Clinton memo warned State Department workers to avoid using personal email

The warning was circulated over Clinton’s electronic signature at a time when she had been using a private email account and server located at her New York residence to conduct official business for several years. She continued using the private account and server throughout the balance of her tenure as the country’s chief diplomat.

In a related development, a long-time Clinton family political adviser told Bloomberg Politics that the controversy about Clinton’s private email use is not likely to threaten her 2016 presidential prospects.

“Having lived through many of these, including many that were far bigger and far more serious, I would say it makes sense to settle in a little bit … people have very short memories,” said Chris LeHane, who advised President Clinton on many of the scandals that marked his White House tenure.

The memo was addressed to all diplomatic and consular posts, and included a subject line of “Securing Personal Email Accounts.” Employees were warned to”avoid conducting official department from your personal e-mail accounts.” They were also told not to “auto-forward department email to personal email accounts which is prohibited by department policy.”

Clinton’s memo was particularly focused on a category of government documents and information known as “Sensitive But Unclassified.” The category was created by President George W. Bush in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks to include information that isn’t typically classified but which would be of potential use to terrorists.

Federal law and State Department policy require even more rigorous security precautions and provides severe penalties, including jail time, when classified information is involved. It is likely that substantial volumes of both classified and “Sensitive But Unclassified” documents and information were transmitted to and from Clinton on her private email account.

The memo, which was first reported late Thursday by Fox News’ Catherine Herridge, referenced a provision of the State Department Foreign Affairs Manual that included as examples of sensitive but unclassified information “not customarily in the public domain and related to the protection of critical infrastructure assets, operations, or resources, whether physical or cyber,” as well as “information illustrating or disclosing infrastructure protection vulnerabilities, or threats against persons, systems, operations, or facilities (such as, usernames, passwords, physical, technical or network specifics,and in certain instances, travel itineraries, meeting schedules or attendees).”

The manual provision, which was in effect when Clinton became secretary of state in January 2009, listed multiple reasons for avoiding the use of personal email accounts when transmission sensitive official business documents or information.

“SBU information resident on personally owned computers connected to the Internet is generally more susceptible to cyber attacks and/or compromisethan information on government owned computers connected to the Internet,” the manual said.

In addition, the manual warned that “the Internet is globally accessed (i.e., there are no physical or traditional territorial boundaries). Transmissions through foreign ISPs or servers can magnify these risks; and current technology can target specific email addresses or suffixes and content of unencrypted messages.”

When using a personal email account could not be avoided, the manual instructed employees that they “must ensure that these computers will provide adequate and appropriate security forthat information.This includes:

(1) Disabling unencrypted wireless access;

(2) The maintenance of adequate physical security;

(3) The use of anti-virus and spyware software; and

(4) Ensuring that all operating system and other software security patches, virus definitions, firewall version updates, and spyware definitions are current.”

Mark Tapscott is executive editor of the Washington Examiner.