Above Top Secret: How MIL/INTEL classification ACTUALLY works—according to Daniel Ellsberg

[Jack Mallory]

I wanted to share this, not as something to "debunk", but more to use as a reference source regarding military/intelligence, secrecy, and the various methods employed to keep those secrets, as well as the types of layers and barriers that are put in place to secure those secrets. Think of it as a possible template when disputing or debunking the frequent claims of today's "Insiders," particularly in regards to their claims of Top Secret (and beyond) access.

What I find most interesting about this excerpt from Ellsberg's book (and the rest of the book as well) is that he offers a level of detail and insight about the inner-workings of these institutions that is completely absent from the retellings of the usual suspects that we've all come to know in love in the Twittersphere, the podcast realm and countless "documentaries" of the 21st century.

Why is it that we rarely, if ever, glean anything truly insightful or previously unknown from today's "whistleblowers"? If you take the time to read the excerpt from Ellsberg below, you can't help but notice a degree of authenticity to what he's describing. But there are two very different scenarios that could be extrapolated from his statements.

On one hand, if there are UFO retrieval and reverse-engineer programs taking place behind tightly-closed doors, the types of security measures he describes would likely be similar to those protecting UAP/NHI programs, and maybe, just maybe, even secrets as earth-shattering as those might be kept secret under such conditions and restrictions. Maybe.

On the other hand, if such programs do exist, but only those able to navigate the nearly-impenetrable maze of passwords and security acronyms have access, then what are the chances that the Ross Coultharts and Jeremy Corbells of the world would even get within even a whiff of such secrets (as they claim to have)?

But my favorite example is probably Elizondo. When he talks about SCIFs or SAPFs, or any other aspects of the inner-works of the MIL community, more often than not he comes off like a kid with a decent comic book collection. In his recent appearance on Julian Dorey's podcast, Elizondo talks about these secure facilities with the glee of an outsider. It's not anything even remotely close to the sober and balanced tone adopted by Ellsberg—someone who was, most certainly, in-the-know on such things. It's a contrast that I find to be most telling. And Elizondo never offers anything about such secrecy measures that isn't readily available to anyone with even the slightest degree of curiosity about the topic.

I transcribed the following myself directly from the pages of the book, verbatim. The only alterations on my part would be anything in bold (for emphasis). I would imagine that by now, this many years later, many such specific protocols are probably quite different. But I don't think there's any reason to suspect they're any less daunting in terms of keeping secrets secret. I look forward to your own thoughts and perspectives on this.

Also, ask yourself this while reading: Do Grusch, Mellon, Sheehan, Knell, Gallaudet or any of the others ever offer up this level of insight into the inner-workings? The info itself, as laid out, certainly isn't classified, so why do they and so many others prefer to speak cryptically about everything when Ellsberg presents a perfect example of how to simply convey information and actually inform the listener (or reader)?

For context:
The subject at hand was the highly-secretive U-2 flights that the U.S. had been using to gather as much information as they could about the Soviet's nuclear capabilities during the Cold War. Knowledge of the U-2's existence was one thing, but knowledge of, and access to, the actual data being collected was quite another. As Ellsberg explains...

The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner

by Daniel Ellsberg
Published 2017

Pg. 159

This was what is now called sensitive compartmented information (SCI), higher than Top-Secret. Access to it required a Keyhole (K) clearance, higher than Top-Secret, which I didn't have at the time. The existence of clearances higher than Top-Secret was in those years itself well-kept secret, along with the nature of the information each of them covered and the actual information itself. It was extremely unusual for anyone holding such a clearance to give any hint of these secrets to someone who didn't have the special clearance.

The penalty for a security breach of that nature was to be dropped immediately, within minutes of the discovery of the indiscretion, from the computer listings of those with access to the special clearances. That meant exclusion from the list of those who counted in national security discussions within the government – those who had access to this information and could talk freely among themselves. That sanction helped keep those secrets very, very well. Leaks to the press were nonexistent, either about the clearances, the intelligence means, or the contents of the information. Breaches of discipline, either deliberate, even to colleagues who had been specially clear, simply didn't occur, with few exceptions.

I happened to benefit from several such exceptional breaches. Talking with Colonel Ernie Cragg, of the plans division of the Air Staff, one late night in the Pentagon cafeteria, I asked him something about the basis for the new missile estimates. He started to answer, then broke off, looked at me, and asked, "are you cleared for T and K?"
I said no, and Cragg clammed up, evidently realizing he'd already said more than he should have.

Cragg's question was breach number one. As I was briefed later, when I did get such clearances, if he were in doubt as to whether he was dealing with someone who was entitled to this information, he should never have mentioned to that person the code letters revealing the existence of these clearances. If he really wanted to discuss these matters, he should've excused himself, gone to a Pentagon phone to call a special number, identified himself by a code, and asked the officer at the other end, "Is Danielle Ellsberg cleared for T or K?" If the answer, based on a computer search in the control office he was calling, was no, he would come back and change the subject.

If the answer was yes, he would come back and tell me that I had checked out and invite me to go to a phone to check his clearance out using the same process. For a uniformed colonel in Air Force Plans that I knew personally, that might not have seemed necessary. But in theory, he could've been bluffing, having heard the initials "T" and "K" or perhaps even having found out their nature, tricking me into a discussion to which he was not entitled.

That possibility was the basic need for this rigmarole, and why only the first letters of the code words "Talent" (for U-2 photography) and "Keyhole" (for the reconnaissance satellite program and photos)
were to be mentioned in a public space, where they might be overheard.

Elaborate as it sounds, this two-phone-call routine was something I practiced many times in later years before talking with someone whose access was not known to me. Procedures like this – and the sanction of being primarily cut off from the access, involvement, and advancement by violating them – kept a vast amount of information relevant to government decision-making ("higher than Top Secret" SCI) secret from the public, Congress, and most of the government, along with foreigners and enemies, for long periods of time; they were proof against leaks for decades and generations, even when information was known to hundreds or thousands of individuals cleared for it.

The cliché that "everything leaks; it all comes out in the New York Times eventually" is emphatically not true, above all for sensitive compartmented information.

It's a cover story, design both to hide and sustain the effectiveness of the overall secrecy system. (Edward Snowden was the first ever to expose a large amount of SCI, including massively unconstitutional and criminal dragnet surveillance of American citizens and others in the world without probable cause for suspicion. Many thousands of NSA employees had known for a decade of that mass surveillance and its criminality. Not one other had disclosed it. Snowden is currently in exile, probably for life.)

Ironically, the second breach was by an unlikely person, a normally very tight-lipped colleague who had a long been known at RAND to have "intelligence clearances," whatever that meant. After Cragg's slip, I asked my friend, who was in D.C. consulting, the meaning of "T" and "K," And he actually told me.

In retrospect, it's amazing, even perplexing, did he did so, which was not only against the rules that were almost never violated but was highly out of character for him. Moreover, he said that I should make an effort to get those clearances, along with SI clearance (for special intelligence, a cover term for signals intelligence, comprising communications intercepts and other electronic signals.)

Those who had (only) SI, T, and K in addition to Top Secret clearances were told, and almost all believed, that with their "all-source access" they had all the existing clearances. That was another cover story. There were in fact many clearances higher than these.

The existence of special access programs (SAPs) known as "operational" clearances about special programs – including, say, the actual operations and decision-making process concerning the U-2 or its successor or the family of reconnaissance satellites or covert operations – was unknown to those who had "only" all source intelligence. I got a dozen of these clearances when I was special assistant to the assistant secretary in 1964–65.

For example, Ideal (I) was clearance for information about the operations of the U-2 program and the decision-making in connection with its uses and priorities. The existence of this clearance, and what it covered, would be unknown to the much larger number of people who had only Talent clearance to view the U-2 photography.

 

[Tezcatlipoca]

Just a note for some of the stuff here the book quoted does have some misunderstandings.
Things like Talent Keyhole (not just Keyhole anymore), the HUMINT Classification System (HCS), etc are "control systems" - not clearances. These may have "compartments" or "sub compartments, like the HCS is split between HCS-Operations (HCS-O) and HCS-Products (HCS-P) with differing levels of operational and source details. This, also, should not be confused with "bigot lists" or other variant terms for individual access lists re SAPs or CAPs, that would dictate actual access to program details.
None of the control systems are "above" one or the other, they cover different things - visualized they'd more properly be adjacent to one another. For example, Talent and Keyhole were originally distinct, Keyhole was specifically the control system for satellite-derived intelligence, and Talent was for imagery products from U2 and later other aircraft.

For IC functions, unless DoD organizations or operated by the National Security Council, the equivalent of a Special Access Program would be a Controlled Access Program. Some things that root back to the NSC directly from non-DoD functions may be operated as SAPs though (eg covert action programs). CAPs can be non-SCI status, meaning that, to be on a CAP, you may not necessarily need access to a control system.

The CAP guidelines from the DNI are public, the DoD and various services have a wealth of SAP guidelines and etc available. There's plenty of stuff about control systems too. May be worth taking the time to parse a bunch of relevant documents and pick out relevant portions to community discussions, would take quite a while though but could be helpful to throw up on a thread like this. Like a terminology FAQ.

 

[MapperGuy]

I wanted to share this, not as something to "debunk", but more to use as a reference source regarding military/intelligence, secrecy, and the various methods employed to keep those secrets, as well as the types of layers and barriers that are put in place to secure those secrets. Think of it as a possible template when disputing or debunking the frequent claims of today's "Insiders," particularly in regards to their claims of Top Secret (and beyond) access.

What I find most interesting about this excerpt from Ellsberg's book (and the rest of the book as well) is that he offers a level of detail and insight about the inner-workings of these institutions that is completely absent from the retellings of the usual suspects that we've all come to know in love in the Twittersphere, the podcast realm and countless "documentaries" of the 21st century.

Why is it that we rarely, if ever, glean anything truly insightful or previously unknown from today's "whistleblowers"? If you take the time to read the excerpt from Ellsberg below, you can't help but notice a degree of authenticity to what he's describing. But there are two very different scenarios that could be extrapolated from his statements.

On one hand, if there are UFO retrieval and reverse-engineer programs taking place behind tightly-closed doors, the types of security measures he describes would likely be similar to those protecting UAP/NHI programs, and maybe, just maybe, even secrets as earth-shattering as those might be kept secret under such conditions and restrictions. Maybe.

On the other hand, if such programs do exist, but only those able to navigate the nearly-impenetrable maze of passwords and security acronyms have access, then what are the chances that the Ross Coultharts and Jeremy Corbells of the world would even get within even a whiff of such secrets (as they claim to have)?

But my favorite example is probably Elizondo. When he talks about SCIFs or SAPFs, or any other aspects of the inner-works of the MIL community, more often than not he comes off like a kid with a decent comic book collection. In his recent appearance on Julian Dorey's podcast, Elizondo talks about these secure facilities with the glee of an outsider. It's not anything even remotely close to the sober and balanced tone adopted by Ellsberg—someone who was, most certainly, in-the-know on such things. It's a contrast that I find to be most telling. And Elizondo never offers anything about such secrecy measures that isn't readily available to anyone with even the slightest degree of curiosity about the topic.

I transcribed the following myself directly from the pages of the book, verbatim. The only alterations on my part would be anything in bold (for emphasis). I would imagine that by now, this many years later, many such specific protocols are probably quite different. But I don't think there's any reason to suspect they're any less daunting in terms of keeping secrets secret. I look forward to your own thoughts and perspectives on this.

Also, ask yourself this while reading: Do Grusch, Mellon, Sheehan, Knell, Gallaudet or any of the others ever offer up this level of insight into the inner-workings? The info itself, as laid out, certainly isn't classified, so why do they and so many others prefer to speak cryptically about everything when Ellsberg presents a perfect example of how to simply convey information and actually inform the listener (or reader)?

For context:
The subject at hand was the highly-secretive U-2 flights that the U.S. had been using to gather as much information as they could about the Soviet's nuclear capabilities during the Cold War. Knowledge of the U-2's existence was one thing, but knowledge of, and access to, the actual data being collected was quite another. As Ellsberg explains...

View attachment 72578
The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner

by Daniel Ellsberg
Published 2017

People should keep in mind that Ellsberg is describing the intel world based on his own experiences in the 1960's and early 1970's. Of historical interest perhaps, but not an accurate description of the intelligence community of today.

 

[Landru]

People should keep in mind that Ellsberg is describing the intel world based on his own experiences in the 1960's and early 1970's. Of historical interest perhaps, but not an accurate description of the intelligence community of today.

Well said. The Wikipedia page has a good overview of SCI. A lot of which is also probably pretty dated.

Article:

Sensitive compartmented information (SCI) is a type of United States classified information concerning or derived from sensitive intelligence sources, methods, or analytical processes. All SCI must be handled within formal access control systems established by the Director of National Intelligence.[1]

SCI is not a classification; SCI clearance has sometimes been called "above Top Secret",[2] but information at any classification level may exist within an SCI control system. When "decompartmentalized", this information is treated the same as collateral information at the same classification level.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensitive_compartmented_information

 

[Stryder]

SCI is not a classification; SCI clearance has sometimes been called "above Top Secret",[2] but information at any classification level may exist within an SCI control system. When "decompartmentalized", this information is treated the same as collateral information at the same classification level.

That jives with my personal experience from the 1980s.

I worked at an aerospace company that did a lot of work for the DoD. My personal security clearance at that time was Secret. We all wore badges with our picture, name and a lightly coded security clearance so that everyone would know what each person's basic security clearance was. As engineers we often collaborated with colleagues not assigned to our particular project(s). That was the easiest way to get subject matter expertise informally. We were able to freely discuss topics with one another so long as the other person had at least the same security clearance as the topic had.

I also worked on several special access programs. I think this would be the DoD equivalent to Intelligence's SCI. One of these was very tightly controlled. As well as having the usual 2 code words for a restricted access program, all work was conducting in a SCIF, essentially a protected room behind a vault door. What a pain in the A..... I was reminded frequently of severe repercussions for divulging any information about what I was working on. In this case, even my boss did not know what I was doing, even though his clearance was higher than mine (Top Secret). My clearance was not above Top Secret. I had just been cleared to work on this particular program and he hadn't.

 

[Mendel]

In this case, even my boss did not know what I was doing, even though his clearance was higher than mine (Top Secret). My clearance was not above Top Secret. I had just been cleared to work on this particular program and he hadn't.

Which, by the way, explains the sensationalist claim that there are clearances "higher than the President". If POTUS isn't read in on a program, he/she doesn't have access to it.

 

[LilWabbit]

I happened to benefit from several such exceptional breaches. Talking with Colonel Ernie Cragg, of the plans division of the Air Staff, one late night in the Pentagon cafeteria, I asked him something about the basis for the new missile estimates. He started to answer, then broke off, looked at me, and asked, "are you cleared for T and K?" I said no, and Cragg clammed up, evidently realizing he'd already said more than he should have.

Cragg's question was breach number one.

Actually Ellsberg's above question on "new missile estimates" in a Pentagon cafeteria would have been the first breach. Leastways if he were an employee with the Western European 'DoD' I work for. It would have never crossed my mind to even consider it a legitimate venue for such a question.

The existence of special access programs (SAPs) known as "operational" clearances about special programs – including, say, the actual operations and decision-making process concerning the U-2 or its successor or the family of reconnaissance satellites or covert operations – was unknown to those who had "only" all source intelligence. I got a dozen of these clearances when I was special assistant to the assistant secretary in 1964–65.

Despite dated, this would be the classic case of need-to-know clearance.

Speaking from my own experience, any official's security clearance concerns the maximum clearance level to classified information s(he) has on a need-to-know basis and to a kind of classified information necessary for the discharge of her/his specific assigned duties. In other words, you may boast the highest security clearance level available whilst remaining legally barred from access to lower clearance level classified information unrelated to your mission / assigned tasks.

Typically, access to operational plans, operational information and operational decision-making is barred from everyone even within the military establishment irrespective of clearance level other than direct chain of command and immediate supporting units/agencies.

 

[Greene]

That jives with my personal experience from the 1980s.

I worked at an aerospace company that did a lot of work for the DoD. My personal security clearance at that time was Secret. We all wore badges with our picture, name and a lightly coded security clearance so that everyone would know what each person's basic security clearance was. As engineers we often collaborated with colleagues not assigned to our particular project(s). That was the easiest way to get subject matter expertise informally. We were able to freely discuss topics with one another so long as the other person had at least the same security clearance as the topic had.

I also worked on several special access programs. I think this would be the DoD equivalent to Intelligence's SCI. One of these was very tightly controlled. As well as having the usual 2 code words for a restricted access program, all work was conducting in a SCIF, essentially a protected room behind a vault door. What a pain in the A..... I was reminded frequently of severe repercussions for divulging any information about what I was working on. In this case, even my boss did not know what I was doing, even though his clearance was higher than mine (Top Secret). My clearance was not above Top Secret. I had just been cleared to work on this particular program and he hadn't.

Think of SCI more as a large SAP that covers intelligence gathering, analysis & dissemination. SCI is very much used by the DoD (former SIGINT Marine here)

SCI is both broader (in that it is a blanket for multiple programs) and more limited (in that it only applies to the above category). Individual programs are topics under the SCI umbrella would have a codeword and access...for example TK (Talent-Keyhole) as mentioned above.

Once you complete an SSBI (single-scope background investigation) and have signed the NDA, etc., you would still need to be given specific access and 'read in' for each individual topic (comartment). So the individual compartments are analogous to SAPs.

 

[Rum]

... I would imagine that by now, this many years later, many such specific protocols are probably quite different. But I don't think there's any reason to suspect they're any less daunting in terms of keeping secrets secret ...

Also, while the stories Ellsberg tells come from his experience of the system as it existed many decades ago, those were nevertheless, according to Ellsberg, some of the types of security systems which were in place during a significant chunk of the supposed Grand UFO Cover Up era.

In other words, for anyone taking the claim of a multi-decade/multi-organization campaign of UFO secrecy seriously, it seems to me that the various security systems which were in place across all of those decades/organizations must be taken into account.