One of the goofier elements of the Hillary Clinton e-mail-gahzi! scandal is the breathtaking news that she had her own e-mail server, apparently operating out of her basement.
The computer server that transmitted and received Hillary Rodham Clinton’s emails — on a private account she used exclusively for official business when she was secretary of state — traced back to an Internet service registered to her family’s home in Chappaqua, New York, according to Internet records reviewed by The Associated Press.
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The highly unusual practice of a Cabinet-level official physically running her own email would have given Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate, impressive control over limiting access to her message archives.
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In most cases, individuals who operate their own email servers are technical experts or users so concerned about issues of privacy and surveillance they take matters into their own hands. It was not immediately clear exactly where Clinton ran that computer system.
Okay, let’s unpack this a little. In the first place, it’s not all that unusual for people to have their own e-mail domains (e.g. mustangbobby @ barkbarkwoofwoof.com) as opposed to using a commercial one like Yahoo or gmail. Second, when you have your own domain, the address listed on it is usually your home address and it’s usually a public record. Third, saying that “individuals who operate their own email servers are technical experts or users so concerned about issues of privacy and surveillance they take matters into their own hands” is ridiculous. A lot of people and businesses have their own servers, and it doesn’t require a degree in IT to run one. The company I worked for in New Mexico fifteen years ago used an old Gateway desktop machine. I am neither a technical expert nor freaky paranoid about my privacy. It’s just easier to pay a small fee to GoDaddy for a couple of e-mail addresses than put up with spam from Google, and the only permanent computer equipment in my garage is my old Apple IIc.
The worst part of this whole story is that this is just the curtain-raiser on the shitstorm we’re going to be treated to for the next two years every time Hillary Clinton scratches her ass.
Yep, they are going to be very happy to have another Clinton to kick around.
I ran my own email server for at least a decade. Hardly nuclear physics. Just grew weary of the spam fight and changed to a hired service. NBD.
Gee, and I read that Colin Powell did the same thing back in the day.
There is no task, technological or diplomatic or anything else, that Hillary Clinton could perform to the satisfaction of the batsh!t crazy Repub’s we have these days.
Let’s list a few of her faults (according to the wingnuts): Her email server isn’t secure enough for diplomatic traffic… her email server is too secure and allows her to conduct secret matters unsupervised by the CIA/NSA/FBI/etc. … after Benghazi she should be required to seek permission to exchange email with any foreign national… I’ve heard rumors that her computer keyboard has certain keys swapped left-to-right (seriously, I knew someone who did that on her office computer; I flat refused to do maintenance work on it unless she switched it back)… Hillary regularly texts in secret with the pilots of black helicopters… Hillary is known to have pursued a decades-long torrid affair with (of all people) Bill Clinton… etc., etc., ad nauseam.
Hillary and I are very different kinds of Democrat, but I hope the people who make up all this sh!t about her get exactly what they deserve.