Non-partisan look at the issue of classified documents in private residences

[Seymour Flops]

I won't even mention names or party in this thread. I want to talk about an aspect of the idea of classified information and documents that is not at all a function of party and politics. That is my contention that way too much information is classified and that it is almost impossible to avoid having classified documents at home, if a person works at home.

First of all, why should any information owned by the government in a democratic republic ever be kept secret from the taxpaying citizens who own the government and therefore own that information? I believe there should be two requirements:

1) Knowledge of the information would give significant assistance to adversaries seeking to harm the United States and/or the people of the United States.

2) The information is not already out in the public.

At the lowest level, classified information is in reports such as the number of vehicles that are currently inoperable in a military unit's motor pool, number of soldiers on leave, number on sick call, etc. Those type reports are generated daily and are classified "Confidential." I'm fine with keeping that information out of the public.

When I was in the Army, we did those reports by pen and paper or typewriters, and hand-carried them up the chain. I'm sure the adversaries can access it, now that it is done online, but we should at least try to keep it close.

At a higher level, information such as nuclear codes, and locations of submarines, attack and defense plans, would be highly classified and rightfully so, since that information is not known to the public and could certainly help our allies.

But, the overwhelming majority of classified information satisfies neither requirement.

Classified information such as everything that the government knows about the Kennedy assassination, the FBI's treatment of Martin Luther King and other perceived political enemies, how many agitators the FBI had at the Capital on Jan 6, the CIA's human experiments, CIA interference in the politics and conflicts in other countries, etc. is not really a secret. There are books, news articles, 60 Minutes stories, and Netflix documentaries about those things.

Nor is the country or its people harmed by the fact that these things are widely known. Theoretically, the people in a constitutional democratic republic benefit from knowing what the government does.

So, why are those things classified, if the government knows that we know them and doesn't really care that we know them?

The answer is simple: To give government officials, that we pay and supposedly choose, an excuse to avoid answering questions about those things. Through the magic of classification, our executive branch can avoid all oversight by our legislative branch. They can also avoid all questions from our media. Therefore they can avoid ever being held accountable for anything.

What does the executive branch want to be held accountable for? Nothing, of course. So the default for any information is that it is classified. If not classified officially, it is "part of an ongoing investigation." (these days what isn't?)

So . . . if everything is classified, and senior officials are going to take work home with them, they are going to take home classified documents.

You may be thinking, 'take home work? I never take home work with me! I get my job done in 8 hours at my office.' I'm sure that's true. But that's you, not a senior government official. Whatever you may think of this senior official or that one, they didn't get where they are by only working 8 hours a day and only working at the office. They take home work and obsess over it. They keep it by their bed to skim it one last time before they leave for work. They don't spend every evening watching Survivor.

Let us not also forget that for about two years, working at home was all the rage due to COVID. We still can't get our federal employees to get back to "work." Blaming someone of either party for working at home is pretty silly. Notice it is the older folks that are getting caught with documents lately. They are paper documents. Younger people work with electronic documents on their home computers and that would never be "caught" by a lawyer stumbling over it. I doubt that the FBI technicians went to the home of every government worker who worked on confidential information from their home computer, to make sure they had a SCIF set up.

Point being, lets stop stressing over who had classified information at home. That's what those who want to run government as an underground enterprise want us to focus on. Lets focus instead on forcing them to be transparent and answer to their employers which is we the taxpayers.

 

[pknopp]

Classified information should be extremely rare but that doesn't excuse the fact that it seem the entire top echelon of government has been mishandling it while going gung ho in prosecuting those below them for doing the same.

 

[Votto]

I won't even mention names or party in this thread. I want to talk about an aspect of the idea of classified information and documents that is not at all a function of party and politics. That is my contention that way too much information is classified and that it is almost impossible to avoid having classified documents at home, if a person works at home.

First of all, why should any information owned by the government in a democratic republic ever be kept secret from the taxpaying citizens who own the government and therefore own that information? I believe there should be two requirements:

1) Knowledge of the information would give significant assistance to adversaries seeking to harm the United States and/or the people of the United States.

2) The information is not already out in the public.

At the lowest level, classified information is in reports such as the number of vehicles that are currently inoperable in a military unit's motor pool, number of soldiers on leave, number on sick call, etc. Those type reports are generated daily and are classified "Confidential." I'm fine with keeping that information out of the public.

When I was in the Army, we did those reports by pen and paper or typewriters, and hand-carried them up the chain. I'm sure the adversaries can access it, now that it is done online, but we should at least try to keep it close.

At a higher level, information such as nuclear codes, and locations of submarines, attack and defense plans, would be highly classified and rightfully so, since that information is not known to the public and could certainly help our allies.

But, the overwhelming majority of classified information satisfies neither requirement.

Classified information such as everything that the government knows about the Kennedy assassination, the FBI's treatment of Martin Luther King and other perceived political enemies, how many agitators the FBI had at the Capital on Jan 6, the CIA's human experiments, CIA interference in the politics and conflicts in other countries, etc. is not really a secret. There are books, news articles, 60 Minutes stories, and Netflix documentaries about those things.

Nor is the country or its people harmed by the fact that these things are widely known. Theoretically, the people in a constitutional democratic republic benefit from knowing what the government does.

So, why are those things classified, if the government knows that we know them and doesn't really care that we know them?

The answer is simple: To give government officials, that we pay and supposedly choose, an excuse to avoid answering questions about those things. Through the magic of classification, our executive branch can avoid all oversight by our legislative branch. They can also avoid all questions from our media. Therefore they can avoid ever being held accountable for anything.

What does the executive branch want to be held accountable for? Nothing, of course. So the default for any information is that it is classified. If not classified officially, it is "part of an ongoing investigation." (these days what isn't?)

So . . . if everything is classified, and senior officials are going to take work home with them, they are going to take home classified documents.

You may be thinking, 'take home work? I never take home work with me! I get my job done in 8 hours at my office.' I'm sure that's true. But that's you, not a senior government official. Whatever you may think of this senior official or that one, they didn't get where they are by only working 8 hours a day and only working at the office. They take home work and obsess over it. They keep it by their bed to skim it one last time before they leave for work. They don't spend every evening watching Survivor.

Let us not also forget that for about two years, working at home was all the rage due to COVID. We still can't get our federal employees to get back to "work." Blaming someone of either party for working at home is pretty silly. Notice it is the older folks that are getting caught with documents lately. They are paper documents. Younger people work with electronic documents on their home computers and that would never be "caught" by a lawyer stumbling over it. I doubt that the FBI technicians went to the home of every government worker who worked on confidential information from their home computer, to make sure they had a SCIF set up.

Point being, lets stop stressing over who had classified information at home. That's what those who want to run government as an underground enterprise want us to focus on. Lets focus instead on forcing them to be transparent and answer to their employers which is we the taxpayers.

There is no upside to declassify documents for those in governent.

Information is power so those not in government are not given that power which may cause the government problems.

 

[Polishprince]

Most "classified" documents could easily be declassified after a short period of time when the danger expires. If they were nuclear codes, don't you think that they are changed routinely when people leave office? I worked in an office many years ago with a keypad entrance, if someone quit or was fired, new codes were established.

This whole bullshit was just a way to "get Trump" after so many years of liberal failure, and now with the BIden documents, its biting them in the ass.

 

[occupied]

Perhaps our most valuable secrets are how we gather intelligence and on whom. That has to remain secret as well as any routine reports this surveillance might produce. These reports might not contain anything that was valuable for more than a few days but they point to the methods used to gather the intelligence.

 

[BackAgain]

Some matters discussed internally by government probably should be classified so that unfriendly foreign powers don’t have our important information (and don’t know what we know about them and their plots).

Also, to the extent we need so-called secret agents, it would be criminal to reveal the names of agents in place or their sources. (I frequently disagree with pknopp, but in post #2 I tend to agree with his opening line.)

That being so, I understand a national need for classification of some intel. But I agree that we seemingly classify too much information. And I think “we the People” shouldn’t be kept so insulated from all of our information.

But there is at least a screw or two loose when it comes to properly keeping track of classified intel. That is a matter which deserves real attention.

(Side note: not just a good thread, but also smart to keep specific names out of the conversation. Much more productive that way.)

 

[Seymour Flops]

Perhaps our most valuable secrets are how we gather intelligence and on whom. That has to remain secret as well as any routine reports this surveillance might produce. These reports might not contain anything that was valuable for more than a few days but they point to the methods used to gather the intelligence.

Oh, you mean like spies using fake identities and pretended friendships to get information from people, the NSA "tapping" every cell phone in the world, and planting bugs in offices? Using distance microphones that can record conversations using vibrations of windows? That our agencies gather intelligence on anyone with information that they are interested in?

Those are not "secrets." They are "SECRET." There should be a emoticon on those classification stamps.

 

[White 6]

I won't even mention names or party in this thread. I want to talk about an aspect of the idea of classified information and documents that is not at all a function of party and politics. That is my contention that way too much information is classified and that it is almost impossible to avoid having classified documents at home, if a person works at home.

First of all, why should any information owned by the government in a democratic republic ever be kept secret from the taxpaying citizens who own the government and therefore own that information? I believe there should be two requirements:

1) Knowledge of the information would give significant assistance to adversaries seeking to harm the United States and/or the people of the United States.

2) The information is not already out in the public.

At the lowest level, classified information is in reports such as the number of vehicles that are currently inoperable in a military unit's motor pool, number of soldiers on leave, number on sick call, etc. Those type reports are generated daily and are classified "Confidential." I'm fine with keeping that information out of the public.

When I was in the Army, we did those reports by pen and paper or typewriters, and hand-carried them up the chain. I'm sure the adversaries can access it, now that it is done online, but we should at least try to keep it close.

At a higher level, information such as nuclear codes, and locations of submarines, attack and defense plans, would be highly classified and rightfully so, since that information is not known to the public and could certainly help our allies.

But, the overwhelming majority of classified information satisfies neither requirement.

Classified information such as everything that the government knows about the Kennedy assassination, the FBI's treatment of Martin Luther King and other perceived political enemies, how many agitators the FBI had at the Capital on Jan 6, the CIA's human experiments, CIA interference in the politics and conflicts in other countries, etc. is not really a secret. There are books, news articles, 60 Minutes stories, and Netflix documentaries about those things.

Nor is the country or its people harmed by the fact that these things are widely known. Theoretically, the people in a constitutional democratic republic benefit from knowing what the government does.

So, why are those things classified, if the government knows that we know them and doesn't really care that we know them?

The answer is simple: To give government officials, that we pay and supposedly choose, an excuse to avoid answering questions about those things. Through the magic of classification, our executive branch can avoid all oversight by our legislative branch. They can also avoid all questions from our media. Therefore they can avoid ever being held accountable for anything.

What does the executive branch want to be held accountable for? Nothing, of course. So the default for any information is that it is classified. If not classified officially, it is "part of an ongoing investigation." (these days what isn't?)

So . . . if everything is classified, and senior officials are going to take work home with them, they are going to take home classified documents.

You may be thinking, 'take home work? I never take home work with me! I get my job done in 8 hours at my office.' I'm sure that's true. But that's you, not a senior government official. Whatever you may think of this senior official or that one, they didn't get where they are by only working 8 hours a day and only working at the office. They take home work and obsess over it. They keep it by their bed to skim it one last time before they leave for work. They don't spend every evening watching Survivor.

Let us not also forget that for about two years, working at home was all the rage due to COVID. We still can't get our federal employees to get back to "work." Blaming someone of either party for working at home is pretty silly. Notice it is the older folks that are getting caught with documents lately. They are paper documents. Younger people work with electronic documents on their home computers and that would never be "caught" by a lawyer stumbling over it. I doubt that the FBI technicians went to the home of every government worker who worked on confidential information from their home computer, to make sure they had a SCIF set up.

Point being, lets stop stressing over who had classified information at home. That's what those who want to run government as an underground enterprise want us to focus on. Lets focus instead on forcing them to be transparent and answer to their employers which is we the taxpayers.

About the only thing in your OP, I completely agree with, it the fact we have too much classified documentation and much classified beyond levels of reason. I cannot count the times, I have attended classified briefings, only to find out, it covered subjects and facts I had already briefed (more thoroughly) or written papers on, strictly unclassified in unit training threat briefings, other than the old stand by "For Official Use Only", having researched personally from open source material ranging from Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, Jane's books on Fighting Ships, Aircraft and Armaments. It gets ridiculous.

 

[Seymour Flops]

About the only thing in your OP, I completely agree with, it the fact we have too much classified documentation and much classified beyond levels of reason. I cannot count the times, I have attended classified briefings, only to find out, it covered subjects and facts I had already briefed (more thoroughly) or written papers on, strictly unclassified in unit training threat briefings, other than the old stand by "For Official Use Only", having researched personally from open source material ranging from Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, Jane's books on Fighting Ships, Aircraft and Armaments. It gets ridiculous.

Good points. For those not in the know, "For Official Use Only," is a sort of non-classified classification that means we don't need to be showing this to the boys in the bar, but we're not going to require it to be locked up at night. That is probably what the majority of information now called "CONFIDENTIAL" should be.

 

[Rambunctious]

Maybe the rules for classifying certain documents could be updated... some say they are too strict and unnecessarily redundant... that sounds like Washington... but there are regular folks in prison for violating these rules and so the higher ups should pay a price too...
Biden had some serious top secret SCI documents that if released could get people killed....
He should be prosecuted for this... his case is far worse than Trump's document case...

 

[Seymour Flops]

I find it telling that each of these senior officials have had their lawyers search their homes for classified information. I understand why they would use a lawyer, for the lawyer-client privilege. But why do they need anyone else to search for documents that they brought home? Why not just open the safe that they keep their at-home classified material and sort it by classification based on the cover sheets and hand it over?

Because they don't keep it in safes, and they don't bother with the cover sheets. They keep it in their in-box, on their night stand, on the tray with their morning newspaper, or in the console of their couch while they watch the news. It would take hours to search every possible location they may have casually laid aside a classified document, so they hire someone to take that time. Plus it is like having somone else proofread your writing. They will find mistakes that you might miss in five readings.

That information laying around sounds terrible, if you imagine them doing that with information that could seriously harm the nation. But that isn't what it is. They're not going to take home nuclear launch codes, or submarine locations, or names of human sources. A president might take home a State Department analysis of some foreign countries intentions regards their own nuclear program. Likely someone at the State Department marked it classified knowing that it will be more likely to be read, but it's opinion.

 

[White 6]

Maybe the rules for classifying certain documents could be updated... some say they are too strict and unnecessarily redundant... that sounds like Washington... but there are regular folks in prison for violating these rules and so the higher ups should pay a price too...
Biden had some serious top secret SCI documents that if released could get people killed....
He should be prosecuted for this... his case is far worse than Trump's document case...

The problem of over classification is across many branches of government and the military. Hard to say if people are in prison for breaching something over classified, due to the non-public release of the material and the inability to bring it into court. Maybe yes, maybe no. Other than somebody saying Biden had top secret that could get people killed (an unprovable claim without releasing the particulars of a "classified" document, there is no legal way to prove or disprove such a salacious charge. That part is true for Joe Biden, Mike Pence, Donald Trump and apparently Jimmy Carter, no matter their culpability in having documents outside a secured government installation or not, whether by accident, on purpose or whether they are trying to keep them as personal owned property of the government or not.

 

[Rambunctious]

The problem of over classification is across many branches of government and the military. Hard to say if people are in prison for breaching something over classified, due to the non-public release of the material and the inability to bring it into court. Maybe yes, maybe no. Other than somebody saying Biden had top secret that could get people killed (an unprovable claim without releasing the particulars of a "classified" document, there is no legal way to prove or disprove such a salacious charge. That part is true for Joe Biden, Mike Pence, Donald Trump and apparently Jimmy Carter, no matter their culpability in having documents outside a secured government installation or not, whether by accident, on purpose or whether they are trying to keep them as personal owned property of the government or not.

US ââNavy sailor jailed for taking photos of classified areas of nuclear submarine

Kristian Saucier pleaded guilty in May to ‘foolish mistake’ of unauthorized detention of defense information

www.theguardian.com

Amid scrutiny of Trump White House docs, DOJ secures prison term for ex-Defense employee who mishandled classified materials | CNN Politics

A former civilian employee of the Defense Department was sentenced Thursday to three months in prison after admitting to taking materials containing classified information to her hotel room and to her personal residence.

www.cnn.com

FBI, Justice Department Routinely Prosecute Misuse of Classified Documents

Previous investigations have targeted a former national security adviser and a former CIA director

www.voanews.com

Reality Winner, imprisoned for leaking classified report, calls case against Trump "incredibly ironic"

The former intelligence contractor spent more than 4 years in prison after pleading guilty to leaking classified information under the Espionage Act.

www.nbcnews.com

Honolulu Woman Receives Three Months in Prison for Removal and Retention of Classified Material

www.justice.gov

 

[Seymour Flops]

US ââNavy sailor jailed for taking photos of classified areas of nuclear submarine

Kristian Saucier pleaded guilty in May to ‘foolish mistake’ of unauthorized detention of defense information

www.theguardian.com

Amid scrutiny of Trump White House docs, DOJ secures prison term for ex-Defense employee who mishandled classified materials | CNN Politics

A former civilian employee of the Defense Department was sentenced Thursday to three months in prison after admitting to taking materials containing classified information to her hotel room and to her personal residence.

www.cnn.com

FBI, Justice Department Routinely Prosecute Misuse of Classified Documents

Previous investigations have targeted a former national security adviser and a former CIA director

www.voanews.com

Reality Winner, imprisoned for leaking classified report, calls case against Trump "incredibly ironic"

The former intelligence contractor spent more than 4 years in prison after pleading guilty to leaking classified information under the Espionage Act.

www.nbcnews.com

Honolulu Woman Receives Three Months in Prison for Removal and Retention of Classified Material

www.justice.gov

No doubt there are many examples of relatively low-level people being prosecuted for unauthorized posession of classified material in an unauthorized place. If they had no nefarious intentions, other than knowingly breaking the rules for classified information, jail time is absurd. If that is happening, the solution is to stop doing that, not to do the same to senior officials. That goes double for elected officials, because there is no way those kind of prosecutions would not be highly politicized.

I briefly looked at the cases you linked. Except for the one about the Defense Employee taking example theses to use when writing her thesis, all of them seemed much more than simply mishandling classified material. They were also giving that information to others to benefit themselves to the detriment of the national security to whatever extent revealing that information would be.

The Defense Employee/Thesis writer was treated much more harshly than she should have been. I have an opinion as to why, but I don't want to make this thread political. I think you would be hard pressed to find anyone who went to jail merely for taking documents home to work on them, or receiving classified information on an unauthorized platform.

 

[Rambunctious]

No doubt there are many examples of relatively low-level people being prosecuted for unauthorized posession of classified material in an unauthorized place. If they had no nefarious intentions, other than knowingly breaking the rules for classified information, jail time is absurd. If that is happening, the solution is to stop doing that, not to do the same to senior officials. That goes double for elected officials, because there is no way those kind of prosecutions would not be highly politicized.

I briefly looked at the cases you linked. Except for the one about the Defense Employee taking example theses to use when writing her thesis, all of them seemed much more than simply mishandling classified material. They were also giving that information to others to benefit themselves to the detriment of the national security to whatever extent revealing that information would be.

The Defense Employee/Thesis writer was treated much more harshly than she should have been. I have an opinion as to why, but I don't want to make this thread political. I think you would be hard pressed to find anyone who went to jail merely for taking documents home to work on them, or receiving classified information on an unauthorized platform.

The Sailor never intended anything nefarious... we must come together and at least admit that big wigs get the same treatment as the rest of us or we will be living in a full on tyrannical nation in our lifetime....

 

[Seymour Flops]

The Sailor never intended anything nefarious... we must come together and at least admit that big wigs get the same treatment as the rest of us or we will be living in a full on tyrannical nation in our lifetime....

Yes, I should have said that the Sailor was another example.

So, she shouldn't have been so harshly punished. Yes, the high and the low should be treated the same.

If a hypothetical big-wig is taking classified docs home to work with/on them and doesn't live in a SCIF, but keeps them locked up in a house with locks and an alarm, they should be in one level of trouble. If another hypothetical former bigwig took classified documents home as souveneirs or to refer to when writing memiors, that's another level.

Neither come close to stealing documents and using them for espionage or sabotage. It is false to say that "lives are at risk" for every classified document that is not secured exactly according to regulations. It reminds me of when self-important Army inspectors would say, "details cost lives in combat," as they wrote up a gig for a file folder label typed in all caps instead of the required upper-case/lower-case combination.

 

[Rambunctious]

Yes, I should have said that the Sailor was another example.

So, she shouldn't have been so harshly punished. Yes, the high and the low should be treated the same.

If a hypothetical big-wig is taking classified docs home to work with/on them and doesn't live in a SCIF, but keeps them locked up in a house with locks and an alarm, they should be in one level of trouble. If another hypothetical former bigwig took classified documents home as souveneirs or to refer to when writing memiors, that's another level.

Neither come close to stealing documents and using them for espionage or sabotage. It is false to say that "lives are at risk" for every classified document that is not secured exactly according to regulations. It reminds me of when self-important Army inspectors would say, "details cost lives in combat," as they wrote up a gig for a file folder label typed in all caps instead of the required upper-case/lower-case combination.

Why not a blanket law... you break it you get punished no matter who you are... its high time we start holding DC to the same laws standards punishment and treatment they hand out to us...

 

[Seymour Flops]

Why not a blanket law... you break it you get punished no matter who you are... its high time we start holding DC to the same laws standards punishment and treatment they hand out to us...

We have a blanket law now - on paper. There are no exceptions for high-level officials except arguably the president. That doesn't mean that the general gets the same punishment for putting a classified document in his briefcase and taking it to his three story mansion in officer housing as does the private who puts a classified document in his pocket and takes it to the barracks.

 

[Rambunctious]

We have a blanket law now - on paper. There are no exceptions for high-level officials except arguably the president. That doesn't mean that the general gets the same punishment for putting a classified document in his briefcase and taking it to his three story mansion in officer housing as does the private who puts a classified document in his pocket and takes it to the barracks.

The law is the law... I have been in a position to handle classified information and would of been discharged prosecuted and imprisoned for doing what senator Biden did....

 

[Seymour Flops]

The law is the law... I have been in a position to handle classified information and would of been discharged prosecuted and imprisoned for doing what senator Biden did....

Correct, and that will not happen to Biden, or Pence, or Hillary.

How do you propose we fix that problem of privilege for bigwigs?