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Progressives really, really, really wanted to hear from Hillary Clinton on the events in Ferguson, Mo., where an unarmed black teenager was shot and killed by a white police officer on Aug. 9, sparking days of unrest in that small city outside St. Louis and elsewhere.

Al Sharpton said he wanted to smoke Clinton out on Ferguson and suggested that if she ran in 2016, he would be a thorn in her side on civil rights issues.

MSNBC host Chris Hayes thought it was bizarre that Clinton hadnt at least weighed in with a statement on the incident, even though she hasnt made a habit of offering up opinions on much of anything outside of formal interviews and speeches. (She didnt release a statement on the beheading of Jim Foley by ISIS, for instance)

Well, she finally addressed Ferguson on Thursday, during a prepared speech, and it turns out that her comments were among the most substantive compared to what other political leaders have said.

Whereas most Democrats and Republicans, and eventually President Obama, addressed the militarization of the police, Clinton actually went there on an issue that most avoided: racism and the criminal justice system.

At her speech at the Nexenta OpenSDx Summit in San Francisco, she said we cannot ignore the inequities that persist in our justice system. And then she did what few of her prominent fellow white Democrats have done in the context of Fergusonshe acknowledged the well-known statistics that show that blacks get treated differently than whites when it comes to everything from traffic stops to sentencing. But rather than just listing the statistics, she got personal by asking whites to put themselves in the shoes of black Americans:

Imagine what we would feel and what we would do if white drivers were three times as likely to be searched by police during a traffic stop as black drivers instead of the other way around. If white offenders received prison sentences ten percent longer than black offenders for the same crimes. If a third of all white men just look at this room and take one-third went to prison during their lifetime. Imagine that. That is the reality in the lives of so many of our fellow Americans in so many of the communities in which they live.

Her statements in many ways echo those of Sen. Rand Pauls who also imagined himself as Michael Brown, mouthing off at a cop as a teen, but with a very different outcome based on race. Both Paul and Clinton went further in their statements than Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Obama, who in his third statement on Ferguson, touched on black crime rates, and only allowed that there might be sentencing disparities and differential treatment for blacks in the criminal justice system. Paul and Clintons boldness on racism and the criminal justice system is a risky and bold move, given the wide divide in how blacks and whites think about and experience race. Yes, its easier for whites to talk about racism than it is for blacks (witness Obama), but in asking whites to change their thinking about race and to essentially imagine themselves as black, both Paul and Clinton are doing something that has rarely been done in national politics in the last decade. Progressives, fueled by buyers remorse over Obama, are set on portraying Clinton as too moderate, ignoring, for instance, that she actually ran to the left of Obama on health care, and has spoken out, in formal settings, on voting rights as well. Some progressives noticed her comments on Ferguson, but even as they praised her, they questioned her motives:

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The Fix: Hillary Clinton was surprisingly bold on Ferguson

U.S. Sen. Rand Paul speaks at the Defending the American Dream Summit sponsored by Americans For Prosperity at the Omni Hotel Aug. 29, 2014, in Dallas, Texas. Mike Stone/Getty Images

Marking another milestone on his warpath against Hillary Clinton's status as the early 2016 Democratic presidential front-runner, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., took advantage of a friendly audience Friday to knock the biggest blemish on her record as secretary of state: the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist strike at a U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans.

"If she wants to be commander in chief and she cannot protect our embassies, I don't think that she could or should be," Paul said at a Dallas summit put on by Americans for Prosperity, an influential conservative organization backed by the billionaire industrialist Koch brothers. "I think it precludes her from ever being considered as commander in chief."

It's an opportune moment for Paul, who's not been coy about his own White House ambitions. A lurching investigation into the attack stands to dig a thorn in Clinton's side as she mulls whether to accept her well-groomed slot for the Democrats' top pick to succeed President Obama.

Some damning testimony from a prior series of congressional hearings, in which it was stated that requests for bulked-up security in Benghazi were routinely ignored, colors the former secretary of state as incompetent at worst and aloof at best. In her new memoir, "Hard Choices," Clinton deemed it the "biggest regret" of her tenure at the State Department.

Attempting to stifle critics from within Clinton's circle who believe the slow-go approach to probing Benghazi is motivated by politics, Paul told the hugely receptive crowd: "Yeah, politics is what happens to discuss whether people are fit for office. There will be a discussion over the next four years - whether Hillary Clinton is fit to lead this country."

Wielding his anti-interventionist policies, which have attracted many fans of his libertarian hero father, former Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, the younger Paul compared Benghazi to the 1993 mission in Mogadishu, Somalia, in which 18 members of the United States military were killed. Shortly following the tragedy, then-President Bill Clinton successfully urged the resignation of Defense Secretary Les Aspin.

"He ignored the request, and he resigned ultimately in disgrace," Paul said. "I think, had Hillary Clinton worked for Bill Clinton, she'd probably have been fired."

Paul has long been a mouthpiece against Hillary Clinton's foreign policy. On "Meet the Press" last Sunday, he predicted she'd drive away voters by being "a war hawk."

"I think that's what scares the Democrats the most, is that in a general election, were I to run, there's gonna be a lot of independents and even some Democrats who say, 'You know what? We are tired of war,'" Paul said last week. "We're worried that Hillary Clinton will get us involved in another Middle Eastern war, because she's so gung-ho."

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Rand Paul: Benghazi "precludes" Hillary Clinton's 2016 bid

Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton addresses the American Jewish Committee Global Forum on May 14, 2014 in Washington, DC. The AJC held the form to discuss topics related to the Jewish communities all around the world. Alex Wong, Getty Images

As investigation into the deadly Sept. 11, 2012 attack on a U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya crawls on, Democrats are starting to sweat that the biggest blemish on Hillary Clinton's record as secretary of state could resurface smack in the middle of the 2016 presidential cycle.

Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., who's chairing the special committee House Republicans constructed to continue an already lengthy probe into the terrorist strike that left four American diplomats dead, has said he expects the investigation to wrap by the end of 2015, which happens to be prime campaigning season. He told the New York Times the dawdled nature of the investigation isn't politics-driven.

"I promised the family members of the four slain and my colleagues on both sides of the aisle the investigation would be serious and fair," Gowdy said. "Nothing would undercut both of those promises like an orchestrated timing."

Phil Singer, a former Clinton campaign aide, argued otherwise: "If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck," he told the Times. "It's hard to look at the timing and think it's simply a coincidence that it would wrap up in the heart of the presidential campaign."

Democrats have called the new panel itself redundant, given that there have been seven separate committee investigations into Benghazi already. Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, the panel's top Democrat, told the Times: "The question now is what is left to investigate, and I do not think we need until 2016 to answer it."

In the forefront of the inevitable thorn in Clinton's side is some damning testimony in prior hearings from State Department officials. For instance, Gregory Hicks, the second-ranked diplomat at the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli, testified that his requests to deploy additional military resources in Benghazi to address heightened security issues were repeatedly denied.

Should the investigation lurch on through next year, it does stand to pose some serious cleanup for Clinton, who's been manning the frontline of Democrats' top-billed picks to succeed Mr. Obama for years.

Republicans have been building their case for months: Former Vice President Dick Cheney speculated in May that Clinton "clearly bears responsibility for whatever the State Department did or didn't do" in Benghazi. He also prophesized it would be "a major issue" for a future White House bid.

The wildly varying accounts of how administration officials reacted in the wake of the strike also provided some fodder.

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Will Benghazi probe peak at height of Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign?

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks during a during a round table event to launch the "Talking is Teaching: Talk Read Sing" campaign at the Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute on July 23, 2014 in Oakland, California. Justin Sullivan, Getty Images

At last heeding the massive outcry for her thoughts on the police shooting of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri three weeks ago, Hillary Clinton on Thursday weighed in on the tragedy and the violence that erupted there in its wake.

"Watching the recent funeral for Michael Brown, as a mother and as a human being, my heart just broke for his family," Clinton said during a keynote address at a San Francisco summit for software company Nexenta. "But I also grieve for that community and for many like it across our country."

Brown was shot and killed by white officer Darren Wilson, bringing to a head years-long racial tensions that have simmered in Ferguson. Though the majority of the town's residents are black, its police force is 93 percent white.

"We cannot ignore the inequities that exist in our justice system," she said. But America's "true colors," she added, have been demonstrated by the peaceful protesters and the officers "who serve and protect their communities with courage and professionalism, who inspire trust rather than fear."

As violent riots continue to flood Ferguson's streets amid nationwide debate about the law enforcement community's prejudiced administration of justice, Clinton lauded President Obama's decision to dispatch Attorney General Eric Holder to Ferguson to conduct a "thorough and speedy investigation."

"Behind the dramatic, terrible pictures on television, our deep challenges that will be with them, and with us, long after the cameras move on - this is what happens when the bonds of trust and respect that hold any community together fray," Clinton said. "Nobody wants to see our streets look like a war zone; not in America. We are better than that."

The former secretary of state's remarks drew fast praise on Twitter, but inevitable are the criticisms that they came too late. Clinton and her camp have deliberately declined opportunities to speak on the issue, though many in the media have suggested that as the early frontrunner for the 2016 Democratic president nomination, she bears more strenuous pressure to respond to such a hot-button social controversy.

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Hillary Clinton breaks silence on Ferguson: "We are better than that"

Summary: "I'm not an expert on software-defined storage or the intricacies of cloud computing," Clinton quipped.

SAN FRANCISCO---Privacy and security are in a necessary but inevitable tension, reflected former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton while speaking at data storage and software provider Nexenta's OpenSDx Summit on Thursday.

Proposing this debate has been going on in the United States since the days of the Founding Fathers (with Clinton trading out "privacy" for "liberty"), Clinton observed how concerns over privacy reached a fever pitch following the revelations about the National Security Agency last year.

"There's no doubt we may have gone too far in a number of areas, and those [practices] have to be rethought and rebalanced," Clinton said about the surveillance liberties given to government agencies following the attacks on September 11.

At the same time, Clinton countered that we live in a world with a lot of "bad actors" who have access to the same technology as ordinary Internet users. By extension (and with a little work), those bad actors could also have access to the same sensitive data.

"I think it's fair to say the Government, the NSA, didn't so far as we know cross legal lines, but they came right up and sat on them," said Clinton. "It could perhaps mean their data was being collected in metadata configurations, and that was somehow threatening. We have to be constantly asking ourselves what legal authorities we gave to the NSA and others and make sure people know what the tradeoffs are."

Clinton lamented that "probably the most frustrating part of this whole debate" is trying to convey that the United States is not the only country trying to manage and balance these conflicts. She explained how on diplomatic visits to China and Russia, for example, she and her staff couldn't take any personal devices off the plane in fear of the devices being hacked.

"We need to make it clear to other countries that our technology companies are not part of our government," Clinton said.

"They're so good," Clinton laughed, speculating the devices and stored data would be breached within a "nanosecond."

Clinton also emphasized the Federal Government does not use personal data for commercial purposes -- insisting other governments do.

Originally posted here:
Hillary Clinton talks NSA and privacy, data security, tech jobs in San Francisco