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One violating these directives might be guilty of violating a lawful order or mishandling classified information. For ease of use, caveats and abbreviations have been adopted that can be included in the summary classification marking (header/footer) to enable the restrictions to be identified at a glance.
Classified information can be designated Top Secret, Secret or Confidential. These classifications are only used on matters of national interest. Top Secret: applies when compromise might reasonably cause exceptionally grave injury to the national interest. The possible impact must be great, immediate and irreparable.
After 25 years, declassification review is automatic with nine narrow exceptions that allow information to remain as classified. At 50 years, there are two exceptions, and classifications beyond 75 years require special permission. [ 2 ]
A United States security clearance is an official determination that an individual may access information classified by the United States Government.Security clearances are hierarchical; each level grants the holder access to information in that level and the levels below it.
Burn bags are generally associated with US governmental organizations like the CIA and NSA, due to the classified nature of their work. Most other governmental organizations have some form of burn bag system to destroy documents deemed of a Top Secret, Secret, Classified, or other similar nature.
Executive Order 12958 created new standards for the process of identifying and protecting classified information, and led to an unprecedented effort to declassify millions of pages from the U.S. diplomatic and national security history.
As a component of the Obama Administration's initiative to improve transparency and open-access to the Federal Government and the information it produces formally introduced upon taking office in late January 2009 [2] and as a result of an agency-wide review and recommendation process ordered in May of that same year, [3] the issuance of EO 13526 was ultimately prompted by several factors.
Special access programs (SAPs) in the U.S. Federal Government are security protocols that provide highly classified information with safeguards and access restrictions that exceed those for regular (collateral) classified information. SAPs can range from black projects to routine but especially-sensitive operations, such as COMSEC maintenance ...