Hillary’s State Department Was a Security Nightmare

Hillary’s State Department Was a Security Nightmare

Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign has been knocked off course by questions surrounding her private emails, but a new Fox News report says that her independent server was only one of many problems with the State Department’s information security program. And as Secretary of State during that time, Clinton needs to explain why she failed to bring the agency up to par.

According to the report, the State Department under Clinton’s rule lagged behind most of the federal government when it came to network security. From 2009 to 2013, the department’s compliance with federal cybersecurity standards deteriorated annually. And though State Department officials contend that things are changing, the inspector general says the agency is still below standards.

“State’s technology is so antiquated that NO ONE uses a State-issued laptop and even high officials routinely end up using their home email accounts to be able to get their work done quickly and effectively,” one Clinton aide wrote in 2011.

Certainly, we know at least one individual who took this path. It makes you wonder why Clinton never used this excuse to get herself out of hot water. Then again, when you’re the person in charge of the agency, you can’t exactly get away with that. This person wants to be president of the United States, but there’s no indication that she cared enough about the State Department’s crumbling IT infrastructure to do anything about it. Her excuse, presumably, would be that she didn’t (and doesn’t) know much about computers.

But maybe the American people should examine that excuse and determine how much water it holds in 2015. Clinton may come from an age before the internet, but that doesn’t change how important computers have become to our world. She’s certainly realized that in one respect; no one else on the campaign trail has made as much of an effort on social media as Clinton. But if she’s going to approach the presidency with the same “you mean with a cloth?” mentality, we could be in serious trouble.

As head of the State Department, it was her responsibility to clean up the mess that was the agency’s cybersecurity failings. That she chose to instead ignore it and work around it with her own server shows you everything you need to know about her work ethic.

As president, she will be exposed to the highest levels of top secret information. She will be forced to confront many a problem outside her wheelhouse. She’ll have a crack team of advisers, sure, but is she simply going to ignore any problem she’s uncomfortable with? Pass it along to her husband? “Hey, you deal with this. I only feel like working on women’s stuff right now.”

Bernie Sanders isn’t the only one sick of hearing about Clinton’s “damn emails,” but this isn’t some celebrity scandal. This speaks to Hillary’s competency, her philosophy, and her judgment. Maybe there’s a smoking gun at the center of this investigation and maybe there isn’t. But even if the worst of the news has already come out, there’s enough there to make her a very unattractive presidential nominee.