Pirated emails show Clinton more tech savvy than FBI said
Nominee boasts of leading office into modern era
WASHINGTON—Contrary to views collected by the FBI that Hillary Clinton was a technophobe unsophisticated in the use of computers, her paid speeches indicate that she was well aware of the dangers of computer hacking and penetration and that diplomats would be “totally vulnerable” without extreme precautions.
Excerpts from Clinton’s speeches, which she refused to release during her primary contests against Sen. Bernie Sanders, were among more than 2,000 private emails published Friday by the anti-secrecy website Wikileaks, after what the Obama administration says was a Russian intrusion that obtained the data. Campaign responds
The Clinton campaign declined to vouch for the authenticity of the leaked emails, and has suggested they might be fake, though the emails apparently were pirated during the same hacking effort that captured emails whose release led to the resignation of Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz in July.
One of the newly released emails includes transcripts of numerous private remarks Clinton made in recent years about the dangers of being a victim of hacking and the backwardness of the State Department bureaucracy in adopting new technology.
Clinton noted with concern that America’s global rivals, particularly Russia and China, constantly sought to penetrate the communications of U.S. diplomats while she was secretary of state.
“Every time I went to countries like China or Russia, I mean, we couldn’t take our computers, we couldn’t take our personal devices, we couldn’t take anything off the plane because they’re so good, they would penetrate them in a minute, less, a nanosecond. So we would take the batteries out, we’d leave them on the plane,” Clinton said in Aug. 28, 2014, remarks.
The excerpts contrast sharply with the portrait of Clinton drawn in documents released by the FBI of its investigation into her use of private email servers while she was secretary of state.
One of those documents quotes Clinton’s senior aide, Cheryl Mills, as telling the FBI that upon becoming secretary of state in January 2009, “Clinton was not computer savvy and thus was not accustomed to using a computer, so efforts were made to try to figure out a system that would allow Clinton to operate as she did before (the State Department).” The document said Clinton did not even have a computer in her State Department office.
At a congressional hearing July 7 days after the FBI announced it would not seek prosecution of Clinton for sending and receiving classified email on the private system, FBI Director James Comey portrayed Clinton as less-than-sophisticated about classification levels of federal cables that she handled on her computer. ‘Extremely careless’
Comey earlier had said Clinton and those around her were “extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information” and that the culture at the State Department was “generally lacking in the kind of care for classified information found elsewhere in the government.”
After leaving the State Department, Clinton’s speech excerpts indicate that she had become very aware of digital intrusions. She told attendees at a Goldman Sachs event on Oct. 29, 2013, that when she traveled to China and Russia, it was common practice to remove batteries from cellular phones and computers and keep the devices locked up on her airplane.
“We didn’t do that because we thought it would be fun to tell somebody about. We did it because we knew that we were all targets and that we would be totally vulnerable,” Clinton said.
At another event, Clinton said she pushed a backward bureaucracy into the modern era in terms of usage of modern communications.
“You know, when Colin Powell showed up as secretary of state in 2001, most State Department employees still didn’t even have computers on their desks. When I got there they were not mostly permitted to have hand-held devices. I mean, so you’re thinking how do we operate in this new environment dominated by technology, globalizing forces? We have to change, and I can’t expect people to change if I don’t try to model it and lead it,” Clinton said Jan. 6, 2014, at an event in Boca Raton, Fla., sponsored by General Electric.