--- title: Hillary Clinton Emails: NSA Rejected Secure Phone Request description: Hillary Clinton requested a secure smartphone in 2009 during the early days of tenure as Secretary of State but the NSA rejected the request canonical: https://time.com/4262572/hillary-clinton-emails-nsa/ author: Justin Worland article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-03-17T12:33:20.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T15:59:13.900Z article:section: Politics og:title: Hillary Clinton Emails: NSA Rejected Secure Phone Request og:description: Hillary Clinton requested a secure smartphone in 2009 during the early days of tenure as Secretary of State but the NSA rejected the request og:url: https://time.com/4262572/hillary-clinton-emails-nsa/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb195cd3545977864/69888b603c1639157545c783/hillary-clinton-emails.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4896 og:image:height: 2754 og:image:alt: Hillary Clinton emails nsa og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Hillary Clinton Emails: NSA Rejected Secure Phone Request twitter:description: Hillary Clinton requested a secure smartphone in 2009 during the early days of tenure as Secretary of State but the NSA rejected the request twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb195cd3545977864/69888b603c1639157545c783/hillary-clinton-emails.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Hillary Clinton's 2009 Request for Secure Smartphone Rejected by NSA > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters.  by [Justin Worland](https://time.com/author/justin-worland/)  ## Justin Worland Senior Correspondent Mar 17, 2016 12:33 PM UTC  Hillary Clinton holds a press conference regarding her UN Woman's Day speech and her email controversy at United Nations on March 10, 2015 in New York City. Hillary Clinton holds a press conference regarding her UN Woman's Day speech and her email controversy at United Nations on March 10, 2015 in New York City. Steve Sands—WireImage  by [Justin Worland](https://time.com/author/justin-worland/)  ## Justin Worland Senior Correspondent Mar 17, 2016 12:33 PM UTC Hillary Clinton requested a secure smartphone in 2009 during the early days of tenure as Secretary of State but the National Security Agency (NSA) rejected the request, according to [emails released this week](http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/emails-clinton-sought-secure-smartphone-rebuffed-nsa-37700771). The emails, released after a legal battle between [conservative group Judicial Watch](http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-state-department-documents-show-that-nsa-rebuffed-hillary-clintons-attempts-to-obtain-a-secure-blackberry/) and the State Department, show that Clinton began using her private email address on her Blackberry a month after to communicate with top aides. The newly-released emails suggest that providing Clinton with a secure device ranked high among the early priorities of her top aides. Clinton preferred checking messages on a personal device rather than using a desktop or laptop computer, according to the emails. The NSA said providing a secure device would be too costly. “We were politely told to shut up and color,” said Donald R. Reid, the State Department’s assistant director for security infrastructure, in one of the emails. Clinton—the frontrunner in the 2016 Democratic presidential primary—has [come under fire for using a private email server](http://time.com/4201045/hillary-clinton-emails-timing/) for official business. The former Secretary of State has apologized for using a private server, but she has insisted that it was never used to send classified information. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4262572/hillary-clinton-emails-nsa/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4262572/hillary-clinton-emails-nsa/"},"headline":"Hillary Clinton's 2009 Request for Secure Smartphone Rejected by NSA","datePublished":"2016-03-17T12:33:20.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T15:59:13.900Z","description":"'We were politely told to shut up and color'","url":"https://time.com/4262572/hillary-clinton-emails-nsa/","keywords":["Hillary Clinton"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb195cd3545977864/69888b603c1639157545c783/hillary-clinton-emails.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Justin Worland","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/justin-worland/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb195cd3545977864/69888b603c1639157545c783/hillary-clinton-emails.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Hillary Clinton emails nsa","caption":"Hillary Clinton emails nsa","creditText":"Steve Sands—WireImage","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4262572/hillary-clinton-emails-nsa/","name":"Hillary Clinton's 2009 Request for Secure Smartphone Rejected by NSA"}}]}] ```