Talk:Classified information in the United States

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[edit] Yankee White and freedom from foreign influence

The section on the Yankee White background investigation says personnel working directly with the president must be free from any sort of foreign influence, i.e., they have to be native-born, not married to a foreigner, etc. But what about people like Henry Kissinger and Madeleine Albright, or Zbigniew Brzezinski? These individuals all served in very high positions within the Nixon, Clinton, and Carter administrations, yet all of them had some significant foreign influences. How did the background investigations provisions not apply to them? --Impaciente 05:37, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

All of those people were directly appointed by the President of the United States and approved by the Senate, and the Constitution specifically makes those the only two requirements for the job. I'd imagine that's the difference. --Descendall 00:22, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

You don't know which of those people were granted that level of access, now, do you? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.94.172.193 (talk) 20:07, August 26, 2007 (UTC)

Need to develop a history of classification section.

I'll have to dig up sources, but the general principle is that someone either elected to Federal office, or whose appointment must be confirmed by the Senate, has gone through at least the investigation for a basic TS clearance.
A study of Congressional oversight is a start ::

The fact that these programs are highly classified imposes an extra burden on already busy Senators because they must, as a practical matter either come to the Committee staff or hearing spaces to review classified information, or read it in their offices in the presence of one of the Committee's security staff. They might also be orally briefed in their offices or during Committee hearings by their designees or other Committee staff, but frequently this is on the fly and without benefit of note-taking.

Also, the arcane, often technical subject matter keeps all but the most persistent senators from delving into the details of intelligence programs where I am reliably told the devil resides.[1]

[edit] Merge FOUO to Classified information

FOUO is not a form of classified information. It should be merged into the category of SBU (or Sensitive But Unclassified) information.

[edit] Above Top Secret

Didn't the Western allies during WWII have levels of classification that trumped top secret, titled 'Ultra Secret' and 'Ultra/Magic'? If so, this is an argument in favor of a level of security above top secret, and should be listed as such in the relevent section. Admittedly, I got this from Neil Stephenson's 'Cryptonomicon', a work of fiction, but it seemed admirably well reaserched and quite accurate in most other respects.

I think what Stephenson was describing were "Categories that are not classifications." Tom Harrison Talk 12:44, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, MAGIC and ULTRA seem to be code-words connected to information about decrypting Japanese information in WWII, at least that's what I gather in a web search (see this). Interestingly, there were rumors of a "Magic" classification level above Top Secret when I was in US Army Basic Training, but this of course, doesn't seem to be noted anywhere on-line.--Tim Thomason 19:40, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
Section 1.2 of EO 13492 states that"Information may be classified at one of the following three levels:" namely, top secret, secret and confidential (in decending order of sensitivity). If you go by the exact wordings of the directive, it implies that the three-level classification does not in any way prohibit the addition of a more sensitive classification. Adding another tier of information sensitivity, especially for the government, does not entail violating the intent of the executive order. This fact must be clearly stated in the article itself. Johnyang2 —The preceding signed but undated comment was added at 07:23, August 22, 2007 (UTC).
MAGIC and ULTRA were code words for specific programs, for which the information was usually TOP SECRET. MAGIC covered communication intelligence on Japan, while ULTRA, a British term, was focused on Germany and the word itself wasn't declassified until 30 years after the end of the war, where "the fact of" MAGIC was declassified in 1945. Howard C. Berkowitz 21:02, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
A modern equivalent to MAGIC and ULTRA, used in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK, and the US would be "handle through COMINT channels only", so a communications intercept might be marked S/CCO, or, if there were additional compartments inside compartments, something like TS/CCO/GAMMA GUPY. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 02:46, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Security clearance levels of government officials

I've been wondering - does the US president and the directors of NSA/CIA have the highest security clearances? If not, then the question is, in how far elected officials can judge and influence the activities of the intelligence agencies. If agencies can do one thing, then are required by law to lie about their methods and results to the president, core decisions of US (foreign?) policy might be made by people whose name I've never heard. -62.206.8.4 16:26, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

The entire classification system is created by the US president by executive order. So the president has clear legal authority to see anything he or she wants to see under that system. That doesn't mean things are never kept from the president, but the classification system is not a legal basis for doing so. As for the heads of NSA and CIA, in theory, the compartmentalization system should limit their access. There is no reason for the head of NSA to automatically know the real names of US spies in Russia, say, or for the head of CIA to know how we break Iranian codes. And neither needs to know the details of how US nuclear weapons are designed. In practice, senior officials sometimes show little respect for the classifications rules. As for whether core decisions of US policy might be made by people whose name you've never heard, that is always a concern. Clearances or no, information is often concealed or twisted as it makes its way up the chain of command. It's a big problem in any large organization and is often used as a defense when scandals break. The flip side is that senior managers sometimes make sure they get information in ways that are "deniable," so it can't be proved later that they knew. Ultimately the president or corporate executive should be held responsible for the information culture they create.--agr 12:23, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] pretty funny

TOP SECRET is the top. That TS-SCI thing... we swear it's not an extra level. Sure, it gets a yellow cover sheet, and you do need an extra background check, but really it's not another level. No way, it couldn't be, because... TOP is TOP!

Sheesh. If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck...

There's nothing secret about a level above TOP SECRET. It's there in plain sight. The denial of reality is absurd.

24.110.60.225 05:28, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

There's nothing absurd about it. SCI is not another level in the "vertical" sense (whereby access to that level provides access to lower levels). Rather, it's a collection of "horizontal" compartmentalizations (several of them). I think the article makes that pretty plain. Mlibby 15:02, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
It is kind of an apple and oranges thing. SCI is another way to ensure that only people who need the information are getting access to it. The stuff is "compartmentalized" meaning that you have to be able to get into that compartment in order to get that information. There is stuff that is Confidential (the lowest level of classification) and SCI. Confidential indicates what kind of impact its disclosure would have on national security, and for one reason or another it is assigned the SCI label. So people with a confidential and an sci clearance can use the information, but those with a top secret (without sci access) clearance cannot. So it is not really an above top secret kind of thing at all.
With just an SCI indoctrination, you are not explicitly given access to anything. It simply is an affirmation that you have been briefed and understand the responsiblities that you have be entrusted with. Without explicit need to know, you may never be granted access to anything more than TS. Compartments and special access programs are the core of the SCI program, and are the only things you could consider "above top secret". It is possible to disseminate TS information exclusively to the right people, compartmenting it is a legal barrier. Programs and technologies that I may not need to know are kept away from me, I may be *able* to know them, but I don't need to. If anyone is so certain that they know of a classification "above top-secret" where are your sources? The classification system is a means to and end for appropriate information handling and nothing more. You're just as unliklely to come across information that is Confidential as you are with TS/SCI, why would the government feel the need to convolute an already convoluted system? National Security is the objective, making sure the right people have the right information and that others do not. Furthermore, you can't get much further in depth into someone's past than with a full scope background investigation and lifestyle polygraph test. Furthermore, don't state irrational paranoia as fact without any sort of backing or source. "I think" is irrelevant, because you don't know. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.40.86.110 (talk) 10:20, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Consider some points

FOUO is used within DoD and other Departments, but DOE has OUO wihtout the "For". This can be found on their directive website and is NOT a level or category of classified information. Currently they implement this with an Order, Manual and a Guide. DOE O 471.3, DOE M 471.3-1, DOE G 471.3-1. FOUO was at one time for a very short period a level of classification at about the same level as today's Confidential. Sort of like the obsolete, "Restricted."

DCID 1-19 and 6-3 plainly defines SCI as "intelligence" information. Extra protection so as not to reveal sources or methods and reveal capabilities. Honestly, SCI is granted by the DCI after a request is made by an agency Special Security Officer (SSO). This names the person, the progams, the needs and the reasons. I've seen them grnated in two weeks, which means no additional background could have possibly been done. Those were all cases granted to existing TS clearnces.

From DCID 1-19;

Access to SCI shall be based on need-to-know, formal access approval, and indoctrination. As a general principle, SCI disseminated to persons meeting those criteria shall be provided at the lowest level of classification and compartmentation that will satisfy official requirements applicable to the recipients. Source and method data shall be provided only to the extent necessary to fulfill such requirements. Sanitization of material shall be accomplished to the extent possible to protect against damage to sources and methods through unauthorized disclosure, espionage, or other compromise.

So, SCI is at one of the 3 levels; C, S, TS, and formal access approval means with approved access to classified information. There is NO unclassified SCI and no one has "planned" routine access to SCI without a security clearance.


DOE Q-Clearance is investigated the same as a Top Secret and recognized by DoD as a TS. DOE also has an L-clearance that equates to a DoD Secret clearance. The big deal with the DOE is access to RESTRCITED DATA. See the Atomic Energy Act for more and RD and Formerly Restricted Data. FRD was created so that DoD didn't have get as many Q-Clearances to maintain and service nukes.

DOE also has an other long standing unclassified but sensitive type of information. Unclassified Controlled Nuclear Information or UCNI. Section 148 of the AEA or 42 USC 2168. Also, DOE has an Order and Manual, DOE O 471.1A, DOE M 471.1-1 Chg 1. The 400 series of directives is where DOE keeps most security and classification related items.

Also, there is no LEVEL above TS, see the EO and its historical orders. DoD 5220.22-M National Industrial Security Program Operating Manual (NISPOM)is well worth reviewing and can be found at Defense Security Service (DSS) and is openly available. Explains the clearance process, forms and positions such as Facility Security Officer (FSO) Key Management Personnel (KMP), etc. Some of the newsletters and training can be accessed and is worth it.

68.227.24.77 03:53, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

If SCI isn't a level, then how is it legal to use the yellow cover sheet? TS must be orange, not yellow. Sure, it's "not a level" if the government claims so, just like a Mallard Duck is "not a duck" if some committee votes this to be so, but really... this is a joke. 24.110.145.57 07:09, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
I think the problem is the term "level." It is a legal term defined by executive order and there are three of them. If you use a more generic term like category, then the substance of what you believe is correct: there are indeed categories of U.S. government information that are guarded more closely than "ordinary" Top Secret. There are even categories whose very existance is itself highly classified. But the mechanisms for creating such categories are not secret; they are spelled out in the EO, NISPOM, etc. and in some cases, e.g Restricted Data and cryptologic info, they are by act of Congress. They are just not called levels. If flying saucers were stored at Area 51 in the 1950s they were assigned a code name or number, which may have changed several times since, and the ten people at Area 51 who are personally cleared for this category by the President himself may use purple cover sheets with pink polkadots. But the information would still be at the Top Secret level. --agr 20:51, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] SI codeword

Tom Clancy mentions a classification level above top secret in his book 'patriot games' called SI (Special Intelligence) Codeword, where sensitive documents are assigned a specific codeword to be filed under. Now seeing as Clancy rarely makes things up (I can't think of a single example at this time...) Does anyone know more about this level? Supra guy 01:30, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Again, we are getting confused by the term "level." SI is one compartment in the SCI program. It can be classified at any level (confidential, secret, top secret) but one must have a security clearance with sci clearance and access to the si compartment to access that information.

In case you hadn't noticed, Tom Clancy writes fiction. How can you tell that he doesn't make things up? As per comment just above, it ain't so. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.94.172.193 (talk) 20:11, August 26, 2007 (UTC)

If it does help, SI has been used for Signals Intelligence. If one looks at such things as NSA declassified documents from the USS Liberty or Tonkin Gulf Incident, you'll see things marked TS/SI/UMBRA (there are some other slashes and codes that mostly refer to how to declassify). UMBRA was the codeword compartment of the SI "control system". SI isn't formally used that way any longer; it's been replaced by CCO, short for "handle through COMINT Channels Only". I don't think anyone at NSA can give a rational explanation of why CCO replaced SI, since COMINT is a subset of SIGINT. Howard C. Berkowitz 00:25, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Just to clarify

Hi, I just wanted to clear some of these things up. 1- Compartmentalized Top Secret gives someone access to multiple seperated sections of top secret information. The way I was breifed was at something called a joint breifing, where you're read in on multiple subjects at the same time. It designed to make pertininet information easier to access. It is in no way another level of classification, although it is a higher level than Top Secret —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.172.91.194 (talk) 00:54, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Amount of classified information

I removed the following from the article:

"According to the researcher Peter Galison, in the United States "the classified universe, as it is sometimes called, is certainly not smaller and very probably is much larger than [the] unclassified one," though nobody is sure exactly what magnitude of materials are classified. Galison argues that more classified information is produced per year than unclassified information, with around 250 million classified pages created in the year 2001 alone (in comparison, Harvard's library added only 66 million pages of material in that same period)".[2]"

This is a rough estimate by a single researcher. Per WP:V] "Exceptional claims require exceptional sources" and this single article is not enough for such a broad claim. Also note that our article on the World Wide Web says that as of 2005 there were "over 11.5 billion Web pages in the publicly indexable Web as of the end of January 2005.[3]." Past estimates had the web doubling every year. Even if that has slowed down considerably, it suggests an accretion of information far greater than 250 million pages per year. The notion that Harvard's library represents a major portion the unclassified universe is absurd. --agr (talk) 01:50, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Further confusing this estimate is the difference among creation, derivation, and production of classified material. Consider the following three examples:
  1. Dr. Frankenstein III invents the Q-Bomb. As completely new technology, someone in his chain of command designates the existence of the Q-Bomb as SECRET and its principles of operation as TOP SECRET/SAP CODEWORD KEW BALM.
  2. Colonels Alfa, Bravo, and Charlie, without any knowledge of the principles of operation and simple that there is a new weapon called the Q-Bomb, each write a contingency plan that is unclassified other than a reference to "the fact of" the Q-Bomb. Colonel Delta does not know if there is a Q-bomb or not, but writes a summary of rumors about it, all from news article, and classifies it as a collection. Depending on your definition, either no new classified material was created, or four pieces of it.
  3. Sergeant Whiskey makes ten copies each of the three contingency plans and five of the news summary.
Did this create one, two, six, or 41 pieces of classified material? Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 02:22, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
Right, and it's worse than that. I strongly suspect that the overwhelming majority of classified information by volume is raw intelligence data that is classified because knowledge of its existence would reveal sources and methods. What if the US has managed to install intercepts on all Internet traffic in and out of Iran and is storing all the bits for say a year, and this page gets accessed 6 times from Iran during a year? NSA would have 6 copies of this page, each at a different edit point, all classified.--agr (talk) 05:22, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
I LOL'ed at the 'what if'. The whole point of SCI is not the S, or the I, but the C. Sergeant Whiskey only knows what he has to, along with Colonel Delta. Ronabop (talk) 11:35, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] References

  1. ^ Sturtevant, Mary (Senate Intelligence Committee Staff) (Summer 1992), “Congressional Oversight of Intelligence: One Perspective”, American Intelligence Journal (National Military Intelligence Association) 
  2. ^ Peter Galison, "Removing Knowledge", Critical Inquiry 31 (August 2004). Available online at Secrecy film resources.
  3. ^ http://www.cs.uiowa.edu/~asignori/web-size/