My dad was in the US Navy. He said to me more than once, “Loose Lips Sink Ships” and that was a US Navy slogan for many years. If you read my last article on the Counterveillance Imperative, I shared why this remains an important slogan for privacy, freedom and liberty.
A recent reprint of a story that ran in 2015, was about a US Navy engineer was sentenced for mishandling classified material. Bryan Nishimura of Folsom, California, pleaded guilty to the unauthorized removal and retention of classified materials. Nishimura, who was deployed in Afghanistan in 2007 and 2008 as a regional engineer, admitted that he downloaded classified briefings and digital records onto his personal electronic devices. He carried the materials off base and brought them back to the U.S. when his deployment ended.
While no charges or even a fine are recommended in the #Emailgate Hillary Clinton email probe, according to the Director of the FBI, an FBI search of Nishimura's home turned up classified materials, but did not reveal evidence he intended to distribute them. So he had no intention to cause the US harm but he still broke the law. Therefore, he was sentenced to two years of probation and a $7,500 fine, and was ordered to surrender his security clearance. He is barred from seeking a future security clearance. Clearly, whether or not he claims his intentions were not bad, his gross negligence is why he was sentenced, fined and barred from having security clearance. There are consequences for his actions and he's paying the price.
So, let’s fast forward to 2016, less than a year later, we see today’s stunning news delivered by FBI Director James Comey announcing the agency didn’t recommend the Justice Department bring charges against Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton over her use of emails on a private server – which has set off a firestorm of commentary across the world.
As a breach protection expert, I believe in this case, at this moment, the FBI has now created a slippery slope where if you do what Mrs. Clinton did, from this moment forward, as a US Government employee, you have precedent to get away with it. This is very risky to US National Security and could open the door for ‘accidental’ (but funded) espionage. In addition, in this case, it appears the following four laws were broken, whether intentionally or not, with a negative effect on future oversight of government employees:
•The Federal Records Act of 1950. Requires agencies to hold onto official communications. Government employees cannot destroy or remove relevant records.
•Freedom of Information Act. Designed to “improve public access to agency records and information.”
•The NARA Regulations. Dictates how records should be created, maintained and scrutinized.
•Section 1924 of Title 18. Deletion and retention of classified documents. “Knowingly” removing or housing classified information at an “unauthorized location” is subject to a fine or a year in prison.
As I have successfully studied the patterns of cyber criminals, cyber hackers, and nation state cyber espionage tools and techniques, especially zero-day malware and remote access Trojans deployed frequently through spear phishing attacks on US Government networks, it appears obvious to me, that this case opens a pandora’s box for future Nation State cyber espionage of the US.
For you see, a law or statute that criminalizes gross negligence is designed to underscore the special obligations our government officials and employees have in safeguarding national defense secrets. Hillary Clinton or anyone else in the us government having a lack of intent to harm our country is irrelevant, as the FBI stated in the case last year of the US Navy engineer Bryan Nishimura. Intent doesn’t matter. The action matters. In fact most good people never intend to cause bad things to happen, however, gross negligence is when bad things do happen and normally, as in the case of Bryan Nishimura, there are consequences.
Without getting into politics, simply put, Mrs. Clinton should have been fined a significant amount that she could afford, to keep the precedent that laws do matter. Her supporters are not going to change their vote and it appears this has become a very politically charged matter. It should not be.
What it is, now, is a pandora’s box for future espionage to ‘accidentally’ happen due to the appearance of ‘gross negligence’ – it’s an open door for compromise-able actors in the US Government to play the same card and be given a pass, when their private email server is ‘accidentally’ hacked and the information disappears into another country like China, Russia, North Korea or Iran. Meanwhile, they may end up with a fat bank account in the Cayman Islands or some other remote location.
Loose lips sink ships and there are always consequences.
What was missing from Hillary Clinton's #EMAILGATE case that could have made it nearly a 'non-issue'? STRONG ENCRYPTION!
She traveled the world, used private servers remotely and had plain text traveling international wires. Here we come, full circle again - STRONG ENCRYPTION is a good thing. STRONG ENCRYPTION would have been some proof of due care and due diligence had she used PGP or similar and made sure all emails were truly safe, secure and protected from prying eyes and cyber espionage. Now that would have been good for National Security.
Stand Up for Strong Security here: https://www.savecrypto.org/
About Gary S. Miliefsky
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Gary S. Miliefsky is the co-founder and CEO of SnoopWall, Inc. and is a breach prevention expert who has appeared on Good Morning America, the Today Show, CNN, FOX New, CTV and network programming across North America. Snoopwall, Inc. the leader in network breach prevention, is also ranked as the top mobile device security company by Cyber security 500 and one of the top 50 Most Valuable Tech Companies in Insight Success.