Secretary Jeh Johnson of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) — you know, the cabinet-level department with “security” in its name — is among several officials who, until recently, used Web-based email services such as Yahoo Mail and Google’s Gmail on federal networks and while on the job.
As if we didn’t need any new examples of how cavalier top government officials can be with national cybersecurity.
Johnson, along with 28 other top officials, had asked for and received waivers to the department’s ironclad rule: Federal computers and networks are never to mix with Web-based email applications.
“The DHS rule, articulated last year after hackers first breached the Office of Personnel Management, states: ‘The use of Internet Webmail (Gmail, Yahoo, AOL) or other personal email accounts is not authorized over DHS furnished equipment or network connections,’” Bloomberg reported Monday.
According to that report, Johnson and other “senior staffers” within DHS used such Web-based email services on DHS computers and networks for more than a year, even though the practice was explicitly banned in April 2014 — precisely because of the risk it poses to national security via its inherent susceptibility to hacking.
While there has been no official confirmation that Johnson and the others used their private accounts to discuss government business, it’s difficult to accept that they didn’t.
“I suppose it is remotely conceivable that in seeking a waiver, 20 or more government officials could all be wishing to talk to each other through a Web-based email service about such matters as baseball games or retirement luncheons they might be attending,” a former National Archives attorney told Bloomberg. “But it is simply not reasonable to assume that in seeking a waiver that the officials involved were only contemplating using a commercial network for personal (that is, non-official) communications.”
Even mainstream media pundits had a tough time processing the news, with one former Obama staffer telling MSNBC: “What could these people have been thinking? After all of this, to then go and use personal email? … I’d love to hear their side of the story because it’s baffling.”
The post DHS, Hillary Clinton have something in common: They both use private email on federal computers appeared first on Personal Liberty®.
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