Hillary's Private Emails Put Us All in Danger

In the last week, it’s been discovered that Hillary Clinton had been using a private email address to conduct official state department business, which goes against the law. It appears that one of her main reasons for doing so was to hide the contents of these emails from the public. Had she used her state department email address, her communications would be considered public records, and the people would be able to access their contents by making a public records request under the Freedom of Information Act. Surprisingly, even famously liberal MSNBC agreed that Clinton’s actions were illegal. MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell stated, “Hillary Clinton’s system was designed to defy Freedom of Information Act requests, which is designed to defy the law.”

Aside from skirting the law, some are saying that her actions compromised our national security. The State Department has specifically engineered their email system to be as secure as possible. State Department email runs through U.S. government servers, which are nearly impervious to hacking. Hillary did not secure her own email servers, and introduced a variety of third-party middlemen, including the company her Clintonmail.com domain was registered with, to the process. This means that a relatively competent hacker, whether a curious but harmless American or a foreign terrorist organization, could easily have been secretly reading the full contents of Clinton’s emails containing secure information relating to national security.

There may be serious consequences for Hillary herself, as well. Says Judge Napolitano, she could be prosecuted and sent to prison. Hiding government documents is a crime; and if prosecuted she could be sentenced to a maximum of three years per hidden document. After a conviction for this crime, she would be ineligible to hold office in the future, which would destroy her political future.

Clinton’s decision to circumvent the law not only endangered the nation’s security, but her own future.