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ByTomKrisher The Associated Press DETROIT Volkswagen al- most inevitably will have to compensate owners of diesel cars equipped with emissions-rigging software. Some legal experts say the automaker could be forced to buy back the cars alto- gether. Many of the more than 200 lawsuits filed in the past few weeks allege that for seven years VW mar- keted four-cylinder diesel Golfs, Jettas, Beetles and Passats as clean alterna- tives to gas engines, know- ing all along that the cars were spewing pollution that far exceeded legal limits. In September, Volkswa- gen admitted to rigging emissions tests in the U.S. Earlier this month, Michael Horn, the head of its U.S. op- erations, told a congressio- nal panel that VW was con- sidering compensating own- ers for the lost value of their cars.Healsosaidthatitcould takefromonetotwoyearsto fix all the affected cars. Seattle lawyer Steve Ber- man seized on that time frame when he sued VW last week in Los Angeles, seeking full restitution for owners of nearly 70,000 af- fected cars in California. In a somewhat unique approach, Berman is seek- ing to get his clients their money back under Califor- nia laws requiring automak- ers to guarantee emissions control parts for up to seven years or 70,000 miles. His lawsuit says that VW can't promptly make its diesels comply with the warranty, so under a different statute it "shall either promptly re- place the new motor vehi- cle or promptly make resti- tution to the buyer." The Environmental Pro- tection Agency has said the VW diesels emit 10 times to 40 times the legal limit of nitrogen oxide. "Our clients don't want to wait a year. They don't want to be driving a dirty car," Berman says. The plaintiffs make the case that the cars can't be driven legally since they vi- olate pollution standards, says University of South- ern California law pro- fessor Greg Keating, who specializes in consumer fraud cases. Even though the EPA says the cars can legally stay on the roads, eventually states with pol- lution tests will force own- ers to comply with the law, he says. "They can't give me the car that they told me I was buying, and they're forcing me to inflict environmental harm and be out of compli- ance with California law because of the wrong they committed," plaintiffs can argue, says Keating. While Berman's lawsuit covers only cars in Califor- nia, the consumer fraud ar- gument could be made suc- cessfully nationwide, ac- cording to Keating. He and Erik Gordon, a business professor and lawyer at the University of Michigan, say the argument for a buyback is a good way to start settlement talks. Gordon says the first op- tion for judges would be to make VW pay buyers the difference between the value of the cars without the cheating software and what they are now worth. That could be hard to calcu- late. Lawyers also could ar- gue that buyers based their purchase on VW's promises of clean, peppy cars, and be- cause the repairs will hurt performance. EMISSIONS TESTS Lawsuits could force VW to buy back cheating diesels By Ken Dilanian The Associated Press WASHINGTON Hillary Rod- ham Clinton has come un- der fierce criticism for do- ing business over personal email while secretary of state, putting sensitive data at risk of being hacked. But her communications may not have been any more se- cure had she used a State Department email address, judging by years of inde- pendent audits that exco- riated the department over poor cybersecurity on Clin- ton's watch. The State Department's unclassified email system was breached by hack- ers linked to Russia last year who stole an unspeci- fied number of emails. The hackers hit a department that was among the worst agencies in the federal gov- ernment at protecting its computer networks while Clinton was secretary from 2009 to 2013, a situation that continued to deterio- rate as John Kerry took of- fice, according to indepen- dent audits and interviews. The State Department's compliance with federal cybersecurity standards was below average when Clinton took over but grew worse in each year of her tenure, according to an an- nual report card compiled by the White House based on audits by agency watch- dogs. Network security con- tinued to slip after Kerry replaced Clinton in Febru- ary 2013, and remains sub- standard, according to the State Department inspec- tor general. In each year from 2011 to 2014, the State Depart- ment's poor cybersecurity was identified by the in- spector general as a "sig- nificant deficiency" that put the department's informa- tion at risk. The latest as- sessment is due to be pub- lished in a few weeks. Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic presi- dential nomination, has apologized for her use of a private email server for offi- cial business while she was secretary of state. The FBI is investigating whether her home server was breached. State Department offi- cials don't dispute the com- pliance shortcomings iden- tified in years of internal audits, but argue that the audits paint a distorted picture of their cybersecu- rity, which they depict as solid and improving. They strongly disagree with the White House ranking that puts them behind most other government agencies. Senior department officials in charge of cybersecurity would speak only on condi- tion of anonymity. 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