Potentially classified material gets burned first, and then the ash and smoke go through a shredder before being burned again, with feeling this time. After th

Potentially classified material gets burned first, and then the ash and smoke go through a shredder before being burned again, with feeling this time. After that, it gets vented out through at least three different chimneys--with armed guards on each one, to shoot anyone that sniffs too deeply. All because of something that probably happened in the 80s, when someone was able to recover secret information from a paper document that had been burned in an insecure way. I mean, if the Soviets could eavesdrop on a mechanical typewriter, and all methods and practices are always classified on all sides, how would we ever know whether anyone can use packing tape and a relatively abundant type of medical scanner to read words off a burned page or not? (the fictional portions of this post are based on an amalgam of true stories)