The vast number of those with Top Secret clearances could mean that lots of great work is being done in a wide variety of areas to advance our abilities to defend ourselves against our foes.
Or it could mean vast amounts of duplication, obfuscation, waste, fraud, and abuse.
We'll never know.
That’s the idea of classifying it
Bingo !
Need to know an compartmentalization needs to be reinforced across the board....
You are correct;
I have had a TS with access to Secret Compartmented Information, Critical Nuclear Weapon Design Information and level One Presidential Access for 21 years and I can count on one hand the times I have been exposed to TS info. Except for the area 51 alien thing but that’s another story.
One time I had to know the CG of a nuclear warhead that I was designing some stuff for on the cruise missile. I went to the security area to check out the drawing and somebody else had it. I called him on the phone and asked what the location of the CG was. He told me that he could not tell me as he did not know if I had clearance. But we settled on playing 20 questions to get the answer. I was a lot more patient in those days.
Agreed....I was just going to add that West has no real clue as to the multiple levels of clearances in a “security clearance”........
It's sad that it took John Walker for the military to tighten down on who had access to what. Being a radioman he had just about carte blanc to see whatever he could ask for. They really screwed down the clamps after he was arrested. A good example was that poor sap Kurt Lessenthien, who tried doing what Walker did just 20 years too late to get away with it.
Like one intelligence agency sending their reports or work to several other intelligence agencies, and those other intelligence agencies sending it back to them rewritten some with their own name on it. Its a dog eat dog world in those intelligence agencies, got to complete for the same money doing the same thing.