Timex
4602
But it seems like she totally should be indicted, because at least one of those emails send like she’s specifically instructing aides to remove the classified marking from materials.
That’s totally illegal.
It depends on the context. If you have a 40-page report and only one sentence in the thing is classified, the rules say that you’ve got to mark the header and footer of EVERY page at the classification of that one sentence. The report as a whole is classified. But if you wanted to forward on the contents of, say, page 29 - which contains only a topical “Dilbert” comic - then removing the header and footer is appropriate because that single page contains no secrets.
I guess you might have to worry about copyright violations and getting sued by Scott Adams…
IANAL, but per this order, it seems that a Secretary of State is allowed to assign and reassign classification levels. Whether she should have or not in terms of judgement seems like a different issue.
Timex
4605
What part of that makes you think she is able to reassign classification levels?
She’s able to make things classified, but i do not beleive she has the authority on her own to DECLASSIFY stuff.
It depends on the context. If you have a 40-page report and only one sentence in the thing is classified, the rules say that you’ve got to mark the header and footer of EVERY page at the classification of that one sentence. The report as a whole is classified. But if you wanted to forward on the contents of, say, page 29 - which contains only a topical “Dilbert” comic - then removing the header and footer is appropriate because that single page contains no secrets.
I guess you might have to worry about copyright violations and getting sued by Scott Adams…
No, that is not how classified documents work.
Once it’s in that larger document and marked as classified, in order to send something out from it, you need to go through a declassification process. You are specifically not allowed to simply remove the headers, because it’s possible that you might not KNOW that something on that page is classified.
Until the section goes through a rigorous declassification process, it is classified as marked.
Timex is right. Even if some item in a classified document is 100% open information for the public, you do not have the authority to remove headers and to declassify that item. Everything in the document takes on the overall highest classified level.
YES, I love that movie! Well done!
… unless of course the individual pages or paragraphs are portion-marked appropriately.
wahoo
4609
This made me chuckle when you think how Media matters focus is on electing Clinton. It’s head is also one of he heads of the Hillary super pac and is the Clinton attack dog! Confirmation bias indeed!
Serious question - hence the IANAL part (nor a government employee).
Logically speaking (and I understand logic does not rule), if you can say “Item X is Classified,” why would you not be able to say “You know what, no it isn’t” after further review? Who has the authority to declassify stuff?
That order has all kinds of stuff about reclassification in it, and it specifically refers to agency heads. The Secretary of State is an agency head, correct?
Part 3, section 3.1:
PART 3 – DECLASSIFICATION AND DOWNGRADING
Sec. 3.1. Authority for Declassification. (a) Information shall be declassified as soon as it no longer meets the standards for classification under this order.
(b) Information shall be declassified or downgraded by:
(1) the official who authorized the original classification, if that official is still serving in the same position and has original classification authority;
So if State was the department that classified it in the first place, she has the authority to declassify it. (3 also covers it if a subordinate did it, as well)
If State WASN’T the group that classified it (and I don’t know why it wouldn’t have been them because it was a State document, but it’s still quite possible):
(4) officials delegated declassification authority in writing by the agency head or the senior agency official of the originating agency.
I have no clue if she received that, but there is still a possibility.
This is the kind of arcane gray area that she will probably be able to slither her way out of unless they find a smoking gun.
There’s still the security risk of piecing together multiple pieces of quote-unquote unclassified information on a private email server, but that’s nebulous*. We’ll just have to see what they find.
- I mean for our dear leaders. Everyone else would (or should) lose their security clearance!
Slither? Not the verbiage I would use.
This is true, and I should have pointed that out. But, that said, do you dispute the source of the NY Post article? IOW, is the content of the Media Matters article incorrect?
If State WASN’T the group that classified it (and I don’t know why it wouldn’t have been them because it was a State document, but it’s still quite possible):
As I understand it, most of what we’re seeing is State documents, but with information from various intelligence organizations, most of which aren’t under the State umbrella. Especially telling is information under the SCI label, which is known to have been found—I don’t know what the proportion of HUMINT information is compared to SCI, but almost all information about HUMINT sources overseas gets the SCI classification, and the largest source of overseas HUMINT information is the CIA, over which Clinton doesn’t have classifying/declassifying authority.
I assume Fournier is a cut-out.
magnet
4616
First off, her aides wound up not sending via insecure means, so in this case no law was broken.
Second of all, it’s not clear whether the document was even classified to begin with.
Don’t Google the name Fournier, by the way.
I know this because there’s an NBA player with that last name.
That much I think I understand. However, the one document in question (the one she told her subordinates to remove the classified header from) was a list of talking points. Now, I haven’t actually seen the document, and maybe there are footnotes with classified stuff from other departments on there, but that wouldn’t make much sense to me.
IANAL too, but I handled classified documents. The declassification process is byzantine and takes a lot longer than it probably should, but when it comes to classified material most people who work the stuff like to err on the side of caution. The threat of jail time and the real-world possibility that you might endanger someone’s life tends to make people skittish.
In general, everything in a document takes on the highest classification of the marked materials. So for our Dilbert comic example used above, even though it’s clearly not a classified item, if you stuck it in the middle of a Top Secret morning intelligence briefing PowerPoint, that instance of the illustration becomes Top Secret. You can go online and find open 100% publicly free and clear examples of that same strip, but the one used in the briefing PowerPoint takes on the classification of the document. Unless you very specifically mark that page separately from the rest of the TS PowerPoint, (something that’s not often done because of the reason I’ll give below) you cannot just look at the publicly available unclassified version and say that the TS PowerPoint version is also unclassified - even though common sense says it should be okay.
Sometimes, nothing in a document is classified. That person A is reporting something to person B is often enough to make a document classified. Back to our example, the fact that General Jones likes to see a Dilbert strip in his morning intelligence briefing is itself information that we don’t want others to have because it’s a tidbit about General Jones.
Thanks for the info, Telefrog. And yes, the notion that General Jones likes Dilbert is certainly able to cause “exceptionally grave damage to the national security,” lol [meant as a joke, not a sardonic and jerk-ish reply]
One of my friends is a contractor working for the Navy. He frequently jokes about Plans, Capabilities, and Intentions: the stock phrase that the true Navy folks use to explain what you aren’t supposed to talk about, even if it isn’t technically classified, the joke being that it covers just about everything.
