[kenberg]

cherdano, on 2016-October-30, 19:03, said:

I think Josh Marshall (who initially defended Comey) has this right.
http://talkingpoints...eply-disturbing

This is far and away the best article I have seen on this.He puts his case clearly. I am keeping an open mind on what the truth is, but the article is well written.

[Winstonm]

kenberg, on 2016-October-30, 19:32, said:

This is far and away the best article I have seen on this.He puts his case clearly. I am keeping an open mind on what the truth is, but the article is well written.

If this is accurate, I think it is the most disturbing of all possibilities: an extremely powerful government agency with partisan rogue agents who are capable of influencing the Director's decision making. That is a chilling thought.

[shyams]

While I am not denying that, as Secretary of State, Mrs Clinton had access to some of the most sensitive documents, the US Govt classification system and the number of people in the US with access to such "classified" documents is severely flawed.

1. I believe around 5 million people working for (or contracting for) the US Govt have access to classified documents.
2. I also believe a good 10%-15% of these have access to all but the highest level of classification {I have no idea what that means and how many levels of classification exist}.
3. Every "classified" document is supposed to be treated with kid gloves by all these 5 million people.

Are we saying there are never any accidents?! Or worse, malicious incidents involving such classified documents?
And how does the media or the senators decide whether a leaked classified document is low level classified or has a very sensitive classification?


My point is: The tag "classified" has no significance unless someone with authority and knowledge can opine that the documents involved were really sensitive and meant for access by a handful of people. In absence of such opinion, no incident involving "classified information" can merit any of the debates going on in the media.

[kenberg]

Winstonm, on 2016-October-30, 22:15, said:

If this is accurate, I think it is the most disturbing of all possibilities: an extremely powerful government agency with partisan rogue agents who are capable of influencing the Director's decision making. That is a chilling thought.

This is an immense can of worms. It has been reported, several times, that Justice knew of his plans, and had the power to forbid him to do it. Just about everyone has probably been in this situation at one time or another.
Boss: Do the following
Worker: Put that in writing
Boss: No, just do it.

My view is that if the boss won't put it in writing,, leaving me to take the heat, then I do what I think is right instead of what boss thinks is right. If boss puts it in writing then I will, if I don't find it too objectionable, do as I am told. And boss can take the heat when it all blows up.

Here is how, from my viewpoint, it should have gone.
First, the agents inform Comey as soon as Clinton emails are discovered on the Weiner computer (assuming, as reported, that is the case).
Next, Comey informs Lynch.
Lynch says "We will move immediately to get you a warrant to look at these messages in detail. This is very sensitive and tricky. We will get the needed warrant absolutely without delay, we will examine the emails without delay, and then we will see if Congress needs to be informed. We will defintitely infomr them if there is anything to inform them about, but I believe it is legitimate to wait until we have a better understanding of what we are dealing with"

Did Lynch say any such thing? I have no idea. Did she just say "You can't inform Congress, that's that, end of story."? I have no idea.

Nobody looks good here.

I have been thinking more about these emails being on the Weiner computer. A separate post for that.

[kenberg]

"Clinton emails are on the Weiner computer"

What does this mean? It's not eentirely obvious.. My email messages at kenbecky are somewhere. In the cloud maybe, but not on my computer. Of course I can download material and place it in a file on my computer. is that what is being said? Downloaded from where? It matters, at least some. I have been trying to think this through.

My kenbecky account goes back years to when we first set up a gmail account. It soon became obvious that it would be better for Becky to have a separate email account, and she does. I also have an email account, krb, through the university that is still active.

When I was more active, math discussions were on krb. I still bring krb up every few days and sometimes it is important to do so, but both math and personal stuff is now done mostly on kenbecky. Now here is the point: If a former colleague wanted to contact me, he might send it to krb, he might send it to kenbecky, I cannot imagine him sending an email to Becky with a message intended for me. It makes no sense.

Ok, so it would be weird for HC to contact Abedin through Weiner's email account. But then, what is it that happened? Presumably Abedin did not forward the messages to Weiner.

Now Becky and I can, if we wish, read each other's email. This is convenient. Becky will say "So and so sent a message about such and such". She could forward it, and sometimes she does, or else I can just do a click when in my email and bring up her email.

But these are letters about who went where on a trip. I am not, and Becky is not, exchanging letters with the Secretary of State about foreign policy.

Surely if I were, I would set up my email, and my computer, so that Becky could not access the messages. This is not because I think she is a Russian spy. But if a document is leaked and an investigator comes around to ask who has access to my computer, I would want to be able to say "Me, and me alone". This is simple and obvious, is it not? Surely this comes under the heading of both following the rules and using good judgment.


The Clinton investigation aside, it seems obvious that the FBI would be concerned if email exchanges involving the Secretary of State appear inexplicably on a computer where you would not expect them to be. Abedin says "I have no idea how they got there". That's a little unsettling.

[mike777]

Clinton and the democrats continue to show their power to destroy Comey. They continue to attack his honor and integrity. .

Harry Reid accuses Comey of being a criminal, a lack of honor and integrity and in violation of the Hatch Act.


Welcome to clinton being President as she destroys those that cross her.

[Winstonm]

kenberg, on 2016-October-31, 07:09, said:

"Clinton emails are on the Weiner computer"

What does this mean? It's not eentirely obvious.. My email messages at kenbecky are somewhere. In the cloud maybe, but not on my computer. Of course I can download material and place it in a file on my computer. is that what is being said? Downloaded from where? It matters, at least some. I have been trying to think this through.

My kenbecky account goes back years to when we first set up a gmail account. It soon became obvious that it would be better for Becky to have a separate email account, and she does. I also have an email account, krb, through the university that is still active.

When I was more active, math discussions were on krb. I still bring krb up every few days and sometimes it is important to do so, but both math and personal stuff is now done mostly on kenbecky. Now here is the point: If a former colleague wanted to contact me, he might send it to krb, he might send it to kenbecky, I cannot imagine him sending an email to Becky with a message intended for me. It makes no sense.

Ok, so it would be weird for HC to contact Abedin through Weiner's email account. But then, what is it that happened? Presumably Abedin did not forward the messages to Weiner.

Now Becky and I can, if we wish, read each other's email. This is convenient. Becky will say "So and so sent a message about such and such". She could forward it, and sometimes she does, or else I can just do a click when in my email and bring up her email.

But these are letters about who went where on a trip. I am not, and Becky is not, exchanging letters with the Secretary of State about foreign policy.

Surely if I were, I would set up my email, and my computer, so that Becky could not access the messages. This is not because I think she is a Russian spy. But if a document is leaked and an investigator comes around to ask who has access to my computer, I would want to be able to say "Me, and me alone". This is simple and obvious, is it not? Surely this comes under the heading of both following the rules and using good judgment.


The Clinton investigation aside, it seems obvious that the FBI would be concerned if email exchanges involving the Secretary of State appear inexplicably on a computer where you would not expect them to be. Abedin says "I have no idea how they got there". That's a little unsettling.

I wonder if a home network could be the culprit? I don't even know if home networking would allow shared files from e-mails, though, but it is the only thing I can think of that makes any sense.

[Winstonm]

mike777, on 2016-October-31, 07:44, said:

Clinton and the democrats continue to show their power to destroy Comey. They continue to attack his honor and integrity. .

Harry Reid accuses Comey of being a criminal, a lack of honor and integrity and in violation of the Hatch Act.


Welcome to clinton being President as she destroys those that cross her.

Comey has done most of the honor and integrity damage to himself. Various parties, both Democrats and Republicans, are criticizing his actions.

[Al_U_Card]

Seems that Comey lost the respect of a lot of his subordinates and agents when he let Hil off. This may be his way of getting them back on his side no matter what the contents.

[kenberg]

Winstonm, on 2016-October-31, 08:01, said:

I wonder if a home network could be the culprit? I don't even know if home networking would allow shared files from e-mails, though, but it is the only thing I can think of that makes any sense.

I also don't know. I have not set up a home network, mostly because I would have to figure out how to do it and I don't see, for us, that there would be any point. But if I did have a home network set up, and then I took a job where I would be exchanging views with the Secretary of State on foreign policy, I would promptly disable it.

Often things that look wrong, and for that matter are wrong, turn out to be just bad choices, sometimes really bad choices. That seems to be what Comey decided back in July. It seems likely (to me) that this is the way it will turn out here as well. Or maybe the things on the Weiner computer from Clinton will just be discussions about the best way to cook salmon. That would be too much to hope for.

[barmar]

kenberg, on 2016-October-31, 07:09, said:

"Clinton emails are on the Weiner computer"

What does this mean? It's not eentirely obvious.. My email messages at kenbecky are somewhere. In the cloud maybe, but not on my computer. Of course I can download material and place it in a file on my computer. is that what is being said? Downloaded from where? It matters, at least some. I have been trying to think this through.

Unless you use a web-based mail reader, the computer automatically downloads all the messages from the server to your PC when you read your mail. It might also leave them on the server (this generally depends on the mail access protocol being used -- with IMAP they're kept on the server, with POP they're often deleted).

[kenberg]

barmar, on 2016-October-31, 09:33, said:

Unless you use a web-based mail reader, the computer automatically downloads all the messages from the server to your PC when you read your mail. It might also leave them on the server (this generally depends on the mail access protocol being used -- with IMAP they're kept on the server, with POP they're often deleted).

Thanks. I had thought just about all email was web based these days. Long ago I had something that resided on the computer, but that was long long ago.

So maybe it is directly into his email.

But that's weird. As mentioned above, someone might send me a message at krb 9bad choice, it might be a week before i read it) or they might send it to kenbecky. But a message to me at Becky's email address? Hard to see why they would do that.

[Al_U_Card]

Apparently there are 100s of thousands of e-mails so it might well include cc's as well as bc's of everything that made the rounds of Abedin's sphere of influence....which was seemingly quite large.

[kenberg]

I may just give up on trying to make sense of this for a while.
I was reading
http://abcnews.go.co...ory?id=43190589

Here is part of it

Quote

It's unclear exactly how the emails now being reviewed by the FBI ended up on a personal device used by Abedin and Weiner. During her interview with FBI agents in April, Abedin said she had used three non-government email accounts: the account associated with Clinton's private server, a Yahoo account, and an account tied to Wiener's political campaign.

The emails being reviewed could be from one or more of those accounts.

According to a summary of Abedin's interview released by the FBI, she would use the Yahoo account and the private-server account "if her [government] account was down or if she needed to print an email or document."

Abedin "routinely forwarded emails from her state.gov account to either her clintonemail.com or her yahoo.com account so that she could print them," the summary said. "ABEDIN [sic] stated that she would typically print the documents without reading them."

I am pretty sure Abedin said earlier that she had no idea how these emails ended up on the other computer. The above remarks might be a clue if she is interested in figuring it out. In Post 45 I said " Presumably Abedin did not forward the messages to Weiner." I was not being sarcastic, I really did presume she would not forward them to Weiner. And she didn't, not exactly. She just forwarded them to the computer she shared with Weiner so she could print them. And then she didn't erase them. Arrggh. Maybe I have it wrong. I must have it wrong.





As I say, I think I have to stop thinking about this for a while. I wish us all well on this Halloween. There was this cartoon of a child in a Hillary costume holding a Halloween bag and saying "I got a 2 million dollar donation". A little grim humor may be needed about now.

[shyams]

Quote

According to a summary of Abedin's interview released by the FBI, she would use the Yahoo account and the private-server account "if her [government] account was down or if she needed to print an email or document."

Abedin "routinely forwarded emails from her state.gov account to either her clintonemail.com or her yahoo.com account so that she could print them," the summary said. "ABEDIN [sic] stated that she would typically print the documents without reading them."

Seriously, does anyone who works in sensitive functions really transfer their office emails to public mailboxes like this? I mean, I can understand if something like this occurred in the late 90s or early 00s. How can any organisation not reinforce the risks associated with such transfer of emails?

In one of my previous firms (an investment bank) we were all repeatedly told never to download or transfer sensitive files to personal email IDs. We were told of a real-life example of a M&A deal that was compromised because an analyst decided to zip his 'due diligence' files and attach them to a personal server in order to work offline from home. The client found the weblink using a simple google query on the deal codename! And all hell broke loose.

[mycroft]

mike777, on 2016-October-31, 07:44, said:

Clinton and the democrats continue to show their power to destroy Comey. They continue to attack his honor and integrity. .

Harry Reid accuses Comey of being a criminal, a lack of honor and integrity and in violation of the Hatch Act.

Welcome to clinton being President as she destroys those that cross her.

So. Harry Reid. Oh, and "the chief White House ethics lawyer for George W. Bush" (his words). Damn those Democrats.

[Al_U_Card]

Now, if only Hil had followed Michael Mann's advice to Phil and Eugene Wall to "destroy all e-mails" so as to hide their efforts to subvert the scientific method...

[Winstonm]

It occurred to me that Comey even used his July press conference to smear Clinton. His announcement was no criminal activity found; but he went over the line by adding his opinion that her handling of classified information was "incredibly sloppy, etc". At the time, everyone thought he was going overboard to support Clinton when in looks now like he was using his office as FBI director to make her look untrustworthy to hold high office. More than anything, it seems now this was why Clinton was at first against making an apology - I would bet her first instincts were to fight back against the inflammatory language used by Comey.

There was never any need for Comey to say anything about the investigation; his job was to forward his findings to the Justice Department and let the DOJ make any announcement that needed to be made.

That he said anything at all is a very bad sign for the FBI as well as for We the People. A politicized FBI is a step for our country in the opposite direction from that which we want to go.

[cherdano]

For once, I can't resist "I told you so!"

Winstonm, on 2016-November-01, 07:30, said:

It occurred to me that Comey even used his July press conference to smear Clinton. His announcement was no criminal activity found; but he went over the line by adding his opinion that her handling of classified information was "incredibly sloppy, etc". At the time, everyone thought he was going overboard to support Clinton when in looks now like he was using his office as FBI director to make her look untrustworthy to hold high office. More than anything, it seems now this was why Clinton was at first against making an apology - I would bet her first instincts were to fight back against the inflammatory language used by Comey.

There was never any need for Comey to say anything about the investigation; his job was to forward his findings to the Justice Department and let the DOJ make any announcement that needed to be made.

That he said anything at all is a very bad sign for the FBI as well as for We the People. A politicized FBI is a step for our country in the opposite direction from that which we want to go.

I told you so, here on BBF.

It's not just that he said something at all, it is also what he said beyond discussing whether to bring criminal charges. Read the statement again:
https://www.fbi.gov/...l-e-mail-system

[kenberg]

When things go wrong, it is usually best to look to oneself. It is one's own actions that a person has the most control over.

I will be voting for Clinton. No choice, which is fortunate for her. Comey is a nasty man? Well, I don't think so. But even if it is so, it's a whine. As the news unfolds, I am thinking "Huma Abedin is one of her most trusted advisors? Will she have a big role in a Clinton administration?"

"Back through the years I go wandering once again",or so Dolly Parton sings. In 1952 Adlai Stevenson was running against Dwight Eisenhower. I was 13. It was a very good year.