Special to WorldTribune.com

Bill Gertz, Inside the Ring, Washington Times

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her aides tried to use personal hand-held electronic devices inside areas used to store classified information, according to the just-released State Department inspector general report.

The Bureau of Diplomatic Security, the State Department’s security arm, told the inspector general that in March 2009 Mrs. Clinton rejected an offer from security officials to provide her with a secure government smartphone. “DS was informed that Secretary Clinton’s staff had been asking to use BlackBerry devices inside classified areas,” said the report, released late last month.

Another portion of the inspector general’s report states that Mrs. Clinton sought in late January 2009 to bring her BlackBerry into a secure area. Instead, State Department officials offered to set up a computer near her office desk to check emails, although the report says the stand-alone computer was never installed.

Classified areas are called SCIFs, for “sensitive compartment information facilities,” and are used by officials with security clearances to read secret or top-secret intelligence and other classified information. Security rules prohibit bringing in electronic devices like smartphones that could be used to photograph or copy secret documents or to take notes. … The report does not say whether Mrs. Clinton or her aides violated the ban on using smartphones inside the SCIFs. However, if she or her aides improperly used their BlackBerrys inside the SCIF, it could explain how classified information ended up on Mrs. Clinton’s private email server.

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