Posted on 09/07/2006 12:40:39 PM PDT by doug from upland
You're mistaken. The lowest level of classfication on a document is confidential. Secret is next, then Top Secret. Various "caveats" may be applied indicating the nature and reason for the classication. At the time the clearance is granted, the security officer explains all the penalties for revealing any of the protected information. The range is nominally 10 years in federal prison to execution.
Do you believe everything you read? A TS clearance starts with about 40 pages of detailed forms on everything imaginable. Then the background investigations start. It can take upwards of a year for a TS to go "final" before you are permitted access to any material classified at that level.
You are *quite* mistaken... The lowest security clearance is "Confidential", followed by "Secret", then "Top Secret" (with a few others after that which are Top Secret followed by some special identifier, at various levels). Top Secret isn't at the bottom, but near the top, and *not* handed outout like popcorn...
the infowarrior
Sure was handed out like popcorn to the D.C. high school kids embedded in the FBI this summer. To say nothing of the girl in the blue dress getting that same designation.
I had a TOP SECRET Clearance and
1.) I was a more-than-regular pain in the ass in High School. The dean wrote a letter of "non recommendation" to my college.
2.) I drank way too much in college.
3.) My parents were pinkos and clearly far from stable.
Top Secret is the highest level of security clearance. There is compartmentalized information that requires special breifings, but no "higher" level. In the day, a TOP SECRET clearance took almost a year.
A SECRET clearance is based on what is essentially a police records check, a CONFIDENTIAL merely requires the applicant to fill out a form, which is later checked for veracity. TOP SECRET requires extensive interviews with neighbors, employers, and others who might have had dealings with the applicant.
I wonder how many of these people are still within government.
I'm with you. My current job in the FedGov required a BI. I handed the investigator my TS clearance, he looked at it and said, "That's nice," and handed it back.
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