NSA Rebuffed Clinton Request for BlackBerry

Apparently, there is at least one government agency that understands Hillary Clinton is not above the law and must follow the rules like the rest of us.

Judicial Watch has just obtained State Department documents revealing that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton repeatedly sought to obtain “BlackBerry-like communications,” but was rebuffed by the National Security Agency due to security and cost concerns.

The National Security Agency’s Information Assurance Directorate response was “shut up and color.” The emails show that Clinton demanded BlackBerry devices that could be used by her and her staff in her office’s Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF).

The documents were obtained in response to a court order in an April 28, 2015, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, filed after the Department of State failed to comply with a March 10, 2015, FOIA request seeking following: "Any and all records of requests by former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton or her staff to the State Department Office Security Technology seeking approval for the use of an iPad or iPhone for official government business; and Any and all communications within or between the Office of the Secretary of State, the Executive Secretariat, and the Office of the Secretary and the Office of Security Technology concerning, regarding, or related to the use of unauthorized electronic devices for official government business."

In an email dated Feb. 13, 2009, senior coordinator for security infrastructure, Bureau of Diplomatic Security, Donald R. Reid reveals that the request to obtain secure BlackBerry technology for Clinton was denied. When Clinton aides sought to compel the NSA’s cooperation by asking about the security arrangements for President Obama’s Blackberry, the exchange apparently became heated.

In a subsequent email from Reid dated Feb. 18, 2009, Clinton’s penchant for BlackBerry technology is described as an issue of “personal comfort” growing out of her becoming “hooked” on her BlackBerry during the 2008 presidential campaign.

Apparently, BlackBerry security waivers were issued during the tenure of former Secretary of State of State Condoleezza Rice, according to an email from an unidentified, redacted source dated Feb. 17, 2009. But because the high volume of these waivers became an issue, they were phased out over time.

The unnamed source wrote: "Ms. Mills has witnessed the use of BlackBerries in other sensitive (but perhaps not SCI fed spaces); she asked some excellent questions about what might be possible and prudent. She also asked about precedent; former Secretary Rice had received waivers for her staff; however, use expanded to an unmanageable number of users from a security perspective, so those waivers were phased out and Blackberry use was not allowed in her suite."

Yesterday, Judicial Watch filed a plan in federal court for “narrowly tailored discovery” into Clinton’s email. Reid is among the proposed witnesses.

These new revelations received much deserved attention – and tell you why Hillary Clinton is obsessed with attacking us as “right wing.”

The Associated Press account of our find was devastating, with simple factual reporting: "Newly released emails show a 2009 request to issue a secure government smartphone to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was denied by the National Security Agency. A month later, she began using private email accounts accessed through her BlackBerry to exchange messages with her top aides."

Schindler also confirms that Sidney Blumenthal, a Clinton confidante at the Clinton Foundation, sent her classified information on Sudan: "Specifically, this information was illegally lifted from four different NSA reports, all of them classified “Top Secret / Special Intelligence.” Worse, at least one of those reports was issued under the GAMMA compartment, which is an NSA handling caveat that is applied to extraordinarily sensitive information (for instance, decrypted conversations between top foreign leadership, as this was). GAMMA is properly viewed as a SIGINT Special Access Program, or SAP, several of which from the CIA Ms. Clinton compromised in another series of her “unclassified” emails."

"Currently serving NSA officials have told me they have no doubt that Mr. Blumenthal’s information came from their reports. “It’s word-for-word, verbatim copying,” one of them explained. “In one case, an entire paragraph was lifted from an NSA report” that was classified Top Secret / Special Intelligence."

I know there’s a lot of troubling material here to process — as the implication of it all suggests Hillary Clinton should face prosecution.

Tom Fitton is the president of Judicial Watch. He is a nationally recognized expert on government corruption. A former talk radio and television host and analyst, Tom is well known across the country as a national spokesperson for the conservative cause. He has been quoted in Time, Vanity Fair, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and most every other major newspaper in the country. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.