Former secretary emailed ‘without going through State Department’Old email exchange shows Republican dismissed some security restrictionsColin Powell told Hillary Clinton,his successor as secretary of state, that he used a personal computer to email foreign leaders “without going through State Department servers”, or a seven-year-old email exchange reveals.[br]Powell dismissed some of the official security restrictions on him as “nonsense” and questioned why his personal digital assistant (PDA) was any more vulnerable to spies than a TV remote control or “something embedded in my shoe heel”. Related: Clinton says she may have 'short-circuited' statements approximately emails Dear Colin,I hope to catch up soon w you, but I have one pressing question which only you can answer!What were the restrictions on your utilize of your blackberry? Did you utilize it in your personal office? I’ve been told that the DSS [Diplomatic Security Service] personnel knew you had one and used it but no one fesses up to knowing how you used it!What I did do was have a personal computer that was hooked up to a private phone line (sounds ancient.) So I could communicate with a wide range of friends directly without it going through the State Department servers. I even used it to do commerce with some foreign leaders and some of the senior folks in the Department on their personal email accounts. I did the same thing on the road in hotels.
When I asked why not they gave me all kinds of nonsense approximately how they gave out signals and could be read by spies, or etc. Same reason they tried to preserve mobile phones out of the suite. I had many meetings with them.
We even opened one up for them to try to account for to me why it was more hazardous than say,a remote control for one of the many tvs in the suite. Or something embedded in my shoe heel. They never satisfied me and NSA/CIA wouldn’t back off. So, we just went approximately our commerce and stopped asking. I had an ancient version of a PDA and used it. In general, or the suite was so sealed that it is tough to get signals in or out wirelessly.
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Source: theguardian.com