[ez2muz]

"Doesn't matter. A Top Secret clearance is a Top Secret clearance..."

Top-Secret 'clearances' are not limited to DOD.

There are other arenas of higher sensitivity. A TS in one arena does not equal a TS in another.

One person may have a TS for work on some "fancy weapons" program but that TS means nothing in the many other non-"fancy-weapons" arenas.

So my original thought was that what Kerry had in Vietnam cannot compare to what he has been briefed on present day.

[HenryLeeII]

There are other arenas of higher sensitivity. A TS in one arena does not equal a TS in another. One person may have a TS for work on some "fancy weapons" program but that TS means nothing in the many other non-"fancy-weapons" arenas.

TS is simply a categorization of classified material based on the harm to national security its release would mean. There are categories within the TS level (compartmented information), so someone with a TS clearance is cleared to see and handle only what he has a need to know. Now, the members of the SSCI, which Kerry used to be on and Edwards currently is, sees more than senators in general, although they all had access to a lot before voting on the Iraq war resolution. And regardless of what is blathered about in Hollywood movies, TS is the highest category of classification; but again, there are sub-categories within it.

So my original thought was that what Kerry had in Vietnam cannot compare to what he has been briefed on present day.

That's correct as far as the breadth of what he's briefed on, but it simply doesn't matter because violating the restrictions put on the holder of a TS clearance are the same (theoretically), no matter the topic.

[angkor]

If you check the docs on Findlaw you'll see that Kerry had some sort of nuke training. I don't know what it was for or why he had it (either the Gridley was a nuke or it was carrying nukes).

In the USN of the 70's, anything nuke required TS clearance. From an ET on a nuke sub to an engineer running the nuke plant, all TS.

I suspect this is the only reason Kerry had TS clearance.

[angkor]

A TS in one arena does not equal a TS in another.

Indeed. In practice a Security Officer may not accept the terms of an SCI that was valid on another project or mission.

And across agencies there are many clearance designators which have different names, e.g., DoD Secret seems about the same as DoE Q Class or the civilian (Treasury and Justice) 85P.

[js1138]

A TS in one arena does not equal a TS in another.

Actually, when I was in the service, a Secret Crypto clearance was harder to get than most Top Secret clearances. It depends on what you need to know.