103
votes
Why do ex-government employees have security clearances?
Security clearances is something that qualifies you as an individual. It means that you have been evaluated and trusted to a determined security level.
If you are working at Company A and get a ...
- 33k
63
votes
Accepted
Why would high-ranking politicians take classified documents to their personal residence?
Because they have to work on them there.
Government leaders don't have a hard and fast line between work time and personal time like the rest of us. They have huge amounts of reading to do, and a ...
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62
votes
Why would the US President need briefings on UFOs?
An UFO is an Unidentified Flying Object.
Usually the name is not applied when somebody sees a light prop plane overhead and cannot recognize the specific model or registration letters, but what the ...
- 116k
55
votes
Accepted
Why do ex-government employees have security clearances?
Simply? Even if you aren't in the role anymore, you're still a resource to be tapped. Pompeo's background was in law and business, not intelligence, when he got the CIA job. So if the Trump presidency ...
- 17.3k
45
votes
Accepted
Why have the Venona materials not yet vindicated McCarthyism?
Why has the mainstream narrative continued to regard McCarthyism as "making accusations of subversion or treason without proper regard for evidence"?
Because there is no evidence that McCarthy was ...
- 90.3k
32
votes
Does a US President have to file any paperwork to declassify information?
According to this article from The Atlantic,, yes, he could claim that he declared them declassified and no paperwork would have been necessary. However, LegalEagle, in this video at 12:12, says that ...
- 2,291
31
votes
Why do ex-government employees have security clearances?
One misconception about clearances (which I might be detecting here) is that they are all you need to look at all the classified data in existence. That's false. To look at a piece of classified info ...
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29
votes
Accepted
What was the TOP SECRET information in the Nunes Memo?
It was the FBI/Justice department that classified the information in the memo, not the committee. Example source:
The details of FISA surveillance orders are classified, and they have long been ...
- 90.3k
20
votes
Why would high-ranking politicians take classified documents to their personal residence?
On second thought, this is a surprisingly interesting question. Here's my take on it:
First I think that people in such positions quickly lose respect for confidentiality. They keep reading stacks of ...
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18
votes
Does a US President have to file any paperwork to declassify information?
Yes, there is a procedure
President Obama issued Executive Order 13526. The document is long, but it lays out the procedures for declassifying information, including all of the mechanisms involved (...
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17
votes
Why would high-ranking politicians take classified documents to their personal residence?
Here's the real answer: most classified documents are not particularly secret and contain no important confidential information.
As many media outlets have noted many years before the current scandal, ...
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16
votes
Why do ex-government employees have security clearances?
Security clearances can be thought of as a kind of industry licensure that must be periodically renewed, like a medical practice license for doctors, or a bar certification for lawyers. Many private ...
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15
votes
What was the TOP SECRET information in the Nunes Memo?
There are some excellent answers here. There are two things I'd add:
Nunes edited the memo in the hours prior to its release. I'm not suggesting anything nefarious in this particular, but there may ...
- 159
13
votes
Why would the US President need briefings on UFOs?
Now is this a real meeting and how comes?
It appears to be, Trump said it in this interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos.
Contrary to o.m.'s answer, the question in the interview seems to be ...
JJJ♦
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12
votes
Accepted
What's the process through which classified documents are made public, and can some classified documents be destroyed or never made public?
The National Archives has a nice document describing the declassification review process. Yes, I think it is entirely possible that some documents are never declassified. For example Critical ...
- 8,081
10
votes
Accepted
Were Presidents known to have discussed classified things with their wives?
This article by CNN lists out examples of Presidents who discussed classified things with their wives:
Jacqueline Kennedy received the intelligence community's highly classified "Weekly ...
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9
votes
Accepted
What legitimate reason could Trump have to give Russia classified information
This has two components.
There is probably no legitimate reason to disclose the portion of the highly classified information which is received from a sister intelligence agency under limited terms ...
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9
votes
Why would high-ranking politicians take classified documents to their personal residence?
There's no single or simple answer to a question like this.
some like Trump (or at least what some of his lawyers) insisted they can declassify at will and without paperwork such documents.
some (...
8
votes
Accepted
Can presidential pardons be made and then classified as secret to avoid making the pardon public?
He could try to do this, but barring exceptional circumstances, the classification wouldn't hold up if the person had to actually use the pardon. And the fact that he tried to conceal the pardon ...
- 2,386
8
votes
What was the TOP SECRET information in the Nunes Memo?
According to Wired, the new information is that the application for a FISA extension was partly based on the Steele dossier, which was partly funded by Democrats. The memo also alleges that this ...
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8
votes
Can anyone explain why part of this Classification Designation is redacted?
To answer the banner issue, it's an issue of what information is blocked out. Typically, the space between the TOP SECRET and NOFORN is compartmentalized accesses that are required to view the ...
- 16.1k
8
votes
Why do US Presidents seem to have difficulty in complying with the laws on returning classified documents?
Because security compliance is in general difficult in all but the lowest-security environments.
Good compliance takes two things: systems/people to track and support compliance and, even more ...
- 2,291
8
votes
Why would high-ranking politicians take classified documents to their personal residence?
The highest-ranking officials in the US live in a security bubble. They have secret service details, armed escorts, armored limousines, fenced residences with every security precaution... As persons, ...
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7
votes
Accepted
What is Russian Federation policy for information declassification related to historical events within neighboring countries?
Whereas the United States has an automatic declassification schedule at 25 years, where information stops being classified at that point unless specific exemptions are sought, Russia has not ...
- 2,455
7
votes
Why did the House Intelligence Committee vote against releasing the Democratic memo?
You wrote:
The House Intelligence Committee just voted to release a memo drafted by Chairman Devin Nunes and other Republicans which discusses alleged misconduct by the FBI in the Trump-Russia ...
- 10.4k
7
votes
Accepted
If a US president decides to declassify information, is it automatically public?
Short Answer
No. Information is not automatically public just because it is declassified.
(Although, in practice, declassified information is often released to the public, because classified ...
- 88.3k
7
votes
Ability of the President of the United States to contact other nations in secret
Generally speaking, there's no way to force disclosure of a private conversation the President had. While there are limits to it, Executive privilege covers internal conversations the President and ...
- 53.1k
7
votes
Accepted
In the Mueller report, what are the SM-[number]-[word] documents in the footnotes?
On page 14 of the report, a footnote (partly redacted) says:
SM-2230634, serial 44 (analysis). The FBI case number cited here, and
other FBI case numbers identified in the report, should be treated ...
- 76.4k
7
votes
Does a US President have to file any paperwork to declassify information?
Maybe not in some cases, if we consider precedent.
Nearly 20 years ago, Justice Department prosecutors wrestled with the vexing question of whether President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick ...
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