I got out of the Navy's TS / SCI world about 6 years ago, but I agree that if submarines treat classified information the way shore installations do, there's very little this kid could have gotten away with.
The Walker spy ring turned the security world of the U.S. Navy upside down. There isn't a lot of truly harmful stuff floating around for just any sailor to pick up and sell...It's not that there aren't plenty of secrets, but the armed services went a long way toward ensuring that the only way anything truly damaging will get compromised is when Ted Kennedy has a drink.
One of the more recent endeavors by the intelligence services has been toward centralizinig classified material and making the entire library accessible via secure "internet." If the laptop that was stolen is one was capable of browsing the libraries of the various intel organs, it's compromise *could* be very troublesome, but it would have to be documents saved off onto the local hard drive and would not represent a persistent hole through which classified data were escaping. Even then, workstations and user accounts are locked down pretty tight with no opportunity for uncleared folks to just hop on them and surf away...Without some gross negligence.
Its been several years, but there was a big difference in how SECRET and TS got handled. SECRET got locked up inport, in various pookahs - bench & wall lockers, with a standard padlock, nothing anymore secure than what a divisions tools & maintenance records would be kept. At sea, the whole boat is authorized stowage since everyone onboard had SECRET clearance, so all the locks were removed.
Online access via a computer and getting rid of the pubs would be a great improvement.
TS was completely different and CMS was different still with the TPI rule.
There were lots of NWPs covering dozens of topics, but we joked that Moscow probably already had a set, inasmuch that if we ever went against the book, some GRU analyst would undoubtedly say - once again the Americans show they don't follow their published tactical procedures. But thats what made things fun in the cold war.....