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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