Transparency, thy name sure as hell ain't Hillary Clinton. During her time as Secretary of State, Clinton went to extreme lengths to ensure that her emails would stay private. Not only did she exclusively use a personal email address, she even rigged up her own homebrew computer server that routed back to her house instead of relying on government email servers.


The AP discovered Clinton's high-tech privacy measures by going through internet records. While reports already revealed that Clinton used a private email address to conduct her business as a Cabinet-level official, this new information highlights that Clinton was Boss Level gung-ho about hiding her communications. These measures will make it very hard for people to properly review the communications Clinton sent out as Secretary of State:

The highly unusual practice of a Cabinet-level official physically running her own email would have given Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate, impressive control over limiting access to her message archives. It also would distinguish Clinton's secretive email practices as far more sophisticated than some politicians, including Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin, who were caught conducting official business using free email services operated by Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc.


Clinton's decision to run her own email gave her unprecedented power. Now she can block court subpoenas for her emails. And if any journalists or curious members of the public want to FOIA request her emails, the government will have to wrest them from Clinton first.

Clinton purposely looked for a loophole to close off communications that will have value in the public record, communications that could hold her accountable for misdeeds. This was a despotic move, some Richard Nixon shit.

We don't know Clinton's motive here. Maybe she was so freaked out by the government's shitty server security or snooping methods that this was mainly a bid to protect herself from hackers or spies.

Or maybe she just felt like she deserved more privacy. It doesn't really matter, though Clinton should be pressured for an explanation. This autocratic stunt shows she is willing to fundamentally disregard ideas of public servant transparency to cover her own ass. [AP]


Image via AP

Contact the author at kate.knibbs@gizmodo.com .

Public PGP key

PGP fingerprint: FF8F 0D7A AB19 6D71 C967 9576 8C12 9478 EE07 10C