Ukraine Always Get What You Want

My father-in-law was a sonar technician on submarines when he was in the Navy from 1974-83, and said there are some things that he still can't talk about because they're classified, and most likely will never be able to.

 

Did he tell them to call MAGA-Lago?

 

Legally (and morally), I can neither confirm nor deny the presence of nuclear weapons onboard any ship which I served.

 

As I understand it, that's getting to be a pretty big concern as lots of much-older vets (and similar) begin to age into dementia.

 

Dad has always taken pride in the fact that he’s held onto whatever secrets the Air Force of the mid-70s wanted to keep, but this very well could become an issue for us. He’s 66 and there’s too much family history for him to outrun in this department I’m afraid.

 

I would quibble with a few points:

1. It's got absolutely nothing to do with bureaucracy wanting to work in secret. Classification is a hindrance to productivity.
2. It's got everything to do with the bureaucracy (and its piece parts) not wanting to be personally responsible for the mis-handling (spillage, inappropriate downgrades, etc.) when they're the ones who have to sign off on the, "this is not classified" release. No one wants to put their name on that declaration.
3. The number of clearances being in the millions has no effect on the security of an individual piece of controlled information. Just because you have a clearance doesn't mean you can access any piece of controlled information. You need a clearance AND a need to know.

 

Conducting meetings in secret and disclosing capes and lims to foreign actors are for sure the same thing.

 

My mother in law used to have clearance (she’s now retired). That clearance allowed her to get into the building where she worked and to make travel arrangements for the guy she worked for. She never handled classified material.

My brother in law has clearance because he works maintaining and running tests on a system for the Navy. He only handles things related to the development and maintenance of that system. He can’t use it to look at missile schematics.

There’s clearance (which even I had at one point so I could get on a base and into one building) and there’s clearance. Many have the former; fewer have the later.

 

"Need to know" is the other key part of a clearance. You need to have a legitimate purpose accessing the data you're accessing, regardless of your clearance level.