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It is an intelligence community convention to write codewords in ALL CAPS to differentiate them from the normal use of the same word. This doesn't indicate that
by jcrawfordor 6y ago
It is an intelligence community convention to write codewords in ALL CAPS to differentiate them from the normal use of the same word. This doesn't indicate that they are acronyms. The appearance, though, combined with the fact that they are often in mixed use with acronyms, leads to a tendency for people to make up expansions of codewords which aren't intended to have one. Codewords were intentionally selected to have little if any relationship to what they describe.
To further muddy the waters, the military is just as fond of writing things in all caps as the intelligence community is, but they usually actually are acronyms or abbreviations. In contrast to TEMPEST consider PAVE PAWS, which is an acronym, and USSPACOM, which is abbreviation.