
Snowden on FBI's Clinton Email Investigation - hownottowrite
https://twitter.com/snowden/status/738014840543797249
======
tn13
The biggest difference between Snowden and Hillary is that Snowden did what he
thought was right, owned up his actions and suffered the consequences. He lost
everything just so Americans could know that their government was spying them.
He lived the American spirit.

Hilary Clinton denied first, lied next and then claimed ignorance. Pretty much
like her husband and the worst part is the Law enforcement accepted her
"ignorance of law" argument.

FBI director's conduct is despicable and reduces average citizen's faith in
law and order. It shows that Hillary is either too powerful or FBI is
compromised.

~~~
daughart
It's really not conceivable to you that, given the way the law is written, her
actions are not clearly illegal, while Snowden's were? The laws in question
are written around intent, and Snowden's intent was clearly different than
Clinton's.

~~~
DominikR
I'm citing section (f) of the law:

"Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any
document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic
negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, note, or
information, relating to the national defense, (1) through gross negligence
permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered
to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or
destroyed, or (2) having knowledge that the same has been illegally removed
from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of its
trust, or lost, or stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, and fails to make prompt
report of such loss, theft, abstraction, or destruction to his superior
officer— Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten
years, or both."

[https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/793](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/793)

Gross negligence is sufficient, intent is not required.

~~~
cookingrobot
From discussion about this outcome: "Extreme carelessness doesn't necessarily
translate into gross negligence," said Laurie Levenson, a professor of law at
Loyola Law School in Los Angeles and former federal prosecutor.
[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-email-
sc...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-email-
scandal_us_577d08f8e4b09b4c43c1a785)

~~~
tn13
Sure, poop is not same as shit as per the same lawyer.

------
DominikR
FBI director Comey said: "Although we did not find clear evidence that Sec.
Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of
classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless."

What I find interesting about that is that the law states that intent to
violate the law is not required, gross negligence is sufficient.

Here the FBI director states himself that Sec. Clinton was extremely careless
yet he doesn't recommend prosecution.

The law (section f):
[https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/793](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/793)

~~~
daughart
Gross negligence and extreme carelessness are not the same. Gross negligence
is a conscious and voluntary disregard of the need to use reasonable care.
Clinton clearly understood the need for reasonable care as she took some
security measures and asked people not to email her confidential materials.
She merely did a poor job executing on the knowledge that care was needed,
which in this case is not actually illegal (especially when grave harms did
not occur, which is an additional legal factor).

The laws are written around consent because the goal of the law is to enable
punishment of people who intend to harm the US government. Note that Comey
said that it's the individual's responsibility to know when material is
confidential, even if that is not marked. Yet even information that is widely
reported on in the media can still be considered confidential. The law is
written to protect those who take "careless" or "negligent" actions in light
of the difficulty of the task of maintaining confidentiality during the kind
of extensive communications required to execute the business of government.

~~~
DominikR
I'm not convinced by this, especially when I see emails from Sec. Clinton like
these:

[https://sli.mg/gHT80S](https://sli.mg/gHT80S)

Someone had issues sending her a secure fax and she replied that he should
send it nonpaper and unsecure and to make it even worse - remove the
identifying header (classified, secret, top secret and so on)

This is intent in my view. Not to harm the US, but to ignore the law because
it's more convenient to her.

~~~
daughart
That's not clear at all -- there's no evidence that information was classified
in the first place, but moreover a request to convert to "nonpaper" refers to
sending a written summary or briefing. Jake Sullivan is no fool, he's a law
professor at Yale. It is equally reasonable to assume that the request to send
nonsecure includes an implicit request to not include confidential materials
in the "nonpaper" version. Rational and intelligent actors could be assumed to
act in a legal way based on this legal request.

------
jrowley
Granted there is a difference between publicly releasing > 1 million secret
documents, but he makes a solid point.

~~~
mjevans
The only difference in actions that I see is intent and exposure of public
information:

Snowden attempted to whistle-blow through reputable non-government actors
(Reporters living in a very public spotlight) for the benefit of the people.
Snowden's actions were driven by the belief of being a true patriot.

Hillary meanwhile willingly bypassed operation security for personal convince,
benefit, and quite probably as a means of evading oversight and data
retention/discovery measures. The lapse in security cannot be estimated as
their practices were so poor that any measurement is not possible; it is very
likely that TIMELY, SENSITIVE, information made it in to the hands of foreign
powers thoughtful enough to have even 'script kiddies' attempt to breach a
very publicly known server.

~~~
_yosefk
Does anyone have a theory of why she did it? I mean, I can imagine using Gmail
instead of corporate email if the latter doesn't really work and you can't do
anything about it - definitely not the case here though. This prompts one to
consider a more substantial motive than "getting a working email server" \-
perhaps hiding something from someone else working for the government - but to
add up, it has to be worth the risk, and it has to be the least risky way of
doing it.

So why did she do it? Or rather, what could plausibly be the reason?

~~~
zzalpha
_So why did she do it? Or rather, what could plausibly be the reason?_

Why would you rule out plain ol' laziness and poor judgement?

Remember, the Clinton family already had the private email server in question,
and Hillary's Blackberry was set up to use it:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Clinton_email_controve...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Clinton_email_controversy)

Odds are good she just didn't want to be inconvenienced and didn't recognize
the ramifications of that decision.

Edit:

The cited article goes into more detail:

[http://lawnewz.com/high-profile/we-now-know-more-about-
why-c...](http://lawnewz.com/high-profile/we-now-know-more-about-why-clinton-
set-up-private-server-and-its-sketchyy/)

 _Here’s the results of our meeting yesterday… as I had been speculating, the
issue here is one of personal comfort … S [Secretary Clinton] does not use a
personal computer so our view of someone wedded to their email (why doesn’t
she use her desktop when in SCIF?) doesn’t fit this scenario … during the
campaign she was urged to keep in contact with thousands via a BB … once she
got the hang of it she was hooked … now everyday [sic], she feels hamstrung
because she has to lock her BB up … she does go out several times a day to an
office they have crafted for her outside the SCIF and plays email catch up …
Cheryl Mills and others who are dedicated BB addicts are frustrated because
they too are not near their desktop very often during the working day_

So there you have it. Basic laziness combined with stupidity and, I think, a
pretty hefty dose of hubris.

~~~
zachrose
The Hanlon Dodge!

> By shifting blame from a locus where it would be attributed to malice, to
> one where it can plausibly be attributed to incompetence, the severity of
> penalties incurred is lowered.

[http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2011/10/14/the-gervais-
principle-v...](http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2011/10/14/the-gervais-principle-v-
heads-i-win-tails-you-lose/)

~~~
zzalpha
Suggestion: start going to murder trials. Every time someone gets sentenced to
manslaughter instead of murder, shout "the Hanlon Dodge!".

I'm sure the judge will appreciate your insight into jurisprudence.

------
hownottowrite
Edit: Title edited to reflect the fact that this is a month old. Still
relevant IMHO, but I didn't notice the date before posting.

------
ams6110
And just like _that_ we go from #1 to off the front page.

~~~
sremani
This pattern of HRC Email articles falling way side on HN, is alarming.

~~~
dangrossman
It's not alarming. HN readers don't like HN being filled with the day's
political drama and the kind of comments that follow it -- enough that the
algorithm holds those stories to a higher bar, and the users tend to flag
them. This is a link to a month old tweet, not something especially thought
provoking.

~~~
nickpsecurity
I think your theory is right. If we wanted drama, that's every corporate media
outlet right there waiting for us. If we want insight, better chance of it
being on places like Hacker News with filtering out the rest. I comment a
little on these threads but mostly ignore them.

Also, thanks for HN replies if I haven't said so. Kept me from missing two
things just today. :) Btw, are you same guy behind Cyclone or different Dan
Grossman?

~~~
dangrossman
Not me :)

~~~
nickpsecurity
Oh well. Good comments and great comment reply feature earns you your own
respect. :)

------
tn13
The government wants to have a secret list of "potential terrorist" and then
wants to deny them right to own guns and ability to fly. Yet, a lady who has
clearly put national security at risk can run for president and commander in
chief of American forces. Tells a lot about how government operates more like
a Mafia. You cant touch Mafia bosses no matter what they do.

~~~
daughart
It's not actually clear to me that she put national security at risk. During
the recent U.S. State Department hack, an unclassified email system was
compromised. Most of the emails Clinton sent (99.6%) were not classified at
the time, and could have been sent on that email system. Even most of those
that were classified were not marked as such, and still could have been sent
on the unclassified system in error (which would not have been illegal either,
assuming there was no intent).

For me, a better argument has to do with minimizing exposure to freedom of
information.

~~~
tn13
> It's not actually clear to me that she put national security at risk

What contained in those emails is irrelevant. The very fact that she
deliberately to serve own personal purposes violated all security protocols.
That itself shows that the lady is unfit to be trusted with national security.

Just the way police would arrest any guy with DUI whether or not he threatened
someone else's safety. In California you would be arrested immediately if you
are carrying your legal firearm in a car and if the case + barrel is not under
a proper lock. Your intent, ignorance or whether you really put someone at
risk would not matter.

------
dublinben
(1 Jun 2016) This isn't news.

~~~
adamnemecek
It's relevant in light of recent developments.

