Hillary Clinton, Classified e-mails, and a National Security Farce

Many people reading this will think my premises and ideas are eccentric. However, I challenge you to put on your thinking caps, use common sense and logic, think beyond what has been put in front of your faces, look to the sides of the issue, and prove me wrong.

After months of media coverage and statements from Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama it appears the most serious aspect of Clinton’s use of a private server has been completely overlooked. Apparently neither Obama, Clinton, Loretta Lynch, John Kerry, nor James Comey is actually concerned with national security and they all have put politics ahead of the well-being of this nation.

The fact is Clinton and anyone else who saw e-mails containing classified information still possesses that information. No one knows if any classified information has been saved by any of these people onto another computer, or if it is written down on a piece of paper somewhere in a desk drawer or file cabinet. What cannot be disputed is that having seen the classified information it is in their memories. In effect, Clinton and all these other people have unexploded grenades in their pockets and do not know they are there. Since they claim they did not know the information was classified, they do not know they should not disseminate such information. Who knows to whom they have already disseminated such information because they claim they did not know it was classified, and to this day they still do not know it was classified.

Let us look at some of the statements that have been made:

No classified material was on Clinton’s server.
The information was not classified at the time.
Agencies argue all the time over whether something is classified.
No information on the server was marked classified.
Clinton’s use of a private server “is not a situation in which America’s national security was endangered”.

I can not claim to be an expert in classified material. It has been many moons since I held Top Secret, NATO Secret, SIOP-ESI, CNWDI, and SCI security clearances. But no one needs to have any experience with clearances to use common sense to either repudiate these statements or show they cannot be used as an excuse for disseminating classified information, whether intentionally, or through ignorance or incompetence.

Sometimes the best way to convince people of something is to provide examples. Let us start with the first statement and the fourth, which go hand-in-hand in my arguments.

This was Clinton’s first claim or “defense”. She apparently operates under the fallacy that if a document is not marked classified, it does not contain classified material. Anyone can take information from a classified document or briefing and create another document containing that information. If they do that, they need to carry the classification to the new document. For a document to contain classified information and not be marked as a classified document, then someone failed to do their job, or if they had done the same in 1942, would be treated as a spy. Either someone deliberately removed the classifications from documents, or the documents were improperly classified in the first place. A person in such a high office as Clinton should have been able to recognize at least some of the classified information as classified and rectified the situation. Should she really be President if she is absolutely clueless as to what is important and what is not? What about the rest of the people who saw this information, many of whom also had security clearances? If you find a document you believe may be classified, you can write “Secret” on it, treat it as “Secret“, and let the proper people make the determination. It is much better to unnecessarily protect unclassified information than not protect classified information.

When I had my security clearances I had access to targets in and flight plans of B-52s over the Soviet Union. (I can neither confirm nor deny the presence of nuclear weapons on the Alert aircraft) I knew the targets were classified. If I was walking down the hallway and found a piece of paper on the floor with a heading of “Targets in Russia” and a list of coordinates, I would know that information was classified and bring it to the attention of my superiors. Do you think if a week later someone found that piece of paper in my possession I could claim “I did not know it was classified information because it did not have a classification written on it.”? At the least I would lose my security clearances for sheer stupidity. Does a spy write “Secret” on information he has gathered? Can he claim he is not a spy because the piece of paper containing the stolen, classified information he possesses does not say “Secret”? If I had put my nation at risk I would be physically ill. Hillary ‘the Hyena’ Clinton laughs.

Let us now tackle the contention the information was not classified at the time. The media helps Clinton with this when they talk about e-mails the state department has read and determined contained classified information. The media likes to call these e-mails “now classified”. The correct terms they should use are “improperly marked” or “improperly classified”, or something similar. I cannot imagine how anyone can believe that unclassified information disseminated in the past can now be classified. What do we do? Do we put an ad on television and ask that anyone who has this information not release it to anyone without the proper security clearance? Do we call Putin and ask him to ignore the information he received last year about our secret deal with Norway to use their submarine pens? “You see Vladimir, the State Department did not think it was actually a secret back then, but now they want the deal to be a secret. Pretend you don’t know.” Will anyone ask Clinton how to put the toothpaste back in the tube?

Now we go to the one I hope is not true. Clinton claims agencies argue all the time whether something is classified, the gist being that the classified information in her e-mails is not considered classified by her, or the State Department of which she was in charge. I sincerely hope that when one agency determines information to be classified everyone respects their decision until they can convince that agency it does not need to be classified.

Quite a while back, some F-111 aircraft tried to exterminate Qadaffi in Libya. They missed. Not long thereafter, the Joint Chiefs of Staff tasked my squadron to carry out what I will call a “proof of concept” mission. The goal was to see if a cell of B-52s could fly from the continental U.S. to Libya and conduct a low-level bombing mission, with each aircraft being able to carry 51 bombs. The mission did not carry bombs and did not actually overfly Libya’ the flight plan came fairly close. The crews were issued survival vests and sidearms. The mission was classified Top Secret-Specat. I do not know how many people actually knew about the mission at the time. In my squadron, only the five crews assigned to the mission and the planners in the “Vault” and their superiors knew about the mission. For argument’s sake, let us assume, since we were flying near hostile territory, the Secretary of State was informed of the mission so he could be prepared if something went wrong and we needed help from an ally in the region. If you accept Clinton’s argument, since we were not actually overflying Libya nor carrying weapons, she could determine DoD should not have classified the mission and informed our allies we were coming. Ever hear the phrase “Loose Lips May Sink Ships”? I do not understand why she believed as Secretary of State she had the right to ignore other agencies’ security classifications.

Lastly we have Obama’s comment that the server did not endanger national security. Only “You can keep you doctor” is a bigger lie. With so many former lawyers covering the stories can no one else see the lie? Look at the laws covering “reckless endangerment”. You do not need to actually harm people to endanger them. Obama does not know what classified information was disseminated over her server because the State Department has not gone through all of the e-mails on the server. He does not know who has seen classified information nor what they have done with it. We may be lucky and nothing has made its way to our enemies. Regardless, Clinton’s own self-importance did actually endanger our national security and it is still endangered. As I stated earlier, even if there are no documents per se floating around with improperly marked classified information, the knowledge is still retained in a person’s memory, and it is being retained in memory as unclassified information. But, Obama uses “Demologic”: We could not find a breach of Clinton’s server, therefore none occurred; We did not find anyone without a proper security clearance in possession of classified material from Clinton’s server (because we did not actually look), therefore there is no breach of security; We did not find Amelia Earhart, therefore she did not exist.

Having covered the aforementioned points, I have some other thoughts.

This next point has is based on some guesswork because I do not know all the details. From what I gather from the news the State Department is sifting through Clinton’s e-mails and determining what may be classified. Does anyone else find it ironic that the State Department which did not know what was classified information under Clinton and apparently believes has the right to ignore other agencies’ security classifications is the agency determining what is possibly classified? I would hope all the other agencies that generate classified documents get to examine all the e-mails before any are released to the public.

Now a bonus to show how the most seemingly innocuous information that does not even carry a low-level Confidential classification can “endanger” our national security. In my former military capacity I was occasionally briefed on information which carried a “NOFORN-WNINTEL” marking. The information contained could not actually harm our country but it was useful to our aircrews. The NOFORN part means “No Foreign Nationals” (or something close). The point of the NOFORN was to prevent our enemies from knowing that we knew something about them and would allow them to deduce, basically, that they had a spy in their midst. An example of information we received was of a relocation of surface-to-air missiles. However, something so trivial as a report that Putin was enthralled by an article in Playgirl magazine about yams could lead to someone’s death. Would the State Department consider that classified information? If word got back to Putin that we had that information and he had only told three people, there would probably be three executions.

If the current administration actually cared more about national security than politics, this should have been the scenario:

As soon as the first e-mail to contain classified information was discovered, Clinton and anyone else who had received a document that had passed through her server should have been taken into custody. Their homes and offices should have been searched and every document should have been removed, except for obvious personal documents such as bills or receipts. Even a diary could contain classified material, because supposedly no one can recognize classified information if it is not marked. Everyone should have been held in custody with no outside contact until all documents from her server were inspected. They would all have to be briefed on what is classified information so they would know what information not to disseminate. They would then have to be interrogated to find out if they had disseminated that information to anyone else. All their previously collected documents would then need to be scrutinized to see if any of the classified material had been retained. Once they knew what information was classified and knew not to disseminate it they could then be released. If any of the people I mentioned at the beginning of this article actually cared about national security, that is what would have happened.

Some people are concerned about people who performed back-ups on Clinton’s server not having security clearances. These people are probably the least of our worries. As far as I know when you back-up a file you do not actually open it and view its contents. I am sure there is some sort of confidentiality clause between the client and the business and I trust the technicians to keep a secret more than Clinton or any of he people because they do not know what is secret.

Does Clinton belong in jail? What about all the others who did not secure classified information? That is a legal question. Ignorance is their excuse for their negligence. There was probably no intent. But, intent has nothing to do with negligence; negligence which has endangered our national security. If Clinton is charged, will admit she was too stupid and self-absorbed to do her job competently?

It has become common practice for people today to refuse to use their brains. Common sense and logic are the oddity. If they like someone, they will let them spout udder nonsense (because they have to be as dumb as cows to believe what they are told) which defies reason; they will not ask for proof; they will not believe facts which do not support what they want to believe.

No one knows what damage has been done. No one knows what danger still exists. The worst part is no one cares. No one serving under Obama has the patriotic fortitude to do what is in the best interest of the nation, only what is in the best interest of Democrats. Obama is playing politics with our national security. No matter what Clinton or Obama do, the Democrats will look the other way. If Satan were a Democrat, Democrats would support him too.

B52Bob
b52bob.wordpress.com