Yahoo News Former Government Officials on Hillary Clinton's Emails
On Friday I argued that the Hillary Clinton email “scandal” was a more-smoke-than-fire phony scandal, this era’s Whitewater. On Saturday, a reader in the national-security world explained why he disagreed. Now, followup reactions from other people who have, or have had, security clearances.
The insanity of today’s classification rules. A reader who has long had clearances for work in several branches of the government writes:
Here’s a bit of context that may be useful:
-- Holders of security clearances are repeatedly reminded that they face severe penalties if they relay classified information even if this information is not marked as such, or has been published in the newspaper. Such penalties range from loss of clearance (which results in loss of employment) to prosecution. That shouldn’t be the case for anyone: Not for secretaries of state, but also not for working-level security officials who face such a threat every day.
-- The drone program is a perfect example of the over-classification lamented (rightly) by Hillary Clinton: During the Bush Administration, I was offered the chance to be “read into” the drone program (that is, to be granted one of the special-access clearances that would have enabled me to read the intel that my TS/SCI [top secret / sensitive compartmented information] clearance did not).
I turned it down, specifically because taking this clearance would have prevented me from ever discussing the drone program with any of my colleagues (all of whom also had TS/SCI), even through the program was being widely reported in the press on a daily basis. It theoretically might even have prevented me from discussing the drone program with my boss—which demonstrates the absurdity of it (i.e., I’m granted an SAP [special access program] clearance specifically to help my boss make policy—but may not be able to brief him on what I've learned).
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This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
