Clearances

Every piece of information the government or military processes has a classification level assigned to it.

Currently, the federal government lists four levels of clearances that are associated with classification levels.

The other level is “No Clearance”.

Information that is classified as “Confidential” could cause damage to national security if disclosed. Note the weasel word “could”. The definition will often add “without authorization”.

This is the “lowest” classification. There are really two other levels below this.

There is For Official Use Only (FOUO) which is sometimes called Sensitive Unclassified.

This is information that anybody working at a government site might be exposed to. It may not carry any markings. So if you were to see a list of SSN, you don’t have to be told that those are Sensitive Unclassified or FOUO.

This is the same in the health care industry or data processing industry. By this, I mean that there are laws in place that protect people from sharing my personal information. My doctor can’t share my health information. I can’t share your name or email information, if I collect it via a credit card payment.

This doesn’t mean that people aren’t stupid. At one government installation I used to work at, they had a recycling program for paper. You could take used printer paper home to use for projects and stuff. Think of using it in the bottom of a bird cage.

The head of the installation put an end to it when he picked up something at a local shop, wrapped in used paper. The paper was from the installation and had SSN plus wages printed on it.

By the time I got to the installation, we had industrial shredders. Every piece of paper that would have gone in the garbage was fed through the shredders.

What does this mean in terms of the DOGE team? If they are properly employed and tasked to do the work they are doing, they have all the clearances they need to see FOUO and Sensitive, Unclassified material. They don’t need a clearance to see and work with that data.

As soon as we move to information that is classified, certain things become true. First, it is supposed to be marked.

This is one of the issues with the Hilary emails. She had information on her private server that had no markings, which came from classified sources. Those classified sources were marked.

In addition, she was informed that the source of that information was classified, and the information was classified, regardless of markings.

In other words, if I observe a weapons test and I see something that I know is or will be classified, I must treat it as classified. Even if it is not “marked”.

So information is classified. It is classified by level. Just because you have a clearance, it doesn’t mean that you have access to the information.

You must also have a need to know.

I, personally, got racked over the coals by one Army Officer and then got to watch our security officer rake him over the coals. The difference being that the Army Officer could have had lots worse happen to him.

He was in an area that implied he had a clearance. I knew he had a clearance. I even knew what level he had. It was higher than mine, at the time. He asked to see some classified information and I refused.

For this, I was raked over the coals by this officer. I told him that I had to have confirmation from my security officer that he had a need to know.

He stormed out, came back with my security officer. He explained. The security dude asked if the officer had it right. I said “yep.” The security dude then ripped the officer a new one.

The army officer had to have a need to know. He did. But I don’t get to make that determination. Only authorized people can do that. One such authorized person was my security officer.

Above Confidential is Secret, above that is Top Secret, and above that is Top Secret, Sensitive Compartmented Information.

To be granted any clearance, you need to be vetted. That requires you to fill out several invasive forms. These are then used to start a background check. How through these background checks are depends on the level of clearance being requested.

Your clearance doesn’t belong to you. It belongs to the entity that wants you to have a clearance. That entity must have a clearance. The entity requests that you be granted a clearance. Your entity then gets the paperwork from you which is then handed over to the investigators.

When you are granted your clearance, your entity will be informed. Your entity will have a security officer at the least and may have an entire office dedicated to handling clearances.

My entity was Cray Research. Once their security office was informed I had received my clearance, they informed the security office where I was employed. At that point, I had a clearance. And nobody would have given me a bit of classified information.

The people I worked directly with were told I had a clearance by their security office. The people I worked indirectly with I told. They then verified with their security office.

When I left that government installation, my clearance still existed. It was “owned” by Cray Research. My clearance didn’t mean anything because I wasn’t at a government installation.

When I went to different government locations, where I had a need to know, my security people sent the proper security magic to the locations where I was going. This allowed me to see what I had a need to see.

When I left Cray Research, my clearance still existed. Cray Research no longer owned it. Somebody in the government had control over it.

When I joined a different company, they put in a request for my clearance, and it was granted because it already existed.

Ok. Done with me.

What this means is that the people that DOGE is using could have had clearances because of other projects they had worked. When they started working for DOGE, their clearances were either transferred to DOGE or their entity informed DOGE of what clearances they had.

So this nice young man of 20 or so wants to inspect a computer system at CFPB. The administration says, “Hell no, you don’t have the clearances to see our systems because you might see our data.”

The young man calls his security office and has them transmit the clearances to CFPB security. “Call your security office, they will verify that I have the clearances to access the systems and the data.”

The administrator, having lost the first battle, says, “You don’t have a need to know.”

The young man presents the orders he has been given him by the boss of CFPB and that is satisfied, after verification.

That’s how clearances work.

Now, the current NPC talking point is that this young man is unelected, reports to Elon, and as such will access data he shouldn’t and then use it or leak it.

When you hear this, you should translate it to: “Are you saying the FBI and other agencies can’t do a background check? That this young man with clearances shouldn’t have them? What agency or person are you accusing of granting a clearance to somebody that can’t be trusted?”

Yeah, I’ve about had it with Democratic(NPC) talking points.