Peter Van Buren on Hillary's Claim that the Emails Weren't Marked as Classified and so She Shouldn't Be Held Accountable

"If an employee were to be handed information sourced from an NSA intercept of a foreign government leader, somehow not marked as classified, she would be expected to recognize the sensitivity of the material itself and treat it as classified. In other cases, an employee might hear something sensitive and be expected to treat the information as classified. The emphasis throughout the classification system is not on strict legalities and coded markings, but on judgment. In essence, employees are required to know right from wrong. It is a duty, however subjective in appearance, one takes on in return for a security clearance.............‘Not knowing’ would be an unexpected defense from a person with years of government experience.............Every email sent within the State Department’s own systems contains a classification; an employee technically cannot hit ‘send’ without one being applied. Just because Clinton chose to use her own hardware does not relieve her or her staff of this requirement."............This is devastating and if you think that Mr. Van Buren is some sort of virulent right-winger, he's also written articles for "The Huffington Post", "Salon", "Mother Jones", "The Daily Kos", "Al-Jezeera", "Michaelmoore.com", and "The Nation".