No evidence has ever emerged that Hillary Clinton’s private email server was breached by hackers but the Intelligence Community still thought it possible that a breach had occurred. Either way, it was considered an unacceptable risk. In a draft version of his eventual statement on Clinton’s behavior, then FBI Director James Comey called her “grossly negligent.” His actual statement softened that to “extremely careless.”
Donald Trump and the Republicans made as much political use of those findings as they could, and I’d argue that it was one of their more effective lines of attack. As for as actual substance, the argument was that Clinton couldn’t be trusted to properly safeguard classified information and therefore her presidency would present an unacceptable risk to national security. Of course, there was the additional charge that she had improperly deleted emails that belonged to the government and the people, but it was really her decision to have a private email server in the first place that raised legitimate questions about her judgment.
Democrats are still angry at Comey for interjecting his commentary into a decision not to charge Clinton with a crime that was made by the Department of Justice rather than the FBI. And, of course, Comey famously announced a reopening of the case in the last days of the election, which corresponded with a (perhaps fatal) drop of support for Clinton in the polls. But there always was a legitimate concern underlying all the posturing and politics. Even Clinton agreed that she had made an error in judgment with her private email server.
If it was fair to criticize Clinton, it is certainly fair to hold President Trump to the same standard when it comes to protecting national security secrets, and that’s why people are upset about the way he uses his phones.
Trump’s call-capable cellphone has a camera and microphone, unlike the White House-issued cellphones used by Obama. Keeping those components creates a risk that hackers could use them to access the phone and monitor the president’s movements.
The president should not be carrying around a phone with either a camera or a microphone because both can be remotely activated without detection by hackers. This is probably the worst security risk he’s creating with his phones, but it’s made worse by his reluctance to follow basic protocols.
President Donald Trump uses a White House cellphone that isn’t equipped with sophisticated security features designed to shield his communications, according to two senior administration officials — a departure from the practice of his predecessors that potentially exposes him to hacking or surveillance…
…While aides have urged the president to swap out the Twitter phone on a monthly basis, Trump has resisted their entreaties, telling them it was “too inconvenient,” the same administration official said.
The president has gone as long as five months without having the phone checked by security experts. It is unclear how often Trump’s call-capable phones, which are essentially used as burner phones, are swapped out.
Hillary Clinton copped to the fact that she let a desire for convenience cloud her judgment. She took responsibility for this and apologized. Trump should follow her example but we all know that he won’t.
Trump’s reluctance to submit to White House security protocols that would limit his ability to tweet or contact friends freely is a case of the president’s personal peculiarities colliding with the demands of his office — a tension created in part because of society’s growing attachment to mobile technology over the past decade.
Unlike Clinton’s email server that was theoretically a well-guarded secret, everyone knows that Trump has a phone. If it isn’t secure, it has been hacked.
Former national security officials are virtually unanimous in their agreement about the dangers posed by cellphones, which are vulnerable to hacking by domestic and foreign actors who would want to listen in on the president’s conversations or monitor his movements.
“Foreign adversaries seeking intelligence about the U.S. are relentless in their pursuit of vulnerabilities in our government’s communications networks, and there is no more sought-after intelligence target than the president of the United States,” said Nate Jones, former director of counterterrorism on the National Security Council in the Obama administration and the founder of Culper Partners, a consulting firm.
I know that the hypocrisy here is staggering, but the truth is that Democrats always downplayed the problems Hillary Clinton created with her behavior. Trump should follow the best advice he can get about how to use his phones in a secure way. He should do this not to avoid being a hypocrite but because it’s his responsibility to do it.
On downplaying Hillary’s “extreme carelessness”, guilty as charged, but I could never get over the fact that the State Department server she should have been using was massively hacked during her tenure, and hers wasn’t.
I agree that HRC should not have used a private email server, but I also agree that it’s a travesty how the “media” has pretty much ignored and buried the details about how the State Dept server was hacked.
I mentioned that to someone recently, who had no clue about it. But they certainly knew chapter and verse about HRC’s private server.
Beyond annoying.
Is it really a question of “fairness”? Cause the media knew many DC people, like Colin Powell, ran similar servers and didn’t hang them out to dry.
If pointing the original hypocrisy is downplaying, so be it.
Things like yesterday’s Gorsuch lead Supreme Court ruling are proof that, for the people who fund the Right, 2016 was all about preventing Hillary from flipping the court and making sure, whoever sits in the white house Oligarchy will be law some day..
Probably is a good assumption that it’s already been hacked and mic has been remotely activated to eavesdrop in on everything from national security issues to his morning constitutional.
That neither Kelly or the national security team has been able to secure the phone is so incredibly symbolic of the failures to protect Trump from himself.
I hope his contact list is spread far and wide. What I don’t hope is that the Chinese are strategizing with NK using what they’ve overheard.
it’s already been hacked and mic has been remotely activated to eavesdrop in on everything
It boggles the mind if this is the case. In the movie version, some stalwart official would grab his phone, throw it to the floor and shoot it.
In the real world we have pathetic toadies.
It only boggles the mind if you assume the BEST case scenario, which is that Trump simply does not care about his security. But he has, from before the beginning, surrounded himself with people Putin owns, including his own family.
Because of this `big picture, it’s easier to see what this REALLY is, it’s another method of making sure Putin knows his investment is safe. What better way to do that than to be sure Putin can listen in?
Not to even mention the Saudi’s.
.
that thought had crossed y mind …
“my”
Well to be fair, hacking his cell phone would just be one more way in which the President has allowed himself to be compromised by foreign powers. Throw it on the pile, he doesn’t care.
I think all of us here know very well that there’s absolutly nothing – NOTHING – that Trump can do that will cause his fans/supporters/surrogates/the Oligarchs to get upset, much less turn against him.
I don’t get it, myself, but that’s the way it is.
Beyond Trump’s phone – which is and should be a total concern of national safety, etc – it’s my understanding (don’t have links; could be wrong) that many in Trump’s admin or white house staff also use private email on private servers.
Yet: no outcry about that.
Remember when conservatives went fully metal nuts about Obama using his Blackberry for the first few days in office?
Of course, none of his fans/voters/supporters will say one word about this very grave security risk that Trump poses daily with his phone.
It should be an outrage; it should change; but it never will. And conservatives will clap, cheer and find every excuse in the book to exonerate this.
While at the VERY SAME TIME, the State Department’s email servers WERE hacked.
Somehow no one EVER FUCKING REMEMBERS THIS. Hillary had an email server with a handful of users and someone dedicated to running it. Fer crying out loud it’s probably STILL more secure than 95% of the government systems simply because of the scale of use.
No doubt that the same level of vocal outrage expressed by Republicans regarding the sever will be forthcoming from Democrats shortly. :::crickets:::
Trump doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand that an insecure cell phone is a digital problem that connects with the internet; cyber security etc.
He never uses a computer and doesn’t understand the internet or email — he gets everything printed out — and he doesn’t know what he was talking about with the email server; he was just saying the words (remember when he said she “bleached” her computer, because one of the software tools involved in purging errant data had a trade name with the word “bleach” in it).
If asked a direct question about the hypocrisy of his insecure phone vs. Hillary’s private email server, he’d respond with a blank stare and then some bluster, because he’s too stupid to understand any of this; he knows less about phones and the internet than the average American.
Actually he says “acid-wash”. because he also doesn’t know that bleach and acid are opposites, but point taken.