Sen. David Perdue is set to introduce legislation Tuesday that would prevent State Department officials from using a personal email account or server to conduct official business.
Perdue’s bill, the Securing Our Secrets Act, would force agency employees who have security clearances to undergo a new round of training on how to handle classified information.
The legislation comes days after FBI Director James Comey testified to Hillary Clinton’s “extremely careless” treatment of classified material on her private email system, an arrangement that drew condemnation but not criminal charges from the Justice Department.
Perdue’s bill would require the State Department to perform random sweeps of government email systems every quarter to identify possible leaks of classified information into unclassified inboxes, and refer any such leaks to the agency’s inspector general for investigation.
Comey said investigators had uncovered a “culture” at the State Department that allowed lax treatment of classified material, a characterization that the agency itself vigorously disputed.
