The Leak Hypocrisy of the Hillary Shadow Cabinet
http://www.emptywheel.net/2016/01/30/the-leak-hypocricy-of-a-hillary-cabinet/In what has become a serial event, the State Department and Intelligence Community people handling Jason Leopolds FOIA of Hillary Clinton emails have declared yet more emails to be Top Secret.
22 Hillary Clinton emails declared 'top secret' by State Dept.
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/22-hillary-clinton-emails-declared-top-secret-218420The furor over Hillary Clintons use of a private email account grew more serious for the Democratic presidential front-runner Friday as the State Department designated 22 of the messages from her account top secret.
It was the first time State has formally deemed any of Clintons emails classified at that level, reserved for information that can cause exceptionally grave damage to national security if disclosed.
State did not provide details on the subject of the messages, which represent seven email chains and a total of 37 pages. However, State spokesman John Kirby said they are part of a set the intelligence community inspector general told Congress contained information classified for discussing Special Access Programs.
Now, as I have said before, one thing that is going on here is that CIA is acting just like CIA always does when it declares publicly known things, including torture and drones, to be highly secret. It appears likely that these Top Secret emails are yet another set of emails about the worst kept secret in the history of covert programs, CIAs drone killing in Pakistan. And so I am sympathetic, in principle, to Hillarys campaign claims that this is much ado about nothing.
What Agency Is Claiming Hillary Received SAP Emails?
http://www.emptywheel.net/2016/01/20/what-agency-is-claiming-hillary-received-sap-emails/But they might do well to find some other spokesperson to claim that this is just overclassification run amok.
This is overclassification run amok. We adamantly oppose the complete blocking of the release of these emails, campaign spokesman Brian Fallon said on Twitter. Appearing on MSNBC after the news broke, Fallon vowed to fight the decision.
You have the intelligence community, including an Intelligence Community Inspector General, as well as the inspector general at the State Department, that have been insisting on certain ways of deciding what is classified and whats not, he said.
We know that there has been disagreement on these points, and it has spilled out into public view at various points over the last several months. It now appears that some of the loudest voices in this interagency review that had some of the strongest straightjacket-type opinions on what should count as classified, have prevailed.
Thats unfortunate. We strongly disagree with the finding that has been reached today, and we are going to be contesting it and seeking to have these emails released.
Alternately Hillary can declare that if she is elected, shell pardon both Jeffrey Sterling and Chelsea Manning.
Sterlings prosecution for, in part, having 3 documents about dialing a rotary phone in his home that were retroactively classified Secret, happened while Brian Fallon presided over DOJs Office of Public Affairs;
Fallon sat by as James Risen got questioned about his refusal to testify.
Sterlings retention of documents that werent marked Secret is surely the same kind of overclassification run amok, and by the same agency at fault here, that Fallon is now complaining about. So shouldnt Fallon and Clinton be discussing a pardon for Sterling?
Then theres Manning. As Glenn Greenwald noted, in that case Clinton had a different attitude about the sensitivity of documents classified Secret or less.
Hillary Clinton on the Sanctity of Protecting Classified Information
http://theintercept.com/2015/08/12/hillary-clinton-sanctity-protecting-classified-information/Manning was convicted and sentenced to 35 years in prison. At the time, the only thing Hillary Clinton had to say about that was to issue a sermon about how classified information deserves to be protected and we will continue to take necessary steps to do so because it affect[s] the security of individuals and relationships.
So if the nations secrets arent really as secret as DOJ and State and DOD have claimed, shouldnt these two, along with people like Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, be pardoned?
Ex-State Department adviser Stephen J. Kim sentenced to 13 months in leak case
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/ex-state-dept-adviser-stephen-j-kim-sentenced-to-13-months-in-leak-case/2014/04/02/f877be54-b9dd-11e3-96ae-f2c36d2b1245_story.htmlAmid Fallon and Clintons prior support for this level of classification, theres something else odd about the response to this scandal (which I have said is largely misplaced from the stupid decision to run her own server to the issue of classified information).
First, the response from many supporters and its a point Ive made too is that this doesnt reflect on Hillary because she mostly just received these emails, she didnt send them. Thats true. And it largely limits any legal liability Hillary herself would have.
But this particular response comes against the backdrop of Hillary attacking Bernie for not giving a foreign policy speech before Iowa (a critique Im somewhat sympathetic with, although debates have been focused on it), and against this approving story in the Neocon press on Hillary forming a shadow cabinet.
Team Hillary is in the process of setting up formal advisory teams and working groups divided into regional and thematic subjects, similar to the structure of the National Security Council, several participants in the project told me.
Clinton Quietly Building Her Own National Security Council
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2016-01-28/clinton-quietly-building-her-own-national-security-councilUnlike in 2008, when Clinton and Barack Obama competed for advisers, this time around all the Democratic foreign-policy types are flocking to her team because Clinton is the only game in town.
The groups report up to the campaigns senior foreign policy adviser, Jake Sullivan, who was Clintons deputy chief of staff and director of policy planning when she was secretary of state.
Hillary Clinton, inner circle responsible for most classified emails
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/sep/3/hillary-clinton-classified-emails-mostly-sent-by-j/?page=allAs it notes, this shadow cabinet reports to Jake Sullivan. Sullivan is, according to one report, the staffer who sent the most emails that have since been declared classified.
Nearly a third of the classified messages released so far from former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clintons emails came from one man: Jake Sullivan, who served as her deputy chief of staff in the department, and is now the top foreign policy adviser to her presidential campaign.
If Hillarys supporters argue that she cant be held responsible because she didnt send these, does that mean they would hold Sullivan, Hillarys presumptive National Security Advisor, responsible instead?
Then theres this detail about outside advisors to this shadow cabinet: it includes Leon Panetta, who not only leaked highly classified information in his memoir, but also would have been busted for exposing the Navy SEALs who offed Osama bin Laden if the game werent so rigged to excuse senior leakers.
In addition to the working groups, Sullivan relies on a somewhat separate group of senior former officials who have more frequent interaction with the campaign leadership and Clinton herself.
Many of these advisers arent publicly affiliated with the campaign because they have leadership roles with organizations that have not endorsed any candidate for president.
But sources close to the campaign told me that Clinton, Sullivan and campaign chairman John Podesta are in regular contact with former National Security Advisor Tom Donilon, former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
Is the effort to keep the identities of the men who killed OBL secret also, overclassification run amok? Or does Panettas role in Hillarys foreign policy team suggest her crowd really is that hypocritical about who can leak classified information?
Id really love it if Hillary came out strongly against the paranoid secrecy that stifles our foreign policy (and just yesterday led to Ashkan Soltani losing a position as a technical advisor for the White House, presumably because of his role in reporting the Snowden documents).
White House denies clearance to tech researcher with links to Snowden
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jan/29/white-house-tech-researcher-denied-security-clearance-edward-snowden-nsaBut thus far thats not what shes doing: her campaign is making a limited critique of this paranoid secrecy, only applicable when it impacts those close to her.