The act of keeping classified material as your personal plaything especially when out of office smacks of entitlement.
One they don't have.
These incidents should prevent all 3 from running for office again because it's proof they can't be trusted to do the right thing and they hold the rules in contempt.
The real take away from this is the point you mentioned toward the end of your piece. The average Joe doesn't really think this is a big deal, outside of earning points in partisan games.
The truth is people in general don't take securing sensitive information seriously. How many people do you know keep their passwords written on a sticky note adhered to their computer monitor? Or have their kid's name as their password, and so on...
I'd wager the vast majority of public official have mishandled classified information in some way or another over the years. No one will be punished because the political class doesn't want the FBI coming to THEIR house to look for things that shouldn't be there.
The only positive that could come out of this story, is a update and remedial training to all public officials on the proper way to handle classified material, followed up by a clearly communicated, uniformly applied enforcement policy.
What a perfect summary John!
Couldn't have said it better myself.
The act of keeping classified material as your personal plaything especially when out of office smacks of entitlement.
One they don't have.
These incidents should prevent all 3 from running for office again because it's proof they can't be trusted to do the right thing and they hold the rules in contempt.
The real take away from this is the point you mentioned toward the end of your piece. The average Joe doesn't really think this is a big deal, outside of earning points in partisan games.
The truth is people in general don't take securing sensitive information seriously. How many people do you know keep their passwords written on a sticky note adhered to their computer monitor? Or have their kid's name as their password, and so on...
I'd wager the vast majority of public official have mishandled classified information in some way or another over the years. No one will be punished because the political class doesn't want the FBI coming to THEIR house to look for things that shouldn't be there.
The only positive that could come out of this story, is a update and remedial training to all public officials on the proper way to handle classified material, followed up by a clearly communicated, uniformly applied enforcement policy.