Media Fallacies About Hillary's Private Email Server

We talked about Powell's' emails a bit in the last piece. His emails were never relevant until the media decided they were.

http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2016/09/all-of-sudden-media-is-talking-about.html

One of the Clinton Rules is you're not allowed to provide any context to anything the Clintons do. If you attempt to do this you're told you're cynical in hiding behind a 'Everybody does it' defense.

"press categorically refused to put Clinton email use in context w/ previous SoS's; refuses to acknowledge facts that dent 'scandal'

https://twitter.com/EricBoehlert/status/772050847941349376

That's another Clinton Rule: Everybody may do it, but it's only a problem if the Clintons do it.

"For 18 months any discussion of HRC"s predecessor at the State Department, Colin Powell, has been off limits in the MSM."

But now with the new FBI files out, the media is talking about Powell. Hillary, the piously intone, should have done what Powell said. What they leave out is that Powell 'misremembered' when their discussion happened, yet the media for weeks just assumed that if they're timelines differed it must be because Hilary is lying.

"Did you notice how Media has decided to ignore Colin Powell's falsehoods on his discussions with Hillary on use of private email?"

https://twitter.com/armandodkos/status/772045081469648896

"press has been adamant for 18 mos not to involve Powell in email story, now he gets a pass on the facts."

https://twitter.com/EricBoehlert/status/772049946803474432

Ok. So there are a lot of things about Hillary's server you hear repeated, that goes uncorrected. Is the press about informing the public? Not when the subject is Hillary. Then the topic is to outrage the public no matter what the truth.

While some in the press were rightly disgusted by 'Lock her up!' chants at Trump's convention-and some Bernie or Busters also did the same chants outside in Philadelphia-they never ask themselves whether their overwrought coverage of any Clinton scandal no matter how tenuous creates this atmosphere?

While it's repulsively when Trump supporters-including some high ranking Trump campaign operatives-talk about killing her, you have to wonder: doesn't the press coverage of her suggest she's such an evil person that maybe she should be killed or at least spend some major time in prison?

As you aren't allowed to provide context as that means being cynical and saying 'If eveyrone does it that's ok', you never hear it admitted that Hillary's use of a private email server was not anything unprecedented.

"THE SHOCKING TRUTH: COLIN POWELL’S EMAILS DON’T MATTER"

http://www.newsweek.com/2016/02/19/colin-powell-emails-hillary-clinton-424187.html

Of course not. He's neither a Clinton nor a a Democrat, nor a woman. Republicans aren't held accountable for every i dot or t cross.

"Colin Powell, Condi Rice senior staff, entire Bush White House, & Clinton: all used non-gov servers & personal email for official business."

https://twitter.com/kurteichenwald/status/772121571485884418

"Then there is the issue of servers. Where did Powell and Rice’s staff have their servers? Who knows, and who cares? Maybe they were private with special security and no public access. Or maybe they were just an AOL server. Whichever it was, they would be just as open to hacking as the State Department servers. In fact, the State Department general email system has been hacked multiple times, with terabytes of information improperly downloaded in 2006 alone. There has been no indication that the email accounts of either Powell or Rice’s staff were compromised."

http://www.newsweek.com/2016/02/19/colin-powell-emails-hillary-clinton-424187.html

Speaking of the State Department, it's problems are exactly why IT people urged Hillary to use a private server. You can argue that using a private server was against the rules, though the rules were not in place at the time.

You certainly can't argue they are less secure:

"Overlooked in the controversy over Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server, is the fact that suspected Russian hackers have bedeviled State Department's email system for much of the past year and continue to pose problems for technicians trying to eradicate the intrusion."

"Federal law enforcement, intelligence and congressional officials briefed on the investigation say the hack of the State email system is the "worst ever" cyberattack intrusion against a federal agency. The attackers who breached State are also believed to be behind hacks on the White House's email system, and against several other federal agencies, the officials say."

The issue is relevant because one criticism of the Clinton private email use is that it was likely less secure than emailing within the State Department's system. But the hack shows that State's system has major security issues. The State system, investigators believe, was compromised in the past year, likely after Clinton left the State Department.
Last November, the State Department shut down its email system over a weekend to try to improve security and block the intruders.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/10/politics/state-department-hack-worst-ever/

Meanwhile we get this from yesterday's FBI files:

"Clinton on one occasion said she was "worried" about opening phishing email. FBI found a connection to Russia."

https://twitter.com/Sam_Frizell/status/771767564439519232

That's exactly what you want. She detected the problem and the FBI found it-predictably from Trump's buddies in Russia.

"Bryan Pagliano, the steward of the email server, knew that attackers were trying to hack into Clinton's email."

https://twitter.com/Sam_Frizell/status/771765613161218048

That's better than Colin Powell whose AOL account got hacked by Guccifer.

So her email setup was effective at least in stopping hackers.