Posted BY: Stephan Helgesen
I suppose it’s just a matter of time before we hear that excuse tripping off the tongues of our D.C. officials. It’s just as ludicrous as leaving classified documents in a box in your garage by your vintage sports car and expecting the rest of us to believe that that’s preferable to storing them properly.
Thousands of government employees, military personnel, and private sector contractors have security clearances and routinely handle classified documents on a daily basis. I know I did for 20 years in embassies and at consulates worldwide. We had special folders for them with bright red “CLASSIFIED” emblazoned on the covers. The classifications ranged from “Limited Official Use” (LOU) to “Confidential” to “Secret” to “Top Secret.” (There are also classifications that go beyond ‘Top Secret.’)
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The U.S. classification of information system has three classification levels — Top Secret, Secret, and Confidential — which are defined in EO 12356.2. Section 1.1(a) of EO 12356 states that: (a) National Security Information (from now on “classified information”) shall be classified at one of the following three levels: (1) “Top Secret” shall be applied to information, the unauthorized disclosure of which reasonably could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security. (2) “Secret” shall be applied to information, the unauthorized disclosure of which reasonably could be expected to cause serious damage to national security. (3) “Confidential” shall be applied to information, the unauthorized disclosure of which reasonably could be expected to cause damage to national security.
