Note to Students: Read the “Background” below before answering the questions.

1. What is the Freedom of Information Act?

2. What was Secretary of State Clinton required to do by law (the Federal Records Act) with all of her communications as Secretary of State?

3. a) Approximately how many emails does Mrs. Clinton say she exchanged during her four years as Secretary of State?
b) How many of these emails were classified, according to Mrs. Clinton?
c) How many of those emails did the State Department release to the Associated Press under the FOIA request?
d) What possible reasons does government secrecy expert Steven Aftergood give for the low number of emails given to the Associated Press by the State Department?

4. a) What reason did Secretary Clinton give for her decision to keep all of her government emails on a personal server she ran out of her home, instead of using an official State Department email address?
b) What information makes this explanation appear questionable?

5. Clinton was under a subpoena order from the U.S. House Select Committee on Benghazi, Libya for all documents related to the 2012 attacks on the American compound there. This week David Kendall, an attorney for Clinton, said the 900 pages of printed emails previously provided to the Committee cover its request. Kendall also informed the committee that Clinton’s emails from her time at the State Department have been permanently erased.
a) Do you think Democratic voters should choose Mrs. Clinton as their presidential candidate? or, if she were Republican, do you think Republican voters should vote for her? (Should the revelations about her emails make any difference to voters?) Explain your answer.
b) Should a voter’s opinion be affected by his/her previous support for Mrs. Clinton? Explain your answer.