Touchy Topics -- #2
…Considering controversial concerns (Classification)
NOTE: Our title today is “Touchy Topics — #2.” We noted in our prior post, Touchy Topics — #1 (3 March 2025), that we intend to discuss several topics from the list that we included there. To avoid repeating the full list in each successive post, we provide a hyperlink to the list for our readers. You may test the link and see the list here. In #1, we discussed “immigration.” Today we focus on national security and classified information.
Introduction
In everyday discourse, “classify” is a normal verb that means arranging somethings into classes or categories according to shared qualities or characteristics. When one of the categories is secrecy, the word takes on an additional more specific meaning. In practice, protection of sensitive information has a few defined degrees of seriousness. The US government classifies sensitive information into three levels: confidential, secret, and top secret. Each level represents increasing degrees of potential damage to national security if disclosed. How that potential damage is assessed is not clear, but it must be a subjective judgement that the assessor hopes is never tested by actual exposure. There is also what is termed Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) that does not rise to the “very bad damage if released” level, but still must be controlled as sensitive, not unlike corporate proprietary intellectual property prior to patenting.
A caveat: Any brief overview of classification must be an oversimplification because the in-force rules are spelled out in excruciating detail in a succession of presidential executive orders and agency regulations.
Truth and fiction
In today’s world, there is no doubt that holding some information close is necessary for the safety and security of one’s own nation, allied nations, and the peoples of both. What also goes without saying is that determining what information is so sensitive that it needs restriction and what ought not be hidden from the public is a process that requires expertise and experience and can be easily corrupted. Two fallacious criteria give us a top-heavy system that is justifiably suspect in the public’s mind. A better-safe-than-sorry timidity leads authorized classifiers to stamp secret on a document when any actual damage caused by its release would be little or even none or when the information in it is outside the technical expertise of the reviewer. That’s overly cautious truth. A fully inappropriate rationale to classify is prevention of embarrassment for the administration, an agency, or an individual. That political motive, to sidestep the media learning of facts that the public deserves to know, especially before an election, cannot be justified. The contention that release would damage the nation in this case is pure fiction.
Who is authorized?
Classifiers: Original Classification Authority is a responsibility of the US president, vice president and others who have been assigned that duty in writing, normally through those presidential executive orders. An Authorized Derivative Classifier determines the classification of information based on existing classified source material that’s been incorporated into new material. These same people determine the appropriate level of classification. It is normal for the people closest to where the information was “created” to make such decisions because that is where the expertise lies. It could be a properly trained scientist at a national security research laboratory* or an intelligence officer vetting a stream of potentially sensitive information under their purview. Protocols exist for review of such decisions at higher levels of authority before they are final. This all seems sensible.
Declassifiers: The authority to declassify is not nearly as straightforward in practice, although it exists as a routine process on paper. If not the original classifier, you are second guessing that person’s judgement. If much time has elapsed, often many years, no one originally involved is there to remember the original rationale and circumstances. And again, a better safe than sorry fear prevails. Also, In the US, authority to declassify depends on which department of government classified in the first place. If it was one’s own, then declassifying is a prerogative of the Secretary. But if classified status was imposed by another department, interagency negotiation ensues, an arduous process at best.
Access: People who need access to classified information must first have a security clearance consistent with the level of access desired, i.e., confidential, secret, or top secret. Being afforded a clearance first depends on whether your work requires it. After filling out an extensive form about your background, relationships, and finances, a deep investigation of your character, affiliations, and habits is conducted by a government agency, usually the FBI or Treasury, that includes in-person interviews of friends, family, and neighbors.
Then you might think that you finally will have access to classified information. But that’s not enough. For the specific information you want to see, you must first demonstrate a “need to know” before files are opened. This hierarchy of classification and access levels may seem overdone, but it does protect the nation from current and potential security threats. Unfortunately, the entire protective structure can be obviated with one stroke of the pen of a reckless president who wants his unvetted friends to burrow into the nation’s secrets.
Leakage, divulgence, and inadvertence
Whereas most transgressions of the law distinguish between intentional and unintentional violations, not so with compromising certain types of classified information. According to the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, inadvertent exposure or the impression of release without actual compromise of nuclear-related information is punishable. There is a bit of institutional paranoia involved, likely arising from a Cold War mentality.
Intentional: A few notorious examples of leakage remain in our collective memory. The so-called Pentagon Papers leaked by military analyst Daniel Ellsberg exposed the fallacies provided to the public about the war in Vietnam.[1] CIA Director, General David Petraeus, leaked information to his mistress and biographer as well as reporters.[2] Edward Snowden of the US National Security Agency revealed information about governmental mass surveillance programs and is now residing, unpunished, in Russia.[3] Several individuals remain in prison for releasing classified information.[4] Were these cavalier, careless, or patriotic actions by the principals?
If these folks were blocking traffic on a highway to draw attention and to make their point, and were arrested for that civil disobedience, I would probably sympathize, whether I agreed with the reason for their discontent or not. I do acknowledge that if I were stuck in the traffic jam they caused, my patience would quickly wear thin. I guess the degree of approval depends on how directly affected we are by misbehavior. A better analogy to the release of classified information would be if the traffic disruption cost someone their life. It would be hard to justify that, regardless of the merits of the demonstrators’ cause.
Inadvertent: When this author worked in a secure environment, I was aware that if an empty folder with an external label indicating “classified” were to have been left exposed on my desk while an uncleared person passed by my open door, I was in serious trouble. There is also innocent stupidity that obtains when a person authorized to have restricted items decides it is OK to take them out of their secure location in order to work on them at home, or some other lame excuse. After all, what could go wrong? If they were lost, I am afraid the explanation that “My dog ate my homework” would not be a sufficiently mitigating circumstance.
Recent breaches: Although we write here about formally classified information, there is national security information that is not formally classified, either because it has yet to be subjected to that process or it is part of ongoing and developing activity. A recording or document is not needed. The spoken word to the wrong person or in an open environment is sufficient to comprise a violation of the US Espionage Act.[5]
The very recent “Signal-gate” debacle wherein national security information was discussed on an unsecure medium [6] as well as reports of similar transgressions via both the Signal messaging service and Gmail reflect naïve and ignorant understanding of the need to protect information. Potential endangerment of our own forces and of sources of information can result from the extraordinary malfeasance displayed there. Another egregious example is now receding into our history. The unprosecuted violation was the unsecure sequestering of many classified and other sensitive documents at a resort in the US State of Florida.[7] Ridiculous claims of privilege or ex post facto declassification by the wave of a hand do not justify potential exposure to resort visitors from all countries, including US adversaries.
The required official reaction when classified information appears in public, such as when a magazine explains how to design a nuclear weapon, is to neither confirm nor deny and to have “no comment” while maintaining its classified status.[8]
More categories
Nuclear is special: In the nuclear weapons world, the nature of information is subdivided further. There are Restricted Data (RD) and Formerly Restricted Data (FRD). These are further partitioned. The term “sigma category” is used to identify subcategories. Such refinements can create interesting difficulties. Back in the day, when engineers in the group that I managed were working on weapons design for a neighboring group, I did not have the “sigmas” needed to know about their work. Assessing the performance of subordinates when you’re blind to what they are doing is no mean feat.
Nuclear weapons fall under both the US Departments of Energy (DoE) and Defense (DoD). The former designs and builds while the latter deploys. Each agency has its own procedures and criteria for classification and clearances. It is easy to imagine how interagency work can suffer extra complexity as a result. Within DoE, where the weapons work is overseen, sits the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) that was recently gutted by mistake and inadequately repaired by the current Administration. We can assume that the art of classification will prevent us from ever knowing the extent of the damage.
Not quite classified, but close: A subcategory of CUI is Unclassified Controlled Nuclear Information (UCNI) that, as the name suggests, needs to be held close but does not rise to the level of bad damage to the nation if divulged.
Remediation – a vain hope
Secrecy is necessary. The overly complex system that has grown haphazardly is not. Any intelligent review of the processes embedded in the system would mean delving into the actual application of the rules and regulations in practice. Thus, the very act of trying to streamline the system would be subject to clearances and defined access rights received from the system itself. That unavoidable circular conundrum is, no doubt, why the overly burdensome structure still lives.
* Your Cycloid Fathom author was once one of those so-trained individuals.
Credits: Safe Leaking Documents and “I Need to Know” images are from OpenAI.com’s DALL-E image generator.
Mar a Lago Stage Show image is from ref. [7]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_Papers
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petraeus_scandal
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden
[4] See, for example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_Winner and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Teixeira
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Espionage_Act_of_1917
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_government_group_chat_leak
[7] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/photos-from-trump-indictment-show-boxes-of-classified-documents-stored-in-mar-a-lago-shower-ballroom
[8] https://www.nytimes.com/1979/03/11/archives/us-journals-have-printed-atom-bomb-directions.html
Nota Bene: Others may ruminate differently. But be warned: In my case, seeing or hearing something quite trivial -- a saying, a store clerk’s mannerisms, or bad grammar on a food product’s label – triggers a stream-of-consciousness extrapolation toward grander notions and generalizations. That is what often happens in these posts. ADDENDUM: Those subscribers who have been here for a while will have noticed that at times Ruminations has veered into diatribes. I make no apology. I just want my readers to know that it’s quite intentional. When events come close to making the ‘blood boil,’ that discontent bubbles up here.
Disclaimer: Any and all opinions expressed here are my own at the time of writing with no expectation that they will hold beyond my next review of this article. Opinions are like a river, winding hither and yon, encountering obstacles and rapids, and suffering turbulent mixing of silts from its depths and detritus from its banks. But just as a river has its clear headwaters and a fertile delta, so do opinions, notwithstanding any intervening missteps and uncertainties.
Reminder: You can visit the Cycloid Fathom Technical Publishing website at cycloid-fathom.com and the gallery at cycloid-fathom.com/gallery.
Forthcoming posts (unless life intervenes)
The Night and our Knights
…Fighting the darkness
19 May 2025
Fear, fantasy, fortune, and failure
…Rumination residues
26 May 2025
Reflections and Reminiscences
…prosaic prose versus pathetic poesy
2 June 2025
How well the well (is doing)
…Learn less, know less
9 June 2025
