publicus]

 

You don't know a lot about legally handling government documents, do you.

Funny. I made that comment having been a relatively high ranking government official in my previous life.

Which government did you serve as a "high ranking official"?

USA.

And were you a high ranking elected official, diplomat, political appointee or bureaucrat?

No poster has to account for himself to any other poster.

[Chicog]

Use of personal email account to do some of government business is allowed policy. It is only when email contains classified or most probably classifiable information that it is not permissable to use personal email accounts.

Classified content is typically flagged as such and easy to identify. It is the most probably classifiable content that is either under current review or left to interpetation. And even when classified, content may be so more from an automatic electronic designation than from any human designation.

Until more specifics are known about what content was, this is just hyped reporting to sell news.

If it is discovered that Secretary Carter's 72 emails contained classified materials then he will be in the same boat that Hillary currently is trying to keep from sinking.

His email traffic pales into insignificance when compared to Secretary Clinton's over 30,000 but the principal remains the same. Over 1,000 of her emails were found to contain classified information and two of them were classified Top Secret.

The good thing for both of them is the main stream media is fixated on destroying the Republican candidates so their powers of concentration are focused elsewhere.

It won't go away easily.

I do believe that the FBI are conducting an investigation, so let's wait until they actually produce evidence and a report before we start repeating tittle tattle we got off Fox News eh?

At this point, all you have is the traditional GOP witch hunt and, of course, "unnamed sources".

And do take that chip off your shoulder about the mainstream media "destroying" the Republican candidates - the clowns are perfectly capable of doing that on their own.

Edited December 17, 2015 by Chicog

[rgraham]

Government employees, scraped right off the bottom of the barrel!

[Publicus]

 

Hillery told him it was Ok.

Carter sent his emails to the .gov backup as required by regulations so this is yet another big stink raised by the right. Carter did what he was supposed to do. Then he quit the whole idea of using his own email account which was an even better idea.

No concern anyway cause Hillary Clinton set the precedent at the October 22nd marathon hearing for anyone targeted by the vast rightwing conspicuously. She proved then the committee circus chairman Trey Gowdy the former prosecutor couldn't indict a ham sandwich. Even served on a tray. Nobody's heard from the guy or his clown act since.

Looking forward now to Keven McCarthy to be interviewed again on Faux. Congressman 'salt and pepper' who keeps eating his words. The guy with the mouth who choked before the climax vote.

[chuckd]

Use of personal email account to do some of government business is allowed policy. It is only when email contains classified or most probably classifiable information that it is not permissable to use personal email accounts.

Classified content is typically flagged as such and easy to identify. It is the most probably classifiable content that is either under current review or left to interpetation. And even when classified, content may be so more from an automatic electronic designation than from any human designation.

Until more specifics are known about what content was, this is just hyped reporting to sell news.

If it is discovered that Secretary Carter's 72 emails contained classified materials then he will be in the same boat that Hillary currently is trying to keep from sinking.

His email traffic pales into insignificance when compared to Secretary Clinton's over 30,000 but the principal remains the same. Over 1,000 of her emails were found to contain classified information and two of them were classified Top Secret.

The good thing for both of them is the main stream media is fixated on destroying the Republican candidates so their powers of concentration are focused elsewhere.

It won't go away easily.

I do believe that the FBI are conducting an investigation, so let's wait until they actually produce evidence and a report before we start repeating tittle tattle we got off Fox News eh?

At this point, all you have is the traditional GOP witch hunt and, of course, "unnamed sources".

And do take that chip off your shoulder about the mainstream media "destroying" the Republican candidates - the clowns are perfectly capable of doing that on their own.

Oh, but you see, there is quite a bit out in the public domain that might be considered damning evidence. The FBI will continue their investigation and then approach Attorney General Lynch with their findings.

For instance the server she hired, Platte River, never applied for or obtained a facility clearance from the Defense Security Service (DSS). Without this facility clearance each and every email containing government information was a violation of law. Simply put...her server was not an approved repository.

Next we look at her various denials of her actions, ending with her claim she never sent an email that was marked "Classified". The word, classified, does not normally appear on such documents. There are three categories of classifications. They are Confidential, Secret and Top Secret and are usually marked at the appropriate level rather than simply "Classified"

If we then look at her claim that they were not marked classified so she should be held harmless, she very conveniently forgot, or never read, form SF-312 which she signed under oath on her first day as SecState. Form SF-312 says in part...

"As used in this Agreement, classified information is marked or unmarked classified information, including oral communications, that is classified under the standards of Executive Order 13526..."

Notice the words "marked or unmarked". The documents she forwarded don't have to be marked. She is supposed to know the difference.

Lastly, that infamous form SF-312 has a debriefing clause which she also signed.

She signed this under oath as well and it contains these words...

"I reaffirm that the provisions of the espionage laws, other federal criminal laws and executive orders applicable to the safeguarding of classified information have been made available to me; that I have returned all classified information in my custody..."

In fact, the State Department had none of her emails since they were exclusively on her private server. The NY Times uncovered her use of a private server, publishing it in their newspaper some months after she left the federal government.

I don't really think Secretary Carter has done anything criminally wrong. He sent 72 emails, discovered his error and reported them, turning all of them over to the IG.

Hillary on the other hand, failed to turn them over until she was caught out by the NY Times and then deleted roughly 30,000 emails claiming they were personal in nature. She returned an additional 30,000 to the State Department where they are laboriously going over each one to determine what can be released to the Benghazi Committee. Of those released so far, approximately 1,000 of them have been determined to be classified in nature, with at least two of them deemed as being Top Secret.

I'm sure Mr. Berkshire has signed such a document as form SF-312 during his civil service career, as have I as a defense contractor. I am certain he took his oath as seriously as I did. It's just a shame she didn't.

Edited December 17, 2015 by chuckd

[Chicog]

Again: background noise until the investigation is over.

[ggt]

Hey...don't get excited...it is OK...this is the Obama Administration where making "mistakes" is as normal as going to the toilet...

[arjunadawn]

If anyone really thinks these are lapses in judgement then [they] are as gullible as Obama & Company think you are. These are concerted efforts to conceal illegal activities from the US Congress- oversight! Whether running guns like IranContra through/to Libya or air dropping pallet of supplies repeatedly and directly to DAESH (As Iraq and the Kurds repeatedly state), Obama et al have lots to hide. More disgusting is that Americans are now so numb/dumb that they allow their rape without complaint. Now its no longer a sh))-T sandwich one bite at a time; now they just shove the entire sandwich down the throat of citizens.

[Publicus]

The right whingers are coming out at it again.

More political pulp given there are only headlines and a few statements from SecDef Carter. Sec. Carter said a few hours ago he used his iPad to send "administrative" messages to his staff and the like.

They're gonna force Donald Trump to make more outrageous headlines to get back on top of the news again. Y'know, like put Carter before a firing squad now and forthwith. Outright treason and all of that.

Republicans and the congress maximus have a pisspoor record in this matter of investigating emails. Anyone who thinks the congress maximus is pure about its emails would need to be disabused of any such notion. An investigation of the security of emails in the congress maximus would no doubt be both revealing and chaotic.