The guidelines for determining which aspects of SBU, or what level of aggregation thereof, can result in the material becoming classified are themselves classified. That is why you can’t find it via Internet search. It stems from an Executive Order issued a number of years back, and is administered by the Director of National Intelligence.

The classical definitions of what is considered legally classified relates to potential “damage” to the US national security, but at varying levels. E.g. Confidential information, if disclosed, could do “damage” to the national security of the US whereas Top Secret, if disclosed, involves information that can produce “exceptionally grave” damage.

Given that the State Department (actually due to FBI pressure) just “classified” information initially sent out by SecState Clinton as "secret" vs “unclassified” neatly makes this point. There’s no doubt that some of what Hillary sent out was, and is in fact classified, even if she says it wasn’t. I say this for two reasons.

As the 3rd most senior official in the USG’s Executive Branch, pretty much everything she did for official business had that potential … i.e. she was THE focal point for US foreign policy. Don’t forget, she was given daily intelligence briefings (i.e. highly classified) so I personally think it’s thus a statistical certainly some of what she talked about in her personal emails later spilled over since she was using it to conduct all of her official government business.

The second reason is the sheer volume of emails, when aggregated and analyzed by a competent professional, would yield all types of information of interest, and certainly be capable of causing some level of “damage” to US national security thus classified. There’ also no doubt that the major intelligence services (Russian, Chinese, Israeli, French etc.) easily hacked her homegrown email systems and now have everything she sent out which likely submits her to subtle foreign pressure or even potential blackmail.

One example would be if she connected, in any way, official government decisions or policies with “gifts” or donations to the Clinton Foundation. My guess is she did that … repeatedly, and explains why she zapped the emails.

Thus, in my view, she knowingly failed (de facto or otherwise) to protect national security information, which is a felony. In addition, it’s patently obvious she broke the Federal Records Act …beyond any reasonable dispute, and that is another felony. If her last name was not "Clinton", the USG would already be in the process of bringing formal legal charges against her.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/03/us...lags.html?_r=0

The real question is this … WHY would Hillary have gone to the trouble of setting up her own email server etc? I know you are too sophisticated to accept the explanation she offered to many (and unfortunately gullibly accepted by many) that she didn’t want to carry two phones.

There are only two reasons I can think of:

1. She has unbelievably poor judgment coupled with unbelievably incompetent IT technical advice, or

2. She wanted to be able to quickly eliminate the evidence/email trails if and when needed … which is what she did a few weeks ago.

Explanation #2 means she knowingly did something (or many things) that were wrong and thus would not want it on TV or the media ... especially since she wants to be our President.

You said you don’t think what she did was a “great idea.” Why then do you think she did it? What’s your theory or potential explanation? Do you agree with my two options above, or do you have another one?