We all have email problems

Lots of fuss is being made about presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s email problems. We know it’s really only about politics, so we tried to ignore it. But then we wondered whether the former U.S. Secretary of State might be having some of the same email troubles the rest of us have suffered. After all, who hasn’t hit the ‘send’ button at the wrong time to the wrong address? Violating national security is one thing. What about sending a message to the wrong girlfriend? What if you forget and accidently hit ‘reply all’? That never ends up good, does it?
Communicating by email is very tricky — especially for anyone old enough to remember life before there was an Internet. There is a more important set of questions here than whether Hillary Clinton used a government – approved email account or not. Ever since we’ve been able to click and send instant messages, we have been living in a new world where privacy, security and public records all face new meanings, threats and limits.
Hillary definitely has a problem, but the rest of us share some big email and e-communication problems, too.
Email is fascinating. Billions and billions of pieces of email are transmitted daily. Email is replacing personal letters, greeting cards, legal documents and business transactions. None of it is ever private or secure. There is one definitive fact about Internet-based communication and that is, there are no more secrets. And, you didn’t have to be an Ashley Madison client to learn that.
Hillary Clinton is getting into trouble because she set up a private email server at her home in Connecticut. Her Republican opponents said she should have used the U.S. government’s system. But, isn’t that the same set of computers that the National Security Administration illegally wiretapped? Isn’t that the server and files that Edward Snowden downloaded and put on Wikileaks and elsewhere? Clinton’s basement might have been secure from just about everyone except political snoopers like Karl Rove.
Government officials — at the federal, state and local levels – have been keeping secrets long before emails. Remember Nixon’s Watergate scandal and the 18-minute “gap” on an incriminating Oval Office recording?
How is Clinton’s defense that she erased all her private emails any different than Iran-Contra’s Oliver North telling Congress “I can’t remember” when asked how he bought guns in 1985 for Nicaraguan rebels with Iranian bribery funds?
If Nixon and North had email accounts, U.S. history and our country’s involvement in too many small wars might be different.
On the local government level, everyone should be reminded that all email communications of elected officials are part of the public record. Like Clinton’s troubles, if an elected official erases emails it could become a felony. Does that sound outlandish? It shouldn’t. Protecting the public’s right to know and requiring transparency in government is more challenging than ever. That’s because 186 billion emails are sent every day. The average office worker receives 141 emails daily, and that average may, or may not, include spam. Email traffic has been growing by 14 percent annually, according to David Pogue, of Yahoo and a local author.
We haven’t even mentioned Facebook or Twitter yet. Putting a post on your Facebook page is like sending an email to a thousand friends at once. They call it social media. Putting a mistake on Facebook can get your face on the evening news or worse. You can always apologize, but Facebook will keep your files forever anyway.
Maybe we all should do what Pope Francis and comedian Woody Allen do. Neither man uses emails. The Pope communicates by fax and Allen writes all his screenplays on a manual typewriter. We even know of one local newspaper publisher that doesn’t own a smartphone, if you can believe that.
— Rollie Atkinson