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I used to be in the intelligence field, and I held a top secret SCI clearance for about five years. What most people don't realize about classified information
by throwaway31 15y ago
I used to be in the intelligence field, and I held a top secret SCI clearance for about five years.
What most people don't realize about classified information is that it's not the information itself that's so sensitive; it's the means via which such information is acquired that must be protected. If this were not so, targets could simply sidestep our intelligence collection vectors.
I rarely dealt with any classified information that was interesting or surprising. It's mostly stuff you would expect. The technologies and methods used to acquire a piece of intelligence were always more interesting than the intelligence itself.
- libraryatnight 15y agoJust to play up the intrigue, perhaps you don't know of the information or clearances being mentioned. ;) "...a person who didn't previously know they even existed."
- fragsworth 15y agoThe article spoke distinctly of security clearances that you don't even know exist. You probably didn't have those.
- frisco 15y agoTop Secret SCI ("secret compartmentalized information") isn't one clearance: each SCI has a codeword, and you get cleared individually for each one. That's probably what Ellsberg means by about to receive "15 or 20 special clearances", and what throwaway is referring to. It's not uncommon for TS-cleared individuals to be additionally cleared on at least one TS-SCI thing. Obviously codeword-classified information can vary in interestingness.
- SoftwareMaven 15y agoIt doesn't even need to be top secret. There are "special access" projects at secret level as well.
- count 15y agoSCI is 'Sensitive' compartmentalized information, not 'secret'. SCI information can be SECRET or TOP SECRET (or, in theory, FOUO, although that would be weird). Not all SCI compartments are codeworded, some just have names or acronyms (e.g. HCS - HUMINT CONTROL SYSTEM [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensitive_Compartmented_Information] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensitive_Compartmented_Informa...) As a Govt leader, rather than a working-class flub DOD employee, Ellsberg was probably referring to various SAP access that Kissinger was about to be read into. SCI is just one SAP (well, most people consider it as such, but the IC seems to disagree for legal basis reasons). This article is actually pretty good for once: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_access_program http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_access_program
- firemanx 15y agoIt's likely referring to the SCI status - the point of SCI, over and above just Secret or Top Secret, is that you have different "compartments" (clearances) for different categories of information. A guy with SCI working for the DOE would see much different information than a guy working for the DOD, or the FAA. And it's much more granular than that. I don't know anything about how the SCI compartments are created, only that you can be cleared for one more many when you reach that point, though you'll never know the full gamut of which compartments exist or don't exist until you are cleared for each one. Thus, there are likely many clearances/compartments that a great many people don't know exist or don't exist. I suspect there isn't really anyone who knows what every compartment is.
- derefr 15y ago> I suspect there isn't really anyone who knows what every compartment is. Unless the process is completely decentralized, there must be someone approving new compartments. They probably know at least a little about each one.
- extension 15y agoOnce the authority to keep secrets has been delegated, it seems almost inconceivable that anybody would know all of them.
- derefr 15y agoIt seems to me that either someone knows about all the compartments, or there is a high likelihood of redundant and overlapping compartments being created accidentally. It probably is okay for one clearance to actually be represented as five or six because of bureaucracy (that's basically just denormalization, and product management systems deal with it all the time); the real problem is that project X might be half-covered by compartment A, and half by compartment B, and you just end up getting assigned both (thus exposing you to more classified material than you should know) because there's no one with enough oversight to create compartment C = A∩B, make A and B into A'=A-C and B'=B-C, and then just assign people A and C while leaving out B. Basically, imagine trying to do library science without being able to know what information you're managing. The classifications created would quickly become senseless and incoherent.
- lesterbuck 15y agoI thought I read somewhere once that it was a violation of security procedures to reveal your security clearance level (unless it was in doing your job to access information). Is it ok to mention you used to hold a top secret SCI after the fact?
- frisco 15y agoNot in general. Notice that our friend is a throwaway account.
- phaus 15y agoIf you weren't allowed to mention the fact that you have one, then nobody would ever be able to apply for a government contracted job. What the government doesn't want is people going out to a club and getting hammered and then telling a bunch of strangers that you have a clearance because it makes you a target in a situation where you are already vulnerable. The funny thing is, a clearance doesn't give you a need to know. From my experience the overwhelming majority of people with a Top Secret clearance don't have access to anything that is even remotely interesting.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- zacharycohn 15y agoYou can say you have clearances, but you aren't supposed to talk about what level. When I was leaving the agency I worked for, I had to get what I wanted to write on my resume approved. They told me I had to remove my clearance level.
- epoxyhockey 15y agoSecurity procedures don't apply to you once you no longer have a clearance. Except for, of course, revealing the protected information until it is declassified. Yes, the security structure can seem a bit artificial at times, like: - During cleared professionals-only job fairs. - Leaving a cleared job and all of a sudden there are no reporting requirements or security procedures. It's as if the gov't refuses to acknowledge that sensitive info is still in your head.
- dasht 15y agoWhat authority creates and polices an SCI clearance? Who makes the decision about whether and when to extend that clearance?
- epoxyhockey 15y agoFile a FOIA request and tell us what answer you get back.
- count 15y agoDCI in general, and it depends on the specific SCI compartment.
- Sniffnoy 15y ago> If this were not so, targets could simply sidestep our intelligence collection vectors. Sorry, could you explain this? I can't seem to put this together.
- scott_s 15y agoIf the people we're gathering intelligence on (the "targets") knew how we are collecting that intelligence (the "vectors"), then they'd be able to avoid being spied on.
- rdl 15y agoAlso, sometimes the vectors themselves, if exposed, would cause diplomatic incidents -- human intelligence (spies), placed within a foreign government, or illegal means of collection (black bag job breakins, tapping undersea cables in national waters, ...).
- Sniffnoy 15y agoAh, so by "if this were not so" he meant "if they weren't protected"? I read it as "if they didn't have to be protected", which is why I was confused.
- bdr 15y agoIf you knew your phone was tapped, you could stop using it.
- bediger 15y agoI had a "Secret" clearance twice upon a time. Absolutely nothing I saw while I had that clearance was of the slightest interest. In fact, everything that I knew that was classified ended up appearing in Aviation Week. And no, I wasn't the leaker. But I regard that as a symptom of over-classification, and speaks directly to the "fifteen or twenty" clearances Kissinger was about to get that were above a Top Secret. Ultimately, there's only a few "national security" secrets, but there's mega boatloads of career-ending blunders, minor and major wastes of time and money, graft and corruption. Over-classification and compartmentalization solves all of those problems by covering them up.
- zacharycohn 15y agoThe reason for so many different levels of classification isn't "this is more sensitive than Top Secret, and this is more sensitive than that, and THIS is even MORE sensitive, etc etc." It's about compartmentalization - a guy who works intel in Iraq doesn't need to know about North Korean intel collection techniques, so it's classified differently and compartmentalized.
- true_religion 15y agoIs that a good example? You may not need to know about the data collected in another compartment/agency but it would be useful to at least know how they are collecting data because you can then refine your own techniques.
- anigbrowl 15y agoThe flip side of that is that if a hostile power penetrates your network in one context and finds that you employ global clearance standards, the antagonist can roll up or contaminate your intelligence networks on a global scale.
- rdtsc 15y agoActually no. There is a trade-off there. Compartmentalization implies duplication of work and waste but it protects against one compromised person leaking a whole lot of information. Imagine that North Koreans promised $2m to the Korean Intel Dept. employee to reveal their secrets. If the secrets and methodology is the same and shared as he Iraq Intel methodology that one person can cripple our the whole intelligence apparatus worldwide.
- sethg 15y agoYou don’t even need that much justification. http://www.samefacts.com/2002/12/secrecy-in-government/shhhhhhhhh-its-a-secret/ http://www.samefacts.com/2002/12/secrecy-in-government/shhhh... [quote] When I was young and irresponsible, I worked for the Justice Department, analyzing drug policy. In that capacity, I was put through the full security mumbo-jumbo and received a Top Secret clearance and, on top of that, clearances for various very highly taboo Codeword categories.... Having been cleared, what did I learn that it would then have been a felony for me to reveal? Nothing that would have helped the Russkis or the narco-bad-guys. But I did learn the names of assorted corrupt high-level officials in various of the Carribean banking havens Jeff MacNelly once lampooned as “Rinky-Dink and Tabasco.” No elaborate spying had been required to learn the names; apparently it was routine cafe gossip in the countries involved. So why, I asked, is this material classified? Not that I had any desire to reveal it, but I was curious. The senior security guy in the Criminal Division set me straight: Yes, everyone knew that the Rinky-Dink-and-Tabascanese Finance Minister, or Central Bank president, or whatever it was, was crookeder than a dog’s hind leg. He knew, we knew, the Prime Minister knew, the Prime Minister knew we knew, we knew he knew we knew, ad infinitum. Maybe the Rinky-Dink-and-Tabascanese voters didn’t know; that was their lookout. But it was our policy to make nice to Rinky-Dink and Tabasco (honest, I forget which contrylet we were talking about). If it were revealed publicly that the US Government had knowledge that Mr. So-and-so was on the take, that would embarrass the Rinky-Dink-and-Tabascanese government, thus impeding U.S. foreign policy. Ergo, properly classified. [unquote]
- throwaway31 15y agoThis is a great, relevant quote. It generalizes my original point better than I did: with classified material, the secrecy is always because of the how, not the what.
- rdtsc 15y agoWell in this case it seems to be more of the "why". The information was easily obtained, the information was known in the country of origin. What was not admissible is for everyone to know that US govt. knows about the information.
- 15y ago