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Bear in mind that you have to have a "need to know" in addition to your clearance. We can speculate that there are also levels beyond top secret. In particular,

Bear in mind that you have to have a "need to know" in addition to your clearance. We can speculate that there are also levels beyond top secret. In particular, eyes-only for the most sensitive stuff [1], and (what I have seen called but can't find a reference for) code-word secrecy for particular projects/operations. [1] Which is where the Bond film For Your Eyes Only gets its title.

Tamerlin 16y ago
The clearance levels that I can remember are: confidential secret top secret top secret ssbi -- "single scope background investigation" top secret sci -- "secured compartmentalized information" IIRC There are probably others above that that I don't remember. TS and TS/SSBI might be the same thing with different investigations. I'm not sure.
- philwelch 16y ago
  "SCI" (Secured Compartmentalized Information) is a separate clearance for some specific set of information. For instance, since my dad worked with tactical nukes in the Marine Corps, he had a Top Secret clearance with SCI authorization from the Atomic Energy Commission. So he was cleared to access any information classified Top Secret as well as any information protected by the AEC on a need-to-know basis. Arbitrarily high levels of clearance can probably be implemented as separate SCI authorizations.