What Hillary Clinton’s email scandal is really about, explained with a cartoon

The FBI introduced Friday it was renewing their investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of personal email servers, after deciding to not press fees in September after their first spherical of investigation. For months, the “email scandal” has haunted Clinton’s marketing campaign, and conservatives have used it to feed into a bigger message: that Clinton cannot be trusted.

Just take a look at all of the tales Breitbart places below the “Hillary Clinton Email Scandal“ tag. It’s a mishmash of tales — together with ones about her hiding well being issues, which don’t have anything to do with email. All the articles collectively weave a storyline that appears extra egregious than the person elements that make it up.

But on the core of it, there really are issues. And we must always be capable of speak about these issues with readability. Vox’s Jeff Stein created a concise framework in regards to the scandal, so we made a cartoon that pinpoints the first points at play.

First, let’s stroll by way of what truly occurred

To perceive what precisely it was that Clinton did, we have to perceive what an email server is. It’s the technical underpinning of the controversy.

It’s principally like a publish workplace. It’s a laptop related to the web that types by way of letters and delivers them.

And very similar to a publish workplace, the server has three jobs:

So which means the particular person answerable for this digital publish workplace — a postmaster, if you’ll — has an essential job. This particular person has to implement safety features to ensure the server can do its job properly. This particular person additionally has management of the messages coming out and in.

Normally for the secretary of state, this duty would’ve belonged to folks in federal authorities who’ve the experience to take care of email programs.

But when Clinton was provided an email handle on State Department servers, her workers refused. Instead, they used a server in the Clinton’s home, maintained half time by two staffers.

We do not know why Clinton used a personal server. She says it is as a result of she solely needed to hold one cell system — and since State Department gadgets solely allowed for State Department email addresses to be added to the cellphone, she selected to make use of her private system and her private email.

But this is what led to a number of issues — and a number of storylines round these issues.

Problem 1: Clinton made herself weak to hackers

Clinton’s personal server had several potential points of vulnerability, so it was potential for spies to hack into the system — each to view messages or to reroute messages.

There was no proof that Clinton’s server was breached, however hackers are good at protecting their tracks, and the FBI hints that it thinks a hack was seemingly.

On her servers, an FBI investigation in July 2016 discovered 81 email chains that ranged from confidential to high secret, however intelligence businesses overuse these labels, so it is unclear if revealing these emails would’ve truly threatened nationwide safety.

There was “gross negligence,” as the FBI points out.

Eventually, Clinton’s workers employed a personal firm to run their email servers in Secaucus, New Jersey. This was a safer choice, however nonetheless not best. In reality, if we’re speaking about pure safety, it is unclear what the best choice would’ve been.

Even if Clinton used the State Department mail servers, it would not have been foolproof. The State Department has been accused of having poor institutional security, which manifested in a 2015 hack of its unclassified email system.

Problem 2: Clinton could have been attempting to skirt transparency legal guidelines

Email servers are bodily computer systems — and the one that controls these servers has your information.

When Congress was investigating the terrorist assaults in Benghazi, it requested the State Department for Clinton’s emails. But the division only turned over eight emails. That’s as a result of Clinton’s emails have been on her personal server, not theirs.

That stated, Republicans have insisted Clinton did this to keep away from having her emails launched or topic to the Freedom of Information Act. In different phrases, the accusation is that she did it so the general public couldn’t see her communication. This goes to motive, which implies it is tough to show both method, and anybody who claims in any other case is speculating.

But the concept she is actively attempting to cover her communication feeds into a extra absurd accusation that we must always dismiss: that Clinton tried to delete emails from her server throughout the House’s Benghazi investigation. Vox’s Jeff Stein has a good timeline exhibiting why this theory makes no sense.

What has been lumped into this storyline: the concept Clinton is compromised

There is one other fully separate case that has to do with emails however will get thrown into the “Clinton email scandal” bin as properly. The right-wing transparency group Judicial Watch obtained emails between high officers on the State Department and the Clinton Foundation.

Some suppose it exhibits that individuals who donated to the Clinton Foundation acquired desire from the secretary of state’s workplace. There is no proof to again this up, and this storyline has nothing to do with her personal server. It’s one other story, just like the one about her well being, that is woven into the bigger narrative that Clinton cannot be trusted.

What we must always truly take away from this

There are two main issues with Clinton’s resolution to make use of a personal email server.

The first is cybersecurity. The FBI concluded that Clinton and her workers weren’t absolutely conscious of the menace they uncovered themselves to. It factors to a bigger drawback with authorities, the place public servants outdoors the intelligence businesses typically deal with cybersecurity as an afterthought. Last 12 months, Congress did pass a law that permits personal firms to work with authorities to enhance cybersecurity, and this 12 months President Barack Obama created a commission on cyber defense. But there are nonetheless large political and bureaucratic issues that the following govt has to deal with.

The second concern is transparency. The Obama administration has been among the many “least transparent“ in latest historical past, although Obama promised higher transparency throughout his 2008 marketing campaign. The administration has saved whole government programs secret, stonewalled public records requests, and viciously gone after those who leak information.

An Associated Press investigation discovered that the backlog of public information requests grew 55 percent below Obama. So no matter Clinton’s motive was for the personal server, it brings up issues about whether or not the general public’s proper to know will proceed to erode below the following administration. And Donald Trump hasn’t exactly been the model for transparency both, although he has tried to create the illusion of it.

Both of those are large, nuanced points that elevate actual questions on how Clinton or Trump would govern. It touches on two more and more related points about our information — how we must always shield it, and who ought to be capable of see it. But they’ve been reframed into this amorphous narrative about belief.

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Correction: A earlier model of this story stated Clinton’s server contained 81 emails starting from “labeled to high secret,” however it ought to learn “confidential to high secret.” There are three levels of classified information: confidential, secret, and high secret.

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