I saw Joew DiGenova on FNC yesterday, and he said these docs are so classified they are like the crown jewels of national security. Something about the docs being classified as "code word", whatever that means. Anyone know?
Above TS. To access TS "code-word" classified material, you need a TS clearance, a demonstrable "need to know" (established by someone other then yourself), and a specific clearance for that particular "code-word" program.
IOW, someone with only a TS clearance, but NO "code-word" clearance, can ONLY access TS (or lower) classified material which he "needs to know" about. He cannot access any "code-word" classified material. Someone with TS clearance AND clearance for the program with code-word of, let say "Aardvark" (a made-up example), can access TS (or lower) material of non-code-word classified programs, AND material that is code-word "Aardvark," but not of other code-word programs for which he isn't cleared.
I'll try to explain it to you.
There are four levels of classification for government documents: Unclassified, Confidential, Secret and Top Secret. These can all have special handling categories like FOUO (For Official Use Only) or SPECAT (SPEcial CATegory).
There are also materials that are referred to as SCI (Special Compartmented Information). In intelligence circles, these compartments refer to a method of collection of said intelligence, amongst other things. Each compartment gets a code word associated with it. These codewords are, by themselves, classified Confidential. To even have access to SCI material, a person has to have a special background investigation and be briefed into each compartment.
So, when someone refers to something as Top Secret "codeword", it's because it's SCI and even the codeword is classified.
As an aside, these codewords can apply to material of any classification, not just Top Secret.
"...are like the crown jewels of national security. "
Wow. And they inadvertantly got crammed down a guy's underdrawers and later destroyed.
I'm really impressed with security. (Do I really have to close my sarcasm tag?)