Enough with the fucking secret memos already: https://t.co/j59zJtzGHA
— Defector (@DefectorMedia) January 27, 2023
The media’s already bored with the existing revelations, but I have a feeling there will be more surprises as the (sigh) 2024 primaries heat up. Justin Ellis, at Defector:
We are a petty and venal and lazy species on balance, and there is no distance the human mind can’t quickly traverse to convince itself that something you want won’t be missed. In this calculus, the most important factor is opportunity, and what better window is there than when you leave your job?
There is, of course, some difference between letting a pair of Skechers fall in your lap on the way out the door from Foot Locker, and, say, snagging that memo listing Kim Jong-un’s favorite episodes of Rick and Morty after you’ve run out the clock on your time in the Oval Office.
With the revelation that Joe Biden, as well as Donald Trump, had classified documents stuffed away in their homes, the keepers of the nation’s collective memory are growing worried that former presidents are hoarding stacks of sensitive files in their mud rooms or junk drawers…
The whole mess was made worse this week when Mike Pence signaled that he, too, had “inadvertently boxed and transported” classified papers back to his suburban manse in Indiana. Now everybody that held office as far back as the Reagan administration is on notice. (Jimmy Carter is exempt from tearing up his attic; the Presidential Records Act went into effect after he left office.)…
Context matters here. Trump used the Secret Service to rack up tabs at his namesake hotels. He is also the man whose protracted tantrum after losing the election gave way to an insurrection on the U.S. Capitol. Whether Trump was looking to use the files to cut deals with dictators or create a shadow box, he filled his suitcase with state secrets, however important or banal they might be, while displaying the same level of forethought generally associated with stealing a commemorative mug from Hooters. This is typically dumb, and potentially dangerous, but it is also another signal that the many veils of security clearance placed around aspects of doing the public’s business have gotten way out of hand…
Typically it takes an Edward Snowden or Chelsea Manning to remind the public of the sinister campaigns that the government conducts behind the classified lines of a memo. But beyond special favors to allies, the usual greed mongering, and ill-conceived foreign combat fantasies, the government puts entirely too much shit in the Top Secret bucket. As Elizabeth Goitein, who studied national security at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, told NBC News: “You have 50 million classification decisions each year—90 percent of which are probably unnecessary. That’s a lot of rules that have to be complied with every hour of every day. And some of that is going to slip.”
Enough with the fucking memos already.
Omnes Omnibus
The Snowden reference. Highly sus. Just saying.
Lapassionara
Just because a document is classified doesn’t mean that is Top Secret. Someone more knowledgeable than me listed the classification categories on a thread last week, I think, and there are a bunch. In all the reporting about Biden and Pence, I have heard nothing to suggest that the docs they had were marked Top Secret. Have I missed something?
WaterGirl
@Lapassionara:
CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS & CLASSIFICATION LEVELS
After a background check, you can get clearance at one of the three levels:
There are extensive rules at each level for how you are able to transport, store, and work with documents at all three levels. You receive training, and your training has to be renewed every year if you have access to sensitive information.
A classified document that is somewhere that it doesn’t belong is called a spill.
Even with a clearance at any level, you have to have a need to know before you can access classified materials, plus there are additional limits to who can see some Top Secret materials:
Sensitive Compartmentalized Information (SCI)
Code Word Protected Information
Originator Controlled Information (ORCON)
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: I disagree with the premise that Pence finding and announcing that he had found some classified documents MADE THINGS WORSE.
I think that made it a lot better. This great cartoon that Anne Laure put up recently shows why.
MattF
Also, fwiw, code words themselves may or may not be classified. It’s a labyrinth.
Baud
He seems to be confusing Top Secret with all classification levels.
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: Yeah, that too.
Steve in the ATL
@Baud: I think we can all agree, however, that “Top Secret!” was Val Kilmer’s finest film.
bbleh
@MattF: indeed IIRC having code-word clearance is (at least sometimes) itself a classified fact.
As to overclassification, quite apart from the convenience of using it to restrict access to information that is potentially politically embarrassing but not necessarily to which national security is sensitive — which is by no means an insignificant factor — there sometimes is a bit of a power trip at work. It flatters one’s ego to declare some bit of information under one’s control classified.
Steve in the ATL
@Omnes Omnibus: there’s something wrong with the way this website is displaying on my phone—it makes it look like you agreed with someone
Lapassionara
@WaterGirl: thank you!
oatler
Geheime Kommandosache
RSA
For additional context, in the Department of Defense (I don’t know how it works elsewhere) there is a role called Original Classification Authority. That’s not an organizational unit but instead a single person. OCAs are the only ones who can mark something classified. A quick Google search didn’t turn up how many OCAs there are; maybe that tidbit is classified as well.
If there are 50 million classification decisions made every year, they’re made by thousands if not tens of thousands of people following whatever rules apply to their domain. (I’m guessing that documents describing weapons technology are very different from documents analyzing foreign political movements, for example.) I agree we should classify less, but it will be an enormous endeavor to develop and implement new policies.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the ATL: Fuck you, it was Real Genius.
bbleh
@Steve in the ATL: although I fear the exploding Pinto may be lost on some contemporary viewers.
Hoodie
@Baud: When I got my first job as an engineer for a defense contractor, it took 6 months to get a Secret clearance. When I needed it for a particular program, it took another 3 months to get a Top Secret clearance. We were constantly told that foreign agents (Chinese, Russian, Israeli, etc.) conducted frequent surveillance on our facilities and employees.
Trump supposedly had a bunch of Top Secret compartmentalized info, which can be really sensitive even if doesn’t appear so at first glance. When I worked in defense, it was often hard to understand why certain information was considered top secret, but usually it had to do with interoperation with other information and what clues it provided regarding sensitive operations. For example, some of the information I encountered had to do with information that might be useful for countermeasures against US weapons systems.
I’ve heard that the Biden and Pence stuff was mostly or all “Secret”, which is stuff that isn’t necessarily all that sensitive, or may not be all that sensitive after a relatively short amount of time has passed and it becomes public. Stuff like Obama’s or Trump’s schedule or the bullet points for a meeting.
That article has a oversimplified bullshit quality to it, the Snowden ref is a tell. This guy probably has no experience in DoD or other agencies that deal in classified docs and probably doesn’t understand (or just doesn’t care) why stuff gets classified . While there may be too much stuff classified, seems that the bigger problem is that stuff does not get tracked very well and declassified on a regular basis. That’s a huge job, however, given the amount of stuff the federal government generates.
piratedan
@Steve in the ATL: I thought Real Genius was his best performance myself, ymmv
Steve in the ATL
@Omnes Omnibus: @piratedan: not an unreasonable opinion
@bbleh: luckily, B-J is full of us olds!
schrodingers_cat
Since this is an open thread many commenters in the morning thread, said that they too were concerned about India and they didn’t know enough to comment about it. If you have any questions I will try to answer them either on Twitter or on my blog. You can email me at my bloggy email or DM me on Twitter, identify yourself by your Balloon Juice nym.
Some background for those who have no idea what I am talking about.
It is the 75th anniversary of Gandhi’s assassination and BJP’s biggest hero from the freedom struggle era is the man who was the mastermind of the assassination plot.
Link to my Twitter thread for those interested
ETA: We could rewatch Gandhi and I can do Twitter Space on it. It gives a good overview of the freedom struggle from the 1920s (Gandhi era) up to 1948
ETA2: BJP’s fake news factories are gearing up to mess with our elections also they haven’t had much success in making a dent in the Indian-American support for Dems. But it is not for the lack of trying.
Sure Lurkalot
OT. Here’s a link for a post by Robyn at Wonkette laying out what cops do by the numbers, with links. Seemed like a good talking point resource.
https://www.wonkette.com/police-brutality-statistics
Baud
@Hoodie:
Those things are probably interrelated.
WaterGirl
@Steve in the ATL: hahahahaha
Dangerman
The librarian cartoon is dead on except for one thing; back in the day, there was a custodial authority on classified documents. You checked out and you checked in.
If I had left a TS lying about, that authority would have hunted me down and made my life a living hell; if I made a habit of it, I would have lost my job and, if it was intentional, I’d get the Christopher Boyce suite at Lompoc. Who is the authority not doing their jobs here?
mrmoshpotato
@Steve in the ATL: And Pop Secret is quite good when it comes to microwave popcorn!
sab
@schrodingers_cat: A generation ago y’all were pretty much all Republican. People do notice what is going on.
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat: Interesting thread.
The Thin Black Duke
@piratedan: What, no love for Kilmer’s performance as Doc Holiday in Tombstone?
schrodingers_cat
@sab: Really? I have seen the data since Obama’s first election. Over 70% of the Indian American vote was for the D candidate for President. Before that the # of Indian Americans has been too small to be statistically significant. If you have data that proves otherwise I would be glad to see it. I will search for the said data myself.
RobertS
My god, the stupid just burns.
Classified info goes into special folders and gets covered with stamps. There are rules on how it gets handled. This column is just dressed up “savvy” whataboutism.
That’s also leaving out National Defense Information (NDI), or put more succinctly, atomic secrets. Trump had those at Mar-a-lago.
Princess
@schrodingers_cat: I appreciate all your comments on this subject, even if I don’t reply.
There are times when it would be nice to have a like button on BJ.
Tony Jay
@Steve in the ATL:
Pffft. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang or we duel at dawn under the elderberries.
Actually, I don’t know, you could be right. I haven’t seen it since DVDs were a thing. Maybe I’ll watch it again this weekend.
Can we all at least agree that Brendan Fraser would have made a great Superman? Really could have brought that ‘Aw shucks’ hometown boy thing to the role.
Steve in the ATL
@RobertS:
I know, right? As if Tombstone were better than Top Secret! or Real Genius.
Steve in the ATL
@Tony Jay: he would be the least svelte Superman since George Reeves!
@mrmoshpotato: now there is a twist worthy of M. Night Shamalayan!
Steve in the ATL
@Princess: and threaded comments!!!
ETA: hat trick! And the demise of my New Year’s resolution not to post after opening a bottle of wine….
Ruckus
@Hoodie:
There are also access clearances and I understand they are the same levels or at least used to be when I was given mine. My work department onboard ship had equipment in every compartment that normally had humans in it, so any restricted compartment that required entry for repair or replacement of equipment assigned to my department required a TS clearance, which is why I had one. They told me about 2 weeks after I reported on board that I had clearance. I had to ask why as I’d never been told anything about any clearance prior or that it was being requested of whomever gave them out.
BruceFromOhio
Defector is awesome.
schrodingers_cat
@sab: What you said, I think this is true about Asians in general but not true of Asians from the subcontinent (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, SriLanka and Nepal)
This is anecdata but Bill Clinton and HRC were both hugely popular among most of my Indian-American acquaintances. And I have yet to meet an Indian-American Republican (30% of us do vote R, that’s a pretty significant number) in the flesh.
LiminalOwl
@Steve in the ATL: No! Real Genius was!
satby
LiminalOwl
@Steve in the ATL: No! Real Genius was!
@Omnes Omnibus: OK, you got there first.
Origuy
@schrodingers_cat: I’m in CA-17, represented by Ro Khanna. His Republican opponent in the last two elections was Ritesh Tandon, who immigrated from India when he was 28. I don’t think Tandon is particularly MAGA, he struck me more as a moderate technocrat who could have run as a Democrat in Texas. In San Jose, though, he didn’t stand a chance.
Lapassionara
@satby: well, maybe I should have said Beetlejuice
schrodingers_cat
@Origuy: I am not too fond of Ro Khanna. Too Squad adjacent for my liking. But again the worst D in Congress is better than the best R.
kalakal
@Steve in the ATL: He was really good in Blast From The Past
James E Powell
@Steve in the ATL:
Ladies & gentlemen, tonight’s winner of the internet.
NotMax
@Tony Jay
Bruce Campbell (in his heyday)?
lowtechcyclist
@Omnes Omnibus:
Still waiting for heads to roll at Booz Allen Hamilton. Just saying.