Let me tell you about classified documents

[lazarus]

There's something being missed here in the hubbub about Rove.

I used to have a Top Secret/SCI (Crypto) clearance. Technically, there was virtually nothing I couldn't see, right? Anything marked Confidential, Secret, Top Secret, I could read it all, know all the info. Right?

Wrong.

There's a second part to having a security clearance and obtaining classified information:

Need To Know

Without a Need To Know, I couldn't look at the most mundane of classified material (and believe me, most of it is incredibly mundane).

So here's my question:

How did Rove, Scooter, and Ari have a Need To Know who Wilson's wife was, and that she was a NOC for the CIA?

That's a major violation of security right there. People have gone to jail/lost their careers for less.

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. letr me add to this another two things

TS\ FC... and NoFor... you are right.

[lazarus]

2. I had forgotten those

NOFORN messages used to pass through my hands every day. And we were drilled endlessly with what would happen if we let anything slip. (Particularly important since we were on a British base, working with Brits.)

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. You know I am almost betting that memo

was classified eyes only, TS\FC\ NOFORN, how many rules were just broken?

My lord I have not held a clearance, but even I know the seriousness of this

[lazarus]

4. word is breaking

that it was indeed TS/FC/NOFORN. Likely Eyes Only, as well.

This could reach to Powell, too, if he really was the one who brought it on the plane.

And these Republican bastards spent how many days investigating Travelgate? Gahhh!

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. Scary when I the civvie can tell this stink but the talking heads

coudl not

Now as a disclaimer I was a member of someobody else's miliary so it was fun at times to have to do that dance... and lordly, I was just a medic...


Damn I never really saw antying that coudl risk lives, but these idiots have blood in their hands... all them agents rolled over.

[lazarus]

7. Oh, I messed up on what SCI meant

It means Sensitive Compartmented Information. I had crypto stuff, too, I just don't remember what those letters were. My clearance just kept going, though. :-)

[tulsakatz]

10. need to know

I've never worked in govt or the CIA but even I know they operate on a 'need to know' basis.

It sounds like they would have had to get clearance from the top to even have access to that info. Bush's daddy used to be in the CIA......maybe this thing goes all the way to Bush! I hope so!

[TahitiNut]

6. You got it, laz. Why would anyone in the WH have a 'need to know'???

Gee, let's follow some of their bullshit spin ...

If Valerie Plame hadn't been a covert agent for over five years, then what did she do of interest to the Bushoilini Regime, who were in office for less than three years at the time!

If Valerie Plame hadn't been a covert agent for over five years, then why would she be "newsworthy" to the point that media stenogandists would call and ask for confirmation?

A 'need to know' also implies something of active operational interest.

[lazarus]

9. Bingo

The "active interest" part actually reveals their motive. THEY think they had a NTK, but they didn't have a legal NTK.

These bastards should all be in prison. Real, Federal, pound-me-in-the-ass prison.

[TahitiNut]

14. Yep. I had to return or destroy any TS/S/C documents or notes ...

... promptly following the completion of whatever project I had that afforded me access to it. Since I had complete access and control over 'Strength Accountability' data systems for all of USARV (TS, needless to say), it got to be a hassle.

I remember having to do development and parallel testing at Fort Shafter ... waiting for the computer room to be 'scrubbed' ... getting locked in with armed guards outside the doors ... setting up ... working 18-36 hours ... tearing down ... and then scrubbing the room (with assistance) before leaving. If I'd removed a damned thing without clear logging and appropriate safeguards (containers, etc.), my ass would've been in the stockade. I hesitate to even contemplate where I'd be if I 'shared' any of it with buddies sharing a bunker some night.


'Strength Accountability' in Nam kept track of every swinging dick attached or assigned to USARV, including MOS, rank, location and combat condition. Very little is of greater importance in any war than the location and condition of the enemy's forces -- unless it's keeping track of your own. It's been a basic of war ever since Cain killed Abel.

[tulsakatz]

12. not important

The other day a Republican told me he saw Plame's former boss at the CIA interviewed on Fox. I know, I know.......I don't pay any attention to Fox but this guy does so I thought I'd listen to him.

Anyway, he said this guy said that when she worked for him she wasn't that important. I objected to this for a couple of reasons. First, these agents work for years to build up contacts so the guy (whoever he was) would have no way of knowing if she could have produced valuable evidence at some later date even if she wasn't doing anything particularly important at the time.

Secondly, if she wasn't that important, why spend 2 yrs investigating this case?

These guys will invent any excuse to try to make this case look like it's not a big deal.

[TahitiNut]

15. Happily, though, their 'inventions' seem to be shovels digging themselves

... in deeper and deeper. One fact they compulsively omit is that the CIA investigated it themselves internally for two months before requesting (demanding) that the Justice Department convene a Grand Jury investigation. I just love the keyboard warriors who concoct the most bizarre contradictions to this fundamental fact.

[The Magistrate]

8. A Useful Reminder, Mr. Lazarus

Thank you very much, Sir!

[lazarus]

11. Thank you, sir

I hope you have been doing well.

This just struck me a few days ago, and I've been working it out in my head. I hope it goes somewhere.

[Sgent]

13. Good luck

pinning a NTK violation on Rove. As the Ass Chief of Staff of Intelligence & Defense, he can create a legal NTK for just about anything in our government.

[dweller]

16. he's an Ass alright...

but he's the Deputy WH chief of staff. Duties and " responsibility for intelligence and defense
matters would be shifted to the other deputy chief of staff, Joe Hagin."

source:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9308-2005Feb8.html

the only NTK he needs right now is 'survival guide for prison on treason charges'
dp

[DoYouEverWonder]

19. Rove wasn't Deputy WH chief of staff until this past Jan

before that he was just a political advisor to the President.

[DoYouEverWonder]

20. Remember all the crap about Clinton

when the WH supposed had gotten FBI files on people. The Repugs went nuts over that one even though no wrong doing was every proved.

[lovuian]

17. Theres signatures on those documents too on who touches them

No a person knows they are TOP Secret!!!

Some one on AF1 witnessed it... I'm dying to know who the witness is??? and the best part Bush was there!!!

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. Yes it is increasingly becoming

when did the president know and waht did the president know... and oh my there are tapes now...

[ngGale]

21. The last two days, I've wondered myself if it was ...

Bush who got the info. Somebody did have to put her name together with her company. The memo didn't have the name of her company. Looks like somebody did a complete bio on her. IMO, that person would have to have very high clearance - maybe the Prez himself.
Surely they couldn't play that fast and loose with our national security. But, someone did.