Every 3 months I had to endure an hour or more of security stuff, gotta do it, no way to cheat and if you lapse; you don't enter the building. You may be escorted in just to do the required training but nothing else.
My clearance was not SES level.
Bleachbit, et al; enforcement is selective obviously, stupidity and better than thou is too common but how can this not turn into a political flame war?
ProDarwin said:I no longer have a clearance and tried to run from that world. Through acquisitions and mergers I work for a company that is a DOD contractor again, and we have a similar internal system ("Technical Data"). Its such a royal pain in the ass, and its so convoluted its pretty hard to objectively analyze whether or not something needs to be marked as "tech data", so I'm sure just about everything is and I'm sure we spend $millions managing it.
Same here. We make stuff from government prints so we have to work under EAR 99 and ITAR stuff. Some of the stuff is ridiculous. If you have the prints within a filing cabinet in a room, you technically cannot have a foreign national (even if they are an employee with a work visa) in that room.
The funny thing to me is all the cyber security training that we all have to go through when all the hacks/viruses have been literally the fault of executive level employees.
Still waiting on the mandate to come down to ban TikTok on any device that we use to access emails. Seems like a pretty wise choice, IMO.
ProDarwin said:When you work in a world that deals with classified documents, there is never really any downside (to you) to not classify a document. You always err on the side of caution.
And so does everyone else.
And next thing you know, lunch memos, that meme you sent your co worker, etc. are all classified.
Using those examples just for funsies, individually those things may be pointless (who cares that Candace got a roast beef sub on the 14th of last month?) but collect enough data like that and patterns emerge. Maybe you find that someone you want to target always goes to X by himself every other Wednesday.
Maybe you find that Y person shares the majority of memes, you cross reference those memes to places they had been posted in the previous 24 hours, you figure out a person's real identity, or at least find out what online groups they are a part of, and from there you can use mentalist type tactics to adjust their thinking by making and posting carefully curated memes to those online groups. With luck he or she will repost them to the government group, a possible indication that they may be receptive to advances from your own government's agency (aka get recruited as a mole)...
It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you!
In reply to fasted58 :
See above regarding the process being only as good as the operators. There is a check-out system in place. Also see above regarding the overwhelming number of documents. The retention policy is three, seven, or forever years for us, but until last year, it never went away.
A few years ago I was reviewing some documents in our file room at work and came across a letter my Dad wrote to my agency in the early/mid 70s. He was fresh out of college and worked for "the regulated community" at the time. The letter was in response to an air quality complaint and he described to the agency director a dust suppressant he was going to apply to a haul road to remediate. Dad is long retired, but I asked about it and he said they sprayed used motor oil on the road as the required environmental control. These details are irrelevant, but there in my hands was an insignificant piece of paper from the dawn of the CAA and CWA that had been kept in a folder on a shelf for 50 years. A completely inconsequential, irrelevant, and uncataloged record of a minor exchange regarding a section of logging road in the middle of nowhere. It's meaningless, but it's a classified document nonetheless. I've had that piece of paper for nearly a decade. I work from home now and it's in my desk here as I write. It will probably stay there when I retire. If that leak is ever discovered, the press will have a field day.
This absolutely happens at a stupid level in the commercial business world! Here's the end of an email I recently received:
"CONFIDENTIAL NOTICE: This e-mail transmission (and the attachments, if any, accompanying it) may contain confidential information. The information is intended only for the use of the intended recipient. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any forwarding, disclosure, copying, distribution, or the taking of any action in reliance on the contents of this information is strictly prohibited. Any unauthorized interception of this transmission is illegal under the law. If you have received this transmission in error, please promptly notify the sender by reply e-mail, and then destroy all copies of the transmission."
Really? This email was from a salesperson who was specifically sending me information to share with my colleagues. All the information was also posted on their website, for all the public to see.
This idiocy infuriates me. I believe many courts have held that you cannot simply blanket-mark everything Confidential, and that having things like "Bill's 500th Birthday Lunch" marked Confidential removes the Confidentiality from other things. And, many courts have held that I can freely share information sent to me, especially since I never asked for it nor agreed to any Confidentiality. Your stupidity in sending me your company's secret plans in no way obligates me to anything.
The boring parts in the middle of "Sum of All Fears" is about this topic.
In reply to Streetwiseguy :
Written by someone whose first book had so much classified information in it that he was visited by representatives of various TLAs, who were astonished/annoyed to learn that everything in THfRO was gleaned from stuff he found in his local library.
And, oddly enough, one of the plot points in the book was that the former naval officer who ran the computer program to determine the Red October's sound characteristics, figured out that the Red October's captain was trying to defect to the US, just from scuttlebutt and the nightly news... and the officer who he mentioned this to (who was one of maybe five people in the US who very much did know that Ramius was trying to defect) had a mild heart attack...
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
I like his disclaimer at the end of SOAF where he says he was really disturbed by how easily he figured out how to build a nuke, so just to assuage his conscience, he altered some of the technical details.
Not a bunch of secret recipes out there anymore.
Pete. (l33t FS) said:Using those examples just for funsies, individually those things may be pointless (who cares that Candace got a roast beef sub on the 14th of last month?) but collect enough data like that and patterns emerge. Maybe you find that someone you want to target always goes to X by himself every other Wednesday.
That's one way people have learned that something in the world is "happening"- tracking the local takeout next to intelligence agencies and seeing when they're super busy. Some student group did that to the Pentagon back in Desert Storm (thus learning about it before most) and it led to them banning dominoes for a bit.
So say, a reciept for food may be a piece of nothing. It may also be further proof of some kind of meeting. Finding the difference between the two is intelligence.
Streetwiseguy said:The boring parts in the middle of "Sum of All Fears" is about this topic.
SOAF and Red Storm Rising were two of my favourite Clancy novels.
Streetwiseguy said:I like his disclaimer at the end of SOAF where he says he was really disturbed by how easily he figured out how to build a nuke, so just to assuage his conscience, he altered some of the technical details.
Not a bunch of secret recipes out there anymore.
As I understand it, there's been a general knowledge of how to build a basic atomic (fission-only) bomb since the 60s at least. The basic concepts are pretty straightforward and the hard part is getting the nuclear material. The secrets of hydrogen (fusion) bombs are a lot more complicated and Clancy's representation of it took more artistic license.
That's actually a plot point in the book, IIRC. The government officials don't believe it's a terrorist attack at first because it's too powerful to be a simple fission bomb.
One thing that I found less believable in the Ryan-verse is when he tried to blend in the effects of 9/11 in a later novel. I have to believe that a couple of planes hitting buildings would seem a whole lot less significant if someone had set off a nuke in Denver a few years before...
Tom_Spangler (Forum Supporter) said:Mr_Asa said:Thats the long and short of the how it works with the most recent story in the news. Problem isn't with VPOTUS at the time, but with their staff. With the controlled materials officer, their staff, and potentially the folk that hired the C.M.O.
Agreed, with one caveat. Ultimately, the VPOTUS or whover the executive is, is responsible for the actions of their staff. They hired the person that did the hiring, etc.
I'm not gonna disagree, but at some point knowing who your head of staff hired, and who they hired, and who they hired and how that lowest level person is doing is called micromanaging.
Hopefully someone as high up as a General/Congressman/Senator/or above is not doing that and is actually doing their job.
Politicians mishandling classified docs isn't the same level of punishment as say an enlisted guy like me. I currently have a TS/SCI w/Poly, am I breaking some rules by posting that, maybe lol. Seriously, depending on the material its either a joke or serious business. If I did any of the stuff our leader and former leader did, best believe I wouldn't still have my clearance and probably demoted lol.
yupididit said:Politicians mishandling classified docs isn't the same level of punishment as say an enlisted guy like me. I currently have a TS/SCI w/Poly, am I breaking some rules by posting that, maybe lol. Seriously, depending on the material its either a joke or serious business. If I did any of the stuff our leader and former leader did, best believe I wouldn't still have my clearance and probably demoted lol.
codrus (Forum Supporter) said:One thing that I found less believable in the Ryan-verse is when he tried to blend in the effects of 9/11 in a later novel. I have to believe that a couple of planes hitting buildings would seem a whole lot less significant if someone had set off a nuke in Denver a few years before...
To be clear, the fictional plane hit the House well before the real 9/11.
You are correct, though. That's the glory of fiction.
yupididit said:Politicians mishandling classified docs isn't the same level of punishment as say an enlisted guy like me. I currently have a TS/SCI w/Poly, am I breaking some rules by posting that, maybe lol. Seriously, depending on the material its either a joke or serious business. If I did any of the stuff our leader and former leader did, best believe I wouldn't still have my clearance and probably demoted lol.
One person on another forum said, paraphrased, "I am a Staff Sargent and if I had ONE of those documents in my possession, I would not see daylight again."
I'm not military, nor am I political, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.
There was just a pretty detailed story on NPR about this where they interviewed the former DAG about the process.
Evidently, every document gets registered with the Library of Congress so it can be categorized and officially documented that it exists, just like Tom Clancy novels get an ISBN before they're put on the shelf at your local library. In the case of modern electronic stuff, the digital copy is hard to track if there is one. There are also times when the POTUS or someone else high-up needs the classified information right away. For instance, if Putin armed his nukes and pointed them at DC, they wouldn't take the time to type it up and get it to the LoC first, it's a 3am phone call and email to POTUS with the details.
Long story short, the former DAG described it as a big bunch of swiss cheese. Stuff falls through the cracks daily. And he also emphasized that classified doesn't mean something like the identities of all of our CIA operatives, it could be something like the fact that the transcript included a phone number or an address that would simply violate the privacy or safety of someone if it were to fall into public hands. Illegal to possess, maybe. Immoral, not for me to know or care about.
This subject is political by nature. This thread drifted that way within a few posts.
Not my website, not my problem
The difference between the events involving the last two guys is that one of them knew where the stuff was, and kept it secure the entire time, the other one did not. The one that did not certainly violated the law, the other one, apparently not. The double standard is pretty striking.
codrus (Forum Supporter) said:Streetwiseguy said:I like his disclaimer at the end of SOAF where he says he was really disturbed by how easily he figured out how to build a nuke, so just to assuage his conscience, he altered some of the technical details.
Not a bunch of secret recipes out there anymore.
As I understand it, there's been a general knowledge of how to build a basic atomic (fission-only) bomb since the 60s at least. The basic concepts are pretty straightforward and the hard part is getting the nuclear material. The secrets of hydrogen (fusion) bombs are a lot more complicated and Clancy's representation of it took more artistic license.
That's actually a plot point in the book, IIRC. The government officials don't believe it's a terrorist attack at first because it's too powerful to be a simple fission bomb.
One thing that I found less believable in the Ryan-verse is when he tried to blend in the effects of 9/11 in a later novel. I have to believe that a couple of planes hitting buildings would seem a whole lot less significant if someone had set off a nuke in Denver a few years before...
One of the other interesting things is that anything nuclear in content cannot be declassified. Ever. The DoE will not sign off on it.
It could be a single paragraph of something like "Pu-239 is hazardous, do not consume or play around with it with a screwdriver" and it can't ever be declassified.
Now, NEW non-classified documents containing the same info can be released, but the original? Never.
Streetwiseguy said:codrus (Forum Supporter) said:One thing that I found less believable in the Ryan-verse is when he tried to blend in the effects of 9/11 in a later novel. I have to believe that a couple of planes hitting buildings would seem a whole lot less significant if someone had set off a nuke in Denver a few years before...
To be clear, the fictional plane hit the House well before the real 9/11.
You are correct, though. That's the glory of fiction.
Yeah, I'm not talking about the Japanese 747 at the end of Debt of Honor. Sum of All Fears has a nuke going off in Denver, and then one of his later books (I think it was Teeth of the Tiger) was written after 9/11 happened in the real world and he tries to insert it into the universe of his books. It didn't really work.
Teeth of the Tiger was the last book he wrote on his own and to be frank it kinda sucks. I like most of his novels, but that one isn't worth reading.
codrus (Forum Supporter) said:Streetwiseguy said:codrus (Forum Supporter) said:One thing that I found less believable in the Ryan-verse is when he tried to blend in the effects of 9/11 in a later novel. I have to believe that a couple of planes hitting buildings would seem a whole lot less significant if someone had set off a nuke in Denver a few years before...
To be clear, the fictional plane hit the House well before the real 9/11.
You are correct, though. That's the glory of fiction.
Yeah, I'm not talking about the Japanese 747 at the end of Debt of Honor. Sum of All Fears has a nuke going off in Denver, and then one of his later books (I think it was Teeth of the Tiger) was written after 9/11 happened in the real world and he tries to insert it into the universe of his books. It didn't really work.
Teeth of the Tiger was the last book he wrote on his own and to be frank it kinda sucks. I like most of his novels, but that one isn't worth reading.
Ah. It's been a while since I read that. I read the first one ghost written, and that was it. They are not the same books, are they?
Toebra said:This subject is political by nature. This thread drifted that way within a few posts.
Not my website, not my problem
The difference between the events involving the last two guys is that one of them knew where the stuff was, and kept it secure the entire time, the other one did not. The one that did not certainly violated the law, the other one, apparently not. The double standard is pretty striking.
The difference is that one of them was hounded for years to turn the documents in, and the other found the documents and immediately and voluntarily handed them in. Then they (or someone did) went and found some more and got those turned in
Streetwiseguy said:Ah. It's been a while since I read that. I read the first one ghost written, and that was it. They are not the same books, are they?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Clancy_bibliography
IMHO Rainbow Six was the last really good novel he wrote. The Bear & The Dragon felt like a re-run of a lot of previous themes (although it did have a few fun scenes in it), and Red Rabbit and Teeth of the Tiger just kind of fell flat. I think he ran out of things to write about in the Jack Ryan universe and for some reason was unwilling or unable to start something new. The Jack Ryan Jr stuff was sort of an attempt at that, but it's still carrying the baggage of a dozen "OK, now top this" novels that came before. IMHO he should have started a new universe that diverged from the real world in 2003, rather than carrying on with the one from the 80s.
He had plenty of money by that point though, so perhaps the motivation wasn't there? I dunno.
I haven't read any of the co-written/ghost-written later stuff.
This was an interesting read, thanks folks. Some of it surprised me, some didn't. What I found most interesting, and really does explain the huge number of 'classified' documents is the lunch order thing. Yeah, it might seem mundane and pointless, but it could provide just a little bit of intel. You get enough little bits of intel, and suddenly it's a situation LOL. The anecdote about folks watching a fast food restaurant and discovering Desert Storm illustrates that pretty well.
In reply to Toebra:
No, this isn't political. A discussion about government doesn't have to be political, just like a discussion about politics doesn't have to be about government. Politics are ideals, government is about action (or lack thereof haha). My question was how, in this particular instance, does the government work to allow what I perceive as a potentially scary thing from happening. I get it now. For better or for worse.
BoulderG said:This absolutely happens at a stupid level in the commercial business world! Here's the end of an email I recently received:
"CONFIDENTIAL NOTICE: This e-mail transmission (and the attachments, if any, accompanying it) may contain confidential information. The information is intended only for the use of the intended recipient. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any forwarding, disclosure, copying, distribution, or the taking of any action in reliance on the contents of this information is strictly prohibited. Any unauthorized interception of this transmission is illegal under the law. If you have received this transmission in error, please promptly notify the sender by reply e-mail, and then destroy all copies of the transmission."
Really? This email was from a salesperson who was specifically sending me information to share with my colleagues. All the information was also posted on their website, for all the public to see.
This idiocy infuriates me. I believe many courts have held that you cannot simply blanket-mark everything Confidential, and that having things like "Bill's 500th Birthday Lunch" marked Confidential removes the Confidentiality from other things. And, many courts have held that I can freely share information sent to me, especially since I never asked for it nor agreed to any Confidentiality. Your stupidity in sending me your company's secret plans in no way obligates me to anything.
When companies mean business about keeping things secret, they set up a procedure of pointlessly CC'ing lawyers just to shield their communications from future investigations:
You'll need to log in to post.
