The headlines describing this as 'Beyond TOP SECRET' are not quite right -- Special Access Programs are technically "TOP SECRET" programs, but there are then further restrictions on access. That's actually not unusual for military programs: we already knew she had TS/SCI data in her emails, and SCI represents a TOP SECRET level of information that is further compartmentalized. In fact, the disagreements about whether SCIs are SAPs is sufficient that I'm not clear on whether this is even new information: the IG report may simply be acknowledging the two TS/SCI emails we already knew about, although FOX News says that is not the case.
In any case, it's big money. If it's additional to the two emails we already knew about, it's huge. If it's a confirmation that the IG considers those two emails to be TS/SAP, it's still really big because it confirms she violated security with incredible recklessness. Violated it for, let us remember, mere personal convenience and to shield herself from being subject to the ordinary public scrutiny that American officials lawfully owe to American citizens.
6 comments:
I have no doubt you are right in principle, and a lot of folks will care deeply. But I still haven't gotten over the Clintons getting a pass for having the FBI deliver the files of their political enemies in 1994. Very lame excuse, but it was all "Nothing to see here, move along."
I think Catherine Herridge knows her stuff well enough: if she thinks these are in addition to the two TS/TK emails already identified, I'm satisfied at this point that they are. She could be wrong, but her judgment has been sound in the past.
This is what Wikipedia has to say about the relationship among TS, SCI, and SAP. It's all I'm willing to say, too.
Eric Hines
My sense is that there's a military/civilian split on whether SCI and SAP are connected or completely separate categories. This is a civilian IG writing, which suggests they are different; but possibly they are reading SI/TK as a kind of SAP, especially if the military originated the information.
In any case, it's convoluted enough that I can't say for sure that they're different, new reports. I can say that the Clinton dismissal of these things as 'retroactively' classified as SAPs strikes me as complete nonsense. The only reasons I know of to create a SAP wouldn't be applied retroactively: they're things like "this system of collection is unknown, so we need to be careful who learns about it," or "this source is really exposed, so we have to be careful who learns he's talking to us." There's no reason I know of why you'd talk in the clear about these cases for months and then later decide it was super-sensitive.
Her defense currently is centered around the excuse that without classification markings, the data is unclassified. And the problem is, most people who have never worked with classified data might actually fall for that feces. But it is a lie. If anything, it is admission of a further crime, failure to properly classify data. The data is classified not by the words on the top or bottom of the page, but by the data contained upon it. And we've seen emails where she instructs others to strip classifications off of pages and send them over the unclass system. That is a crime. This woman belongs in a federal penitentiary.
Combine that with the fact that notorious Islamist Huma Abedin READ all that info...
without classification markings, the data is unclassified. And the problem is, most people who have never worked with classified data might actually fall for that feces.
The law, though, is quite clear on the matter, and it's very simply written--especially for a law. A first-year law student could make the thing clear to a jury.
She should have been arrested and charged as soon as the first two TK emails were exposed.
Eric Hines
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