--- title: Hillary Clinton E-mail Trouble Started in 1997 description: The former Secretary of State is in hot water over her e-mail usage while in that office canonical: https://time.com/3730092/hillary-clinton-email-1997/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-03-03T16:53:10.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T04:52:12.850Z article:section: History og:title: Hillary Clinton E-mail Trouble Started in 1997 og:description: The former Secretary of State is in hot water over her e-mail usage while in that office og:url: https://time.com/3730092/hillary-clinton-email-1997/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb6946b3d676b22ad/698781dc8e06012b4545a95f/1101971020_400.jpg?branch=production&width=828&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Oct. 20, 1997, cover of TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Hillary Clinton E-mail Trouble Started in 1997 twitter:description: The former Secretary of State is in hot water over her e-mail usage while in that office twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb6946b3d676b22ad/698781dc8e06012b4545a95f/1101971020_400.jpg?branch=production&width=828&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Hillary Clinton's E-Mail Trouble Started in 1997  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Mar 3, 2015 4:53 PM UTC  The Oct. 20, 1997, cover of TIME The Oct. 20, 1997, cover of TIMECover Credit: PATRICK DEMARCHELIER  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Mar 3, 2015 4:53 PM UTC Possible Presidential contender Hillary Clinton may have [broken the e-mail rules](http://time.com/3729583/hillary-clinton-personal-email-secretary-of-state/) during her time as Secretary of State, according to a new story in the New York _Times._ Clinton used her own personal e-mail account to conduct government business, the _Times_ reports. It’s not the first time Clinton’s e-mail has given her trouble — her use of personal e-mail accounts [had been made public](http://www.businessinsider.com/how-hillary-clinton-used-her-personal-email-2015-3) at least two years ago, but it was almost two decades ago she didn’t hide the fact that she was, as a TIME cover story about the then-First Lady put it, “computer illiterate.” That particular story used the First Lady’s 50th birthday as a way to discuss the Baby Boom generation’s maturation: Clinton, newly an empty-nester, was re-examining her life and deciding where to go from there. One possible direction was online: --- > “” --- At the time, President Clinton said he imagined the couple retiring one day to sit on a beach as “old people laughing about our lives”; TIME commented that such a future was unlikely to satisfy his wife, who said that she would instead “go on to do something else that I find challenging and interesting.” Years later, there’s no doubt that she made good on that prediction. She may have even overcome her fear of computers. After all, by today’s standards when it comes to “Internet E-Mail,” most people in 1997 were pretty much dummies. **_Read the 1997 cover story here, in the TIME Vault:_** [Turning Fifty](http://time.com/vault/issue/1997-10-20/page/1) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3730092/hillary-clinton-email-1997/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3730092/hillary-clinton-email-1997/"},"headline":"Hillary Clinton's E-Mail Trouble Started in 1997","datePublished":"2015-03-03T16:53:10.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T04:52:12.850Z","description":"The former Secretary of State is in hot water over her e-mail usage while in that office. 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