A former aide to Hillary Clinton worried that broadcasting the number of State Department officials who relied on personal emails to conduct official business would “encourage” hackers, such as the one that attempted to hack the private account of Cheryl Mills, then Clinton’s chief of staff.
In a June 2011 email to Clinton, Anne-Marie Slaughter, a former State Department official who left the agency in Feb. 2011, suggested “someone inside or outside” the State Department should plant an op-ed that highlighted the weaknesses of the agency’s technology.
Slaughter noted the government network was so “antiquated” that “even high officials routinely end up using their home email accounts.” The former Clinton staffer sent the memo to Clinton’s personal address, so she would have known Clinton had her own struggles with email.
While Clinton said the idea made “good sense,” Mills cautioned against publicizing the extent of private email use within the agency.
“[A]s someone who attempted to be hacked (yes I was one), I am not sure we want to telegraph how much folks do or don’t do off state mail b/c it may encourage others who are out there,” Mills said.
Mills turned over copies of her own personal emails to the State Department earlier this year.
The Slaughter memo was included among a batch of more than 3,000 emails sent to and from Clinton, which were published by the State Department Wednesday afternoon.
Indications that Mills’ account was hacked underscore concerns that the private email network Clinton established at the State Department exposed sensitive materials to potential cyber threats. Hundreds of the emails have been marked classified.
