The issue is whether she and her aides should have known that matters discussed in emails were classified or sensitive. This is partly why Clinton and her aides say so assuredly that they did not knowingly email classified materials. One cannot simply view a document on a classified network and email it to someone on an unclassified system even within the same agency. Most government agencies, including the State Department, maintain separate systems precisely to make it all but impossible to electronically pass information between classified and unclassified systems. It is extremely difficult to share a classified document electronically over email. Media sometimes erroneously refer to Clinton as having shared classified documents. When Secretary Clinton began turning over emails as part of an investigation into the Benghazi, Libya attacks, the inspector general (IG) for the intelligence community assessed that information in several of them was classified and should not have been transmitted over an open email system.īut the State Department disagreed with the IG’s assessment. In the Clinton case, the State Department disagreed with the intelligence community about whether certain emails contained information that should be classified. Should the mere fact that the secretary of state had a conversation with a counterpart be classified? In fact, different agencies disagree about issues like this all the time. Some things clearly need to be kept secret, like the identity of covert operatives or battle plans. Inserting one sentence that is classified secret into an otherwise unclassified document makes the entire document secret. Information that is being retransmitted or integrated into other documents retains its original classification level. Who decides what is classified?Įxecutive Order 13256 spells out who specifically may classify information.Īuthority to take certain pieces of information, say the existence of a weapons program, and classify it top secret is given only to specific individuals including the president and vice president, agency heads and those specifically designated by authorities outlined in the executive order. The State Department uses the phrase “sensitive but unclassified,” while the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security use “for official use only.” These markers are often seen in the headers and footers of documents just like classified designations. Government agencies use different terms for this category of information. Not quite confidentialīelow the confidential level, there are varying terms for information that is not classified but still sensitive. This is what Clinton was trying to do with the “nonpaper” that she instructed her aide Jake Sullivan to fix so that it could be sent over a nonsecure fax machine. This approach allows for the easy identification and removal of classified portions of a document so that less sensitive sections can be shared in unclassified settings. The highest classification of any portion of the document determines its overall classification. Within a document, paragraphs might carry the markers “S” for secret, “C” for confidential or “TS” for top secret. For example, a document’s title might be preceded with the marker (U) indicating the title and existence of the document is unclassified. Individual paragraphs are marked to indicate the level of classification. It is common for documents to contain information that is classified at different levels as well as unclassified information. For example, only those holding a secret or top secret clearance and the critical nuclear weapon design information designation are allowed to access information related to many aspects of the operation and design of nuclear weapons. There are several other designators restricting access even to cleared personnel. Sometimes this information is given a code word so that only those cleared for that particular code word can access the information. The other designations refer to information the disclosure of which could cause “serious” (secret) or “exceptionally grave” (top secret) damage to national security.Īt the top secret level, some information is “compartmented.” That means only certain people who have a top secret security clearance may view it. The lowest level, confidential, designates information that if released could damage U.S. government uses three levels of classification to designate how sensitive certain information is: confidential, secret and top secret. REUTERS/Gary Cameron Classification levels and what gets classified
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