Intelligence Agencies have Government Emails

There is a telling article in Politico on government email:  see Adam B. Lerner, Michael Morell:  Foreign Governments have Hillary's Email, Politico, 16 May.  The crux of this story is bigger than the title suggests, since the former CIA Deputy Director has said what we all know to be true, but could never say:  Most good intelligence services already read the unclassified email of the government offices.  

Years ago we had a debate in the Pentagon about whether or not we should contact email services out to AOL, then one of the largest email providers in the D.C. area.  The whole purpose behind the government having private email service for its unclassified mail is the security of it can be maintained.  It isn't mnore efficient.  It certainly isn't cheaper.  We always thought it was more secure, and maybe in those days it was.  Not anymore.  

I would have to ask why agencies are allowed to spend money on maintenance of unclassified email if they can't secure what they have.  Why spend money and someone in a foreign intelligence service reads everything we write?  We should just use Google or Amazon and forget about trying to maintain our fiction of having unclassified email run by the governmment agencies because it is more secure than it would be from a commercial service.