Hillary Clinton has been making a lot of headlines recently for setting up her own private email server while she was Secretary of State in the first Obama administration. Her decision not to use the government’s email server is concerning for a couple reasons: First, using a personal server for government correspondence posed a huge security risk and second, since there is no way for the government to track Clinton’s correspondence many are accusing her of suspicious activity. The permanent record your email correspondence leaves behind has become the modern day paper trail. Once you send or receive an email, the information contained within it is recorded and archived for future reference, often even after you delete it from your email client.
The email paper trail has its benefits – it can be a godsend if you need to check the details of a conversation that took place months ago or retrace the steps of a deal. But it has its bad and even ugly sides, too. In light of the recent accusations against Clinton because she didn’t leave a digital paper trail, the virtues and vices of the email paper trail are worth discussing.