Ambassador Caroline Kennedy and senior staff at the U.S. embassy in Japan used personal email accounts for official business, an internal watchdog report said Tuesday -- making Kennedy the latest Obama administration official to run afoul of email security guidelines.
Another entitled member of the nomenklatura blows off security briefing delivered on day 1 of the job...
The State Department's Office of Inspector General (OIG) report said it received reports concerning the use of private email accounts for official business, and identified instances where emails labeled "sensitive but unclassified" were sent from or received by personal email accounts.
"On the basis of these reports, OIG's Office of Evaluations and Special Projects conducted a review and confirmed that senior embassy staff, including the Ambassador, used personal email accounts to send and receive messages containing official business. In addition, OIG identified instances where emails labeled Sensitive but Unclassified were sent from, or received by, personal email accounts," the report said.
The OIG stressed that department policy says employees generally should not use private accounts for official business, citing the risk of hacking and data loss.
"Employees are also expected to use approved, secure methods to transmit sensitive but unclassified information when available and practical," the report says.
The report, conducted between January and March, comes as the same OIG office reviews email use and policies across the department amid the controversy over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's use of a personal email and server. The FBI is reviewing the security of that server, with questions mounting over whether classified material was improperly shared or stored on the Clintons' private account.
Email issues aren't confined to the State Department. The IRS admitted Monday to a federal court there was a second personal email account -- set up under the name "Toby Miles" -- that Lois Lerner, the official at the heart of the Tea Party targeting scandal, used to conduct agency business.
But State Department messages can cover a range of sensitive and classified material involving America's allies and enemies. The OIG report does not appear to suggest a serious information breach. Sensitive but unclassified information can be shared outside of the government, though officials are required to use discretion. However, it puts further spotlight on the department's struggle to keep its information secure.
Kennedy, daughter of President John F. Kennedy, has been ambassador to Japan since November 2013.
The report also noted the economic section of the embassy -- which works closely with the United States Trade Representative on the Trans-Pacific Partnership -- was not maintaining centralized files, and the embassy has not enforced department or federal regulations on managing records.
"Officers have individual files based on their own filing systems, located in personal folders on a shared drive and in Microsoft Outlook email personal folders. These files are not accessible to anyone else and are not archived, retired, or retrievable," the report said.
Asked about the report, a State Department official told The Associated Press that the embassy in Japan requires the use of official email accounts to conduct official business whenever possible, and indicated that Kennedy and other staff are acting on the inspector's recommendations.
"Ambassador Kennedy uses an official email address for official business. As the report reflects, in the past, like others at the mission, Ambassador Kennedy infrequently used her personal email account for official business," said the department official, who was not authorized to speak on the record and requested anonymity.
"This is allowed, so long as measures are taken to ensure that official records sent or received on personal email are preserved and other requirements are observed. The ambassador and embassy staff are implementing the OIG recommendations, including those regarding emails," the official said.
#1
Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to another episode of our show, "Corrupt or Stupid?". Today's contestant is Caroline Kennedy who was appointed Ambassador to Japan based on her "qualifications".
#5
If a Republican gets into office, you all will be singing a different tune.... "Well accidents happen". "No one is perfect". "Stop associating with criminals and this wont happen"... Its so predictable. - Jart Flutle2277
Comment from yesterday, on a much different topic and from a different political viewpoint.
But I thought it was... "appropriate."
(though I highly doubt the "Republican gets into office" part....)
#6
...they have to say that. It's part of the Freudian Projection. It's the self rationalization for their misdeeds and crimes. Others have got to do it because they are doing it. See - "vast right wing conspiracy" or racism. For them, its always been about power.
#7
It doesn't matter what actually happened. "My intentions were good so that's really all that matters..." I see we're still getting revenge on the Japanese for Dec 1941
#8
I always feel sorry for Caroline, so I will give her a break; stupid, sorta, I usually go with airhead more often, and as to corrupt; well her family virtually swims in that cesspool, so I'd have to to say corrupt, modified by airhead.
#11
This sort of stupidity ought to be punished by swift and severe punishment, very public punishment. A simple fine of say, $10 million per email might be sufficient or donate 3 organs of the taxpayer's choice.
#15
There are still such things as so-called "gifted amateurS"/
MORESO WHEN COMPARED TO THE "PROFESSIONAL/
COMPETENT/QUALIFIED" POLITICOS OF OUR MIGHTY ANTI-UNITARIAN UNITARIAN GOP-DEM ESTABLISHMENT WHOM CAN'T SEEM TO GET ANYTHING DONE OR EXPLAIN ANYTHING TO THEIR OWN ELECTORATE = VOTERS.
* FYI LUCIANNE > [Washington Times] ITS NO CAMELOT! CAROLINE KENNEDY'S OVERSIGHT OF [US']JAPAN EMBASSY SLAMMED.
Various Disconcordat.
Caroline's litmus test of preventing CHINA-JAPAN WAR in East China Sea/NE Asia, + by extension possible US-CHINA WAR in same, is steadily but assuredly looming as long as neither China nor US Regional Allies refuse to compromise or concede on their rivalrous National or Geopol ambitions.
NO DE FACTO RETURN OF TAIWAN TO DE FACTO MAINLAND CHINESE CONTROL = NO LIKELY CHINESE CONSENT TO ANY DE FACTO INTER-KOREAN REUNIFICATION NOR COMPROMISE WID US REGIONAL ALLIES IN THE SOUTH CHINA SEA, EAST CHINA SEA, IOR, ...@ETC.
Net News this sunny Guam Thursday AM ...
* WORLD NEWS > [VOA News] CHINESE FISHERMEN SAILING CLOSER TO WESTERN COAST OF PHILIPPINES, by witness accounts as close as 15-kms to West PH coastlines, but ostensib still widin CHINA'S CLAIMED SOVEREIGN TERRITORY???
* RELATED SAME = ...
> PHILIPPINES: CHINESE MILITARY UNITS PROTECTING [Chinese] FISHERMEN.
> PHILIPPINES SEEKS US HELP IN PROTECTING [+ Supplying PH] TROOPS IN DISPUTED SEA.
Mainly via US Air Recce of nearby Chinese activities.
* TOPIX > [AEI] NORTH KOREA MAY SEEK [Vienna = P5+1,Iran style] NUCLEAR DEAL WID WEAK OBAMA.
* SAME > [WaPo] CHINESE OFFICIAL TO GOP'S [include "The Donald's" = Donald Trump] ANTI-CHINA RHETORIC: "AMERICANS TRYING TO PROVE THEY ARE NOT IN SELF-DECLINE".
Perhaps unrelated, but I believe we're down to our last 4 remaining survivors of the Doolittle raid. 'Target Tokyo' is a pretty good read by the way. According to Scott, the Chinese didn't fare so well following the raid.
#2
We continued to read the Japanese Diplo traffic till '48 when a congresscritter let lose in a public hearing that we were reading their code (since before Pearl). Interesting stuff. Today that critter probably would work for the NYT.
#3
See also WORLD NEWS > [VOA News] NEW US PACIFIC FLEET COMANDER [USN ADM. Scott K. Swift] ACKNOWLEDGES "GREAT ANGST" AMONGST US ALLIES.
ARTIC = ADM. Swift denoted that the US intends for GUAM to be inter-linked or coordinated wid JAPAN as a major or strategic US hub in WESTPAC/PACIFIC OCEAN AREA.
* IIRC RELATED GUAMPDN > US PENTAGON: MODERNIZE GUAM'S MILITARY ASSETS.
--------------
US REGIONAL ALLIES ARE ANGRY AT CHINA'S ACTIONS, BUT ARE ALSO ANGRIER AT THE US MORE FOR NOT STOPPING CHINA'S ACTIVITIES AS THE ALLIES' HAD HOPED.
All things equal, I say again that China's best "ace" in its Superpower = OWG Co-Superpower competition wid the US in East Asia-Pacific is having an Anti-US US OWG Globalist POTUS in the WH, + as #1 on the US NatComAuth responsible for the direct US Military response to any Regional or World Crisis, OR IN ALTERNATE THE LACK OF SAME.
In case of military conflict between China + various US Regional Allies -Taiwan, PH, Vietnam, Nippon, India, etc. - IMO CHINA WILL PRIORITIZE DETERRING OR KEEPING THE US OUT OF SAME ASAP AMAP ALAP.
THE BEST THING CHINA [+ Russia, Iran in their regions] CAN HOPE FOR IS FOR ANTI-US US GLOBALIST POTUS OBAMA, OR ANY POST-JAN 2017 SIMILAR GLOBALIST POTUS SUCCESSOR(S), TO UNILATERALLY/ASYMMETRICALLY N-O-T INVOKE THE US' VARIOUS MUTUAL DEFENSE-SECURITY TREATIES WID ITS REGIONAL ALLIES.
[Washington Examiner] Hillary Clinton's classified emails contain discussions of conversations with foreign diplomats, issues with embassy security and relations with countries from Russia to China.
The broad range of information that was deemed classified by the State Department -- just within the emails published by the agency to date --underscores concerns that sensitive material was routinely mishandled on Clinton's private email server.
For example, Huma Abedin, Clinton's former deputy chief of staff, forwarded a summary of a high-level Sept. 2009 meeting to Clinton in which she detailed the "embassy security issues" that were discussed.
The issues had been raised by Eric Boswell, a diplomatic security official who was later forced to resign in the wake of the 2012 terror attack in Benghazi.
Abedin was frequently involved in the transmission of classified information to Clinton, emails show. Cheryl Mills, Clinton's former chief of staff, and Jake Sullivan, former director of policy planning, also routinely sent or received classified emails from the secretary of state.
Despite her campaign's claims that Clinton was simply a "passive recipient" of classified information, a review of her emails indicates she wrote messages that are now classified.
For example, in July 2009, she discussed relations with Russia and Afghanistan with then-Deputy Secretary William Burns in an email that has been partially classified. She also discussed her travel plans with Burns over the private network.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Ambassador Caroline Kennedy and senior staff at the U.S. embassy in Japan used personal email accounts for official business, an internal watchdog report said Tuesday -- making Kennedy the latest Obama administration official to run afoul of email security guidelines.
