NSA Cybersecurity and Obama/Hillary Email Security

We would like to stop thinking about the horrors in Hillary Clinton's past "service" to America, but new "soundbites' just keep coming. So, here are today's Facts for the War to Save America. ~~~~~~ In an October 3 policy speech, Donald Trump said : " Hillary Clinton’s only experience in cybersecurity involves her criminal scheme to violate federal law, engineering a massive cover-up, and putting the entire nation in harm’s way. The fact that a former Senator and Secretary of State claimed not to know what the letter “C” means is just one more example of why she’s unfit to hold public office." In his speech, Trump set out his cybersecurity plan, calling the problem a major priority for both the government and the private sector, because cyber theft is the fastest growing crime in the United States : "Cyber-attacks from foreign governments, especially China, Russia, and North Korea along with non-state terrorist actors and organized criminal groups, constitute one of our most critical national security concerns." Trump said cybersecurity is just one more area where the Obama Administration has failed. He promised Joint Task Forces to work with federal, state, and local law enforcement authorities and international law enforcement to crush this developing area of crime; a Defense Department strengthening and augmenting of the US Cyber Command; an unquestioned capacity to launch crippling cyber counter-attacks; and, the development of offensive cyber technologies -- all coordinated by a Cyber Review Team of the best military, civilian and private sector cybersecurity experts to comprehensively review cybersecurity systems and technology, with regular follow-up. Trump ended by saying : "Today is just the beginning of a long and overdue national discussion of how to protect ourselves from modern cyber-crime and evolving national security threats, and how to develop the cyber offense strategies necessary to gain a critical security edge in the 21st century." ~~~~~~ It's too bad America didn't have Trump's cybersecurity plan in place during the last 8 Obama years. On Wednesday, the FBI arrested and charged a National Security Agency (NSA) contractor, accusing him of stealing and disclosing classified computer codes developed by NSA to hack foreign governments. Assistant Attorney General John Carlin on Wednesday confirmed the August 27 arrest of Harold Thomas Martin III, 51, of Glen Burnie, Maryland. DOJ officials say he stole "six classified documents obtained from sensitive intelligence and produced by a government agency in 2014. These documents were produced through sensitive government sources, methods and capabilities, which are critical to a wide variety of national security issues. The disclosure of the documents would reveal those sensitive sources, methods and capabilities." A five-page complaint accusing Martin of theft of government property and unauthorized removal and retention of classified materials provides few details about the documents' contents. Citing several senior law enforcement and intelligence officials, the New York Times reports that, like former NSA contractor-turned-leaker Edward Snowden, Martin worked for Booz Allen Hamilton, which develops and operates many of the agency's clandestine cyber tools. The arrest comes less than two months after hackers attempted to auction off what they claim is the NSA source code to a vaunted, likely state-sponsored hacking group. The hacking group, known as the Shadow Brokers, has yet to conclude the bidding. Those files, however, were last updated in October 2013 -- before the "production" of the six classified documents in the Martin arrest. Actually, several storage areas filled with classified documents were reportedly found at Martin's home, where computers were also confiscated. This is the second huge classified materials theft at the NSA under Obama security guru James Clapper. WHAT IS GOING ON??? ~~~~~~ The other question is "would Hillary be any better than Obama at safeguarding US classified materials?" After you stop laughing, consider these new Hillary email facts. ~~~~~~ Fox News reports a story broken by the Wall street Journal that reveals "peculiar new details" regarding the immunity deals given to Cheryl Mills, Hillary Clinton's former chief of staff, and Heather Samuelson, an ex-campaign staffer. According to Fox News sources, side-deals were cut in addition to Mills' and Samuelson's overall immunity deals. One side-deal dictated that the FBI only be allowed to review documents on Mills' and Samuelson's laptops generated prior to January 31, 2015 -- over a month before Clinton's private email server became public knowledge. Even stranger, in a second side-deal, the FBI was ordered to destroy the laptops after its search was complete. YES. You read that right -- not only are Hillary & Hacks in the evidence destroying business, the FBI and the DOJ have joined them in destroying evidence in order to protect Hillary. Congressman Bob Goodlatte, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch in which he asked two key questions : "Doesn’t the willingness of Ms. Mills and Ms. Samuelson to have their laptops destroyed by the FBI contradict their claim that the laptops could have been withheld because they contained non-relevant, privileged information? If so, doesn’t that undermine the claim that the side agreements were necessary?" Fox says : "The answer to those questions are yes, and yes. An innocent party does not withhold access; an innocent party does not agree to provide access only if they receive an immunity deal; an innocent party does not restrict what can and cannot be looked at within the scope of that access; and an innocent party does not demand the obliteration of innocuous information. Each behavior on its own is enough to arouse suspicion -- let alone all of them combined." Why did Mills and Samuelson demand that anything after January 31st be off limits and that the laptops be destroyed? There are several possible answers : (1). documents from after January 31, 2015, may have contained evidence of obstruction of justice with regard to Clinton's private server. (2). they didn't want the information on their hard drives to be accessible in the event of a future investigation. Of course, the overarching answer is that the laptops contained information directly damaging to Clinton herself. Goodlatte qsked in his letter to AG Lynch : "Why was this time limit necessary when Ms. Mills and Ms. Samuelson were granted immunity for any potential destruction of evidence charges?" Since Mills and Samuelson were under immunity -- regardless of what was uncovered on their laptops -- the only conceivable reason to demand limited access, and even go a step further by ordering the destruction of information is that Mills and Samuelson were protecting someone -- Hillary Clinton. This is, obviously, all speculation until more evidence is uncovered -- but as evidence of FBI and DOJ complicity in the Hillary email server coverup mounts, it is becoming increasingly obvious that any vital evidence may already be destroyed in the Obama/Clinton effort to erase all tracks leading to their guilt. As a commenter to the Fox story wrote : "The fact is that Hillary, Obama and all their cronies knew/know that this will never receive the kind of widespread scrutiny that it should be treated with. It is proof that if Hillary is elected we are in for corruption the scale of which has never been imagined outside of third world and communist countries." ~~~~~~ And, if you are still naive enough to believe that mainsteam media is playing straight and fair with the American public concerning Hillary, consider this. Fox News has reported that Beth Wilkinson, the wife of CNN’s David Gregory -- formerly the host of MSNBC’s Meet The Press -- represents several Hillary Clinton aides in the criminal investigation and other investigations related to the email scandal. Fox said : "Despite his wife’s status as a lawyer for Hillary Clinton’s loyalists, CNN is clearly comfortable with Gregory’s ability to provide political analysis pertaining to the former first lady in line with its journalistic standards. The left-wing and Democrat-aligned network bills itself as 'The Most Trusted Name In News.'" And, who does Gregory's wife represent? None other than Cheryl Mills, as well as Philippe Reines (former senior Clinton advisor at the State Department), Jake Sullivan (former Clinton staffer at State and currently a foreign policy advisor for Clinton’s presidential campaign), and Heather Samuelson (an operative from Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign and current informal Clinton advisor). Gregory disclosed this when asked to comment on the State Department’s Inspector General report on email record preservation and cybersecurity. According to Gregory, the primary “political point” surrounding the revelations in the State Department OIG report is Clinton’s “slowness” in responding to inquiries about her emails. Gregory conveniently failed to mention the falsehoods Clinton repeatedly told in relation to her probably illegal use of a private email server in her capacity as Secretary of State. Nor did Gregory mention the compromises to national security that resulted from her poorly-secured private email server through which Clinton sent and received highly sensitive information. Not only was the private email server vulnerable to electronic threats of hacking, but it was managed and accessible by people not given clearance to such information because of its location in the Clinton home in Chappaqua. And, Gregory did not mention Clinton’s signing of a nondisclosure agreement in which she committed to diligent handling and preservation of governmental communications, or the discovery of “several dozen” emails containing the most sensitive and highly classified information - special access programs (SAP) - on Clinton’s private email server. Gregory gave no analysis of Clinton’s motives for escaping governmental capture and record-keeping of her emails, nor did he offer any connection between her possible motives and allegations of her and Bill's pay-for-play peddling of political influence and laundering of questionable donations through the 'charitable' Clinton Foundation. ~~~~~~ But, on Wednesday the State Department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) filled the holes in David Gregory' reporting. The release of the internal bipartisan watchdog OIG report, "Evaluating Email Records Management and State Departmental Cybersecurity, corroborates most of the damaging, and probably criminal, actions of Hillary Clinton and her staff in using an unsecured personal email server and email account to carry out governmental correspondences during her tenure as Secretary of State. The OIG report states that -- despite the vulnerabilities of mobile devices -- they were Clinton’s most commonly used means of access to her work emails as Secretary of State, finding that Secretary Clinton employed a personal email system to conduct business throughout her term as Secretary, relying on an account maintained on a private server located at her Chappaqua home, predominantly through mobile devices. The OIG found no evidence that Secretary Clinton ever contacted any relevant arm of government to request authorization for her server and account or to seek an authorized solution, despite the fact that emails exchanged on her personal account regularly contained information marked as sensitive but classified. The OIG further found that that Clinton “never demonstrated to them that her private server or mobile device met minimum information security requirements specified by the [Federal Information Security Management Act] or [Foreign Affairs Manual].” Clinton’s website, however, said everything was secure : “Suffice it to say, robust protections were put in place and additional upgrades and techniques employed over time as they became available, including consulting and employing third party experts.” ~~~~~~ So, dear readers, the coverup and protection from prosecution of Hillary Clinton goes on. Why?? Because, as we discussed earlier this week, and as Andrew C. McCarthy, policy fellow at the National Review Institute wrote, FBI records released last Friday show that President Obama used a pseudonym to conduct communications with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton -- and he did it using her non-secure e-mail system. Obama knowingly engaged in the same misconduct that was the focus of the Clinton probe : the reckless mishandling of classified information. And, if Obama recklessly set up a pseudonym to conceal his emails with Hillary, did he do the same thing on a wider scale? President Obama’s emails guarantee that Hillary has a get-out-of-jail card. But, General David Petraeus didn't have one when the Obama Justice Department prosecuted him for mishandling classified information, although government attorneys emphasized that Petraeus had had “discussions with the President of the United States of America.” Petraeus pleaded guilty because he knew the case against him was a slam-dunk. He understood that trying to defend himself, Clinton-style, by arguing that “the notes were not marked classified” was useless. When a national security official engages in and makes a written record of policy and strategy conversations with the President, the lack of classified markings on the documents does not alter the fact that the information they contain is classified. That is a fact well known to any senior government official who routinely handles national defense secrets, or who directly advises the President. As is the case with Clinton’s e-mails, much of the information in Petraeus’s journals was “born classified” under the terms of President Obama’s own executive order -- EO 13526. Since at least some of Obama’s pseudonym exchanges with Clinton had to have been classified, her emails were "born classified." So, the prosecution of Hillary Clinton never had a chance of happening -- to protect President Obama. It also explains why, in his public statements, Obama insisted that Clinton’s e-mailing of classified information did not harm national security. It is why Obama, in vivid contrast to his EO 13526, made public statements belittling the fact that federal law forbids the mishandling of any intelligence secret. (“There’s classified, and then there’s classified,” he said.) This is why the DOJ and the FBI 'rewrote' the relevant criminal statute to avoid applying it to Clinton, and why Obama and FBI Director Comey stressed the lack of proof that she intended to harm the United States. But, as every lawyer knows, the pertinent criminal statute does not require proof of intent to harm the United States. It merely requires proof of gross negligence. But, the Justice Department laughably suggested that applying the law exactly the way it is written -- something the Justice Department routinely tells judges they must do -- would, in Clinton’s case, potentially raise constitutional problems involving President Obama's culpability. Obama/Hillarygate -- it is Watergate writ large because it deliberately placed US security, diplomats and military at risk. Are you still thinking about voting for Hillary Clinton???