Hillary Clinton has taken a lot of hits from the media for her comment that she did not want to carry two devices for two separate emails.
During Thursday’s State Department press briefing, spokeswoman Jen Psaki fielded a question from a reporter about previous State Department employees not being able to have both a government email address as well as a personal address on the same BlackBerry. Psaki had responded that prior to early 2014, because of a lack of a security upgrade, that government issued BlackBerrys were not capable of running anything more than a government-issued email address.
In 2009, Bill Gertz reported the National Security Agency had created a hack-proof BlackBerry for President Obama. Obama’s top aides as well as first lady Michelle Obama had all received the souped-up device. The device would have been available for Clinton while she was Secretary of State.
Psaki also told reporters that Clinton was not issued an official State Department BlackBerry and had used her own personal, not secure device. Psaki told reporters it was not a requirement even if it was the Secretary of State who would have communications that would need a high level of security.
When asked why the State Department would not want to control the level of security of their employees’ devices, Psaki reiterated that it was not a requirement of the State Department to issue official devices at the time but was unfamiliar as to that was still the case.