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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.
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.
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.
Confidential government papers such as the yearly cabinet papers used routinely to be withheld formally, although not necessarily classified as secret, for 30 years under the thirty year rule, and released usually on a New Year's Day; freedom of information legislation has relaxed this rigid approach.
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.
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.
CONFIDENTIAL – Information of which the unauthorized disclosure could reasonably be expected to cause damage to the national security. Unacknowledged Special Access Program (USAP): USAP & "Waived USAP" – Made known only to authorized persons, including members of the appropriate committees of the US Congress. Waived USAP is a subset of USAP.
A Type 1 Product refers to an NSA endorsed classified or controlled cryptographic item for classified or sensitive U.S. government information, including cryptographic equipment, assembly or component classified or certified by NSA for encrypting and decrypting classified and sensitive national security information when appropriately keyed. [1]