Tuesday, Feb 8, 2022 • 25min
How Does Security Clearance Work?
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From "top secret," like the names and locations of intelligence agents, to "confidential," like the drinking habits of a prime minister, the federal government has a lot of sensitive information. What are the different levels of security clearance, and how does it all work?
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Talking about
Speakers
(3)
Nick Capodice
Hannah McCarthy
Juliette Kayyem
Transcript
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Nick Capodice
00:01
Hannah, if you had top secret clearance and you could access any classified government information, what would you want to know about?
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Hannah McCarthy
00:10
I think I would want to know what the real plan is in the event of nuclear war.
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00:15
There's no point in getting historical at a moment like this.
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Hannah McCarthy
00:19
I bet it's a little more grim than we think it is. What about you?
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Nick Capodice
00:23
The Mary Celeste.
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Hannah McCarthy
00:25
What's the Mary Celeste? Ghost ship?
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Nick Capodice
00:27
It was discovered and no one was on board, and there was no sign of a scuffle. It was like the 1800s, though. I don't think that top secret clearance is going to tell me about the Mary Celeste. I have another question for you. How good are you at keeping secrets?
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Hannah McCarthy
00:44
I think I'm pretty good but then at the same time, when I buy someone something fun for their birthday, I could just tell you right now.
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00:56
I've always prided myself on the idea that I think I would be able to keep any secret if I really had to, but the stakes were high enough and it was like: "people will get hurt if you share this secret". Yeah, I'm taking it to my grave! What a privilege.
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01:12
It's classified, I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.
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Nick Capodice
01:16
Well, there's a job, Hannah, that requires that kind of dedication and I think you just might be the person for it.
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01:22
I work for the government, I have the highest possible security clearance. Don't repeat that. I can't protect you.
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Nick Capodice
01:29
Because the federal government has a huge amount of sensitive information, from military movements to criminal investigations, to scientific and technological developments, to information about individuals. Close to three million people have some form of security clearance, which gives them access to that classified information.
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01:50
Oh! Must be precious cargo.
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01:53
Yeah, it's just government secrets.
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Hannah McCarthy
01:58
This is Civics 101, I'm Hannah McCarthy.
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Nick Capodice
01:60
And I'm Nick Capodice. Today we're talking about how the government keeps its secrets, and what it takes to get into the classified club.
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02:07
Mr. Simpson, please cover your ears while I say the secret access word. Cheese.
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Nick Capodice
02:14
Today's guest is
Juliette Kayyem
, professor of international security at Harvard's
Kennedy School of Government
and National Security
analyst for CNN
. She formerly served as Assistant Secretary for Intergovernmental Affairs
at the Department of Homeland Security
under President Obama
and she spoke with her former host Virginia Prescott in 2017.Share
Juliette Kayyem
02:32
Okay, so there's three levels at least for the federal government. The top level is of course top secret. That's information that if disclosed would cause exceptionally grave damage. That's the standard.
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Hannah McCarthy
02:46
Okay, hang on. What does she mean by exceptionally grave damage?
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Nick Capodice
02:51
Some examples of exceptionally grave damage include armed hostilities against
the United States
or its allies; the compromise of vital national defense plans or complex cryptologic and communications intelligence systems; the revelation of sensitive intelligence operations; and finally, the disclosure of scientific or technological developments vital to national security.Share
Hannah McCarthy
03:15
But does that... just boil it down for me.
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Nick Capodice
03:16
Basically, top secret information is the most important information, and that classification is used relatively sparingly.
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Hannah McCarthy
03:29
So, how does the government decide what rises to that very highest level of top secret?
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Nick Capodice
03:35
There is a way to distinguish between top secret and everything else.
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Juliette Kayyem
03:40
The key difference between the top secret and the other classification levels is that top secret tends to show to the reader, say the President or secretary of Defense, what we call sources and methods. How are we getting that information?
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03:53
You know, we have a spy in an
ISIS
ring in Germany
and he's telling us this. And so, gosh, if that were disclosed or made public, basically someone, that person, would die.Share
Hannah McCarthy
04:05
Alright, got it. Top secret is the highest clearance. What are the other two?
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Juliette Kayyem
04:09
The next is secret, which is, if disclosed or released would cause serious damage. And then confidential, it just tends to be, these are things that the government needs to know for a variety of reasons and it could be expected to cause damage.
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Hannah McCarthy
04:23
It's so interesting that you've got these qualifications of exceptionally serious, serious and just damage, right? Like, someone in the government had to sit down and define that. What does that mean? I wouldn't even know how to define that for my own self.
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04:38
So, you've got top secret, that's exceptionally grave damage, right? Secret is serious damage. But what is the difference between exceptionally grave and serious damage?
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Nick Capodice
04:50
This is information that is still pretty important, but without those sources and methods. So, it could be intel about an
ISIS
ring in Germany
, but it wouldn't include the people who got the information or how they got it.Share
Hannah McCarthy
05:03
But okay, when it comes to confidential, right,
Juliette
said, it could just cause damage.Share
05:08
So is that like, you know, casual, callous gossip, you're actually not far off.
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Juliette Kayyem
05:15
A good example of that would be maybe a memo from someone in the State Department discussing, you know, the drinking habits of the Prime Minister of some country. You just don't want that out there.
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Hannah McCarthy
05:26
My question is: if someone has top secret security clearance, are they able to know what all of the government secrets about anything?
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Nick Capodice
05:33
That would be cool, wouldn't it? But it's a little more complicated than that.
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Juliette Kayyem
05:37
It's very compartmentalized and rightfully so, so that the fact that you have the access does not grant you the right to see all materials that are designated as say top secret.
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05:50
In other words, if I have top secret clearance as relates to, say, Homeland Security issues, I can't just email, you know, or call someone in the Department Security Offices and say "I'm really interested in
North Korea's
nuclear policy. Can I see those top secret materials? "Share
Nick Capodice
06:07
And that's where the phrase "need to know" comes in.
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06:10
You're on a need to know basis, and you don't need to know.
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Nick Capodice
06:13
Even if someone has the clearance for certain intelligence, they may not have access to it unless they need that information for a specific purpose. This is important because, as we said earlier, around three million people have some sort of security clearance. And that group isn't just made up of government employees and military personnel.
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Juliette Kayyem
06:33
For example, the Department of Defense may ask a team of cyber experts to come in and give them advice on cybersecurity, though. So that's why outsiders sometimes have security clearances.
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Nick Capodice
06:45
However, the majority of people who have clearance, about 70% in 2013, were military and government employees, like
Juliette
, who worked for the Department of Homeland Security
under President Obama
.Share
Hannah McCarthy
07:01
So, I've heard a lot especially in the past 6 to 8 years or so about applying for security clearance, right? And how it can be this long massive process.
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Nick Capodice
07:14
If you've been invited to do work that requires a clearance, you have to undergo an investigation. The government digs into your personal information and your background to determine if you're trustworthy.
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Hannah McCarthy
07:26
Sounds stressful. So, who is in charge of approving or denying security clearance?
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Nick Capodice
07:32
Most agencies and departments of the government, they conduct their own investigations using the same basic procedures and an investigation service provider or ISP. The main ISP is the Office of Personnel and Management which is an independent agency in the executive branch. And you want to take a guess, Hannah, as to which department has the most security clearances?
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Hannah McCarthy
07:56
I'm going to guess the one that's conducting secret dangerous operations all over the world, that they don't want people to know about, a. k. a. The Department of Defense?
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Nick Capodice
08:07
Yeah, you got it. The Department of Defense holds over 80% of security clearances. And the D. o. D. has its own investigation service provider, called the Defense Investigative Service.
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Hannah McCarthy
08:18
When you say investigation, what does that actually mean?
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Nick Capodice
08:22
Well, essentially the government is trying to create a timeline of your life, including all the big moments and all the people in it.
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Juliette Kayyem
08:30
So, in my case and in most cases, what you do is you fill out the famous forms with lots of details about where you've lived, your debt, your marital status, your husband or wife or partners, actions, where you've traveled, who you've known, who you've talked to. Any questions about drug use, about your, you know, support of
the United States
and its government. It is painful from any perspective.Share
Nick Capodice
08:57
And the form she's talking about is called the SF86. It's got all your identifying information, including your proof of citizenship. By the way, Hannah, only
US
citizens can get security clearance, though in some circumstances a non-US
citizen can receive a limited access authorization.Share
Hannah McCarthy
09:15
A lifetime in America has taught me that government forums are boring enough as it is. So I can only imagine that this is the epitome of the boring government form.
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Nick Capodice
09:26
You also have to provide information about your parents and your siblings, including step parents, half and step siblings, children and in-laws.
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Hannah McCarthy
09:37
So if you have any kind of family drama, which is every human being on the planet, I can imagine that can get a little tough or awkward.
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Nick Capodice
09:45
And then there is a record of your mental and psychological health, your criminal record and a history of drug and alcohol use. And here's one that is super interesting to me, your financial record. What I was most shocked to learn is that over half of the people who are denied security clearance are denied because of financial issues, like significant debt.
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Hannah McCarthy
10:08
Like, my student loans might hurt my chances.
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Nick Capodice
10:11
Any unpaid bills.
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Hannah McCarthy
10:13
I understand that, though. Because if you're on the hook for a great deal of money to some other organization, you're kind of a liability.
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Nick Capodice
10:21
Yeah, if you owe a large amount of money to someone, to anyone, it's much easier for outside forces to manipulate you, to give you favors, to take care of that debt.
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Hannah McCarthy
10:33
How long does this whole process take?
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Nick Capodice
10:34
Like, a lot of things it depends on the level of urgency and who the person is.
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Juliette Kayyem
10:38
Let's use someone like
Rex Tillerson
, a perfect example. Probably someone who may have had security clearances in the past. He's a private citizen, he's got complicated financial dynamics.Share
10:49
Rex Tillerson
, CEO of oil giant Exxon Mobil
, now tapped to be Trump's Secretary of State
. A man with no government experience but decades of dealmaking and international business ties. Those ties include extensive relations with Russia,
and most notably, Vladimir Putin.Share
Juliette Kayyem
11:09
They can probably get through that one in 2 to 3 weeks, but they're putting a lot of resources behind it. For a lot of people like, say, my students, who may be coming in as a
CIA
analysts just looking at things online and doing analysis for the CIA
, it can take anywhere from 6 to 8 months.Share
Hannah McCarthy
11:26
I want to come back to this fact that over half of the people who don't get security clearance are denied because of debt. But what are some of the other reasons someone might be denied?
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Nick Capodice
11:35
Things like personal conduct, like if you're telling fibs on an application or you have a history of conduct issues. Another issue is "foreign influence", like you have foreign family members or a financial stake in other countries.
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Juliette Kayyem
11:49
I think it's more common that the agents will come back to you and say: we have some questions about this. So, my parents, my mother was born in Lebanon. There's greater concern about people with foreign born relatives, especially a mother or father or a spouse. That seems fair, since these are national security issues. And so then they did need me to go back and sort of validate or verify not just her, but her nine brothers and sisters. So we're sort of diving into the depths of your own history.
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Nick Capodice
12:19
And drug use. For example, marijuana use, though it is legal in many states is still a red flag for security clearance.
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Hannah McCarthy
12:28
Alright, once the government has finished combing through your personal life and decided that you are trustworthy enough to get clearance, what happens next? Do you have a special badge? Do you have a card that you keep in your wallet?
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Nick Capodice
12:45
All right. We'll get to that. And we're going to talk about how security clearance works in the day-to-day operations of the government and what it's like to have it right after this.
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Hannah McCarthy
12:53
But before the break, this is your weekly reminder that we have a newsletter. It's called Extra Credit. It comes out every two weeks, and I warmly recommend that if you haven't subscribed yet you take a moment to subscribe right now at civics101podcast. org. Basically, the newsletter is the place where we put all of the stuff that we had to cut from the episode.
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13:12
So if you want to know, for example, about the different classified information that has been leaked, or see some pictures of the secure rooms where top secret meetings take place, you can get all that - but only if you're subscribed to Extra Credit. Again, go tocivics101podcast. org to subscribe today. And I swear it's not annoying, it's just a really great newsletter.
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Break
Hannah McCarthy
16:19
Welcome Back you're listening to civics 101 and we are attacking security clearance. Okay, so Nick, let's just say that I just got top secret security clearance, basically my dream. How do I prove that I have that clearance?
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Juliette Kayyem
16:45
You don't walk around with a badge all the time that says TS for top security clearance. You carry that clearance everywhere you go. And so, you will be invited or not invited to various briefings depending on that security level.
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17:00
Most government agencies have what's called security offices. That's people designated to ensure that government employees who get access to certain information are allowed to get access to that information. So that's essentially how it works in terms of functioning of government.
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Nick Capodice
17:19
And this gets back to what
Juliette
said earlier about how there's a lot of need to know and compartmentalization. Top secret clearance doesn't automatically get you into any briefing.Share
Juliette Kayyem
17:30
So most of the time um you will meet in rooms that are designated by the classification. So the meeting will be designated a certain classification level. So you actually can't go unless you have that classification level. So you meet and you don't meet in, you know, the hallway, you meet in what's called a SCIF.
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Nick Capodice
17:48
That's S. C. I. F.
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Juliette Kayyem
17:50
That's a secure compartmentalized information facility. So those are spread throughout the federal government. For example, at homeland security, there are I think a couple dozens SCIFs within the facility, including the secretary's office.
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Speaker 5
18:05
And so in that way, there are processes that keep the wrong people out, well before you're sitting in the room. So it would be, it would mean it was bad planning if someone in the room were given top secret information and they didn't have that classification.
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Nick Capodice
18:21
Another big no-no in the SCIF is cellphones.
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Hannah McCarthy
18:24
The cellphone thing makes sense. I mean, you can use a cell phone to record anything, right? And what about the President? Does the President just automatically have the highest security clearance? Are there any restrictions on the President's access?
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Juliette Kayyem
18:42
No, none. I mean, none that I know of. You know, maybe there's some super squarely world. You know, if the President wanted any information, he could be subject to it. I think people should know though is each principle, whether it's you know lower assistant secretary, higher secretary or the President, each principle uh likes their information given to them in certain ways.
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Nick Capodice
19:04
The principles are those officials who have security clearance and the staff who prepare intelligence reports for them. They're known as briefers.
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Juliette Kayyem
19:11
And so what will happen is the briefers will amend how they present classified information to the principal depending on their issues. Great anecdote that I wrote about Secretary Napolitano, my boss at
the Department of Homeland Security
. People forget this, but she wanted her first part of her classified briefing - most of this is not classified - to be weather reports. Because for her, before she got to the classified stuff, she wanted her briefings to include unclassified weather reports. And so that's what the agents did.Share
19:46
I Would encourage you not to focus too much on whether it's a category 2 or 3. If you are in the storm's path, you won't be able to tell much difference.
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Hannah McCarthy
19:58
Now, I have heard that you can have your security clearance revoked, which would be such a bummer. How does that happen?
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Juliette Kayyem
20:09
So one is the obvious one which is you abuse the obligations you have for having that security clearance, and you either abuse it purposefully - leaks, or whatever else - or even on accident.
Share
20:20
A federal judge today ordered
The New York Times
to suspend temporarily publication of a series of reports based on a secret pentagon study of how the United States
became involved in the Vietnamese War.Share
Nick Capodice
20:32
The
Pentagon Papers
, it is one example of deliberate leaking of top secret information. 1971 Daniel Ellsberg
smuggled thousands of pages of a classified report about the war in Vietnam
which showed that President Johnson
had engaged in expanded secret military operations and lied about it to Congress and the public.Share
20:52
I can't regret having done what I knew at the time to be what I ought to do, my duty as a citizen. I have no way that I can regret that.
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Nick Capodice
21:03
Ellsberg
was charged with conspiracy, espionage and theft of government property. But it doesn't have to be that big, even small mistakes can cost you your clearance.Share
Juliette Kayyem
21:14
You know, there are rules about how we treat classified information for a reason, and I'm incredibly unsympathetic to people who even make mistakes. I mean, you are briefed on this stuff, you don't take stuff home, you don't put stuff in your briefcase.
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Hannah McCarthy
21:27
One of the things we always see in TV shows and movies are people with security clearance getting in trouble for spilling secrets to their partners or spouses. Is that a thing?
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Nick Capodice
21:39
Apparently it is Hannah, because there are rules about it.
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Juliette Kayyem
21:44
The thing that they tell you, which I always take to heart, because my husband also had top secret clearance at a different part of the federal government, is pillow talk.
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21:59
You cannot casually say "oh, we're dealing with this". Like you actually have to have enough devotion to your service to the country to not disclose to a spouse, because the worry is someone says to their spouse, you know, "ohm we're doing X, Y and Z", or "I'm really nervous about that", that spouse casually says to someone else, and then that person ends up being married to a reporter.
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Nick Capodice
22:25
For example, former
CIA
director David Petraeus was investigated after an affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell,
came to light.Share
22:33
Meanwhile, FBI investigators continue to pour over
Broadwell's
computer and boxes of evidence taken from her Charlotte home to determine if she had classified information she was not entitled to possess.Share
Juliette Kayyem
22:49
The other way it gets revoked is obviously termination. You gotta sign a whole bunch of stuff, giving up your security clearance, hand in anything that you might have in your office that's designated as secure, and be escorted off the facilities.
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Hannah McCarthy
23:05
I'm curious about
Juliette's
opinion on this. Does she believe that the security clearance system works?Share
Juliette Kayyem
23:11
I do, I do. I mean, I think you hear a lot about it now because there's a certain casualness about classified information or top secret information that you saw in the early days of the Trump administration. He's getting briefed at Mar-a-Lago or they're having meetings that aren't exactly SCIFs.
Share
23:28
President trump and
Japan's
Prime Minister Abe
dining in public at Mar-a-Lago this weekend, learning North Korea
just launched a ballistic missile into the sea of Japan
. The two appeared to handle the preliminary response right there in front of other diners.Share
Juliette Kayyem
23:45
You know, it's not so much you worry that the people in the room are talking to reporters, is that unless you have a secure room, whatever is being discussed, including top secret information, could be eavesdropped on by foreign agencies.
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Nick Capodice
23:59
However, there was one thing we mentioned earlier that
Juliette
said is a challenge for security clearance. Government contractors.Share
Juliette Kayyem
24:08
Remember a lot of government work, especially in the national security intelligence, is done by contractors, because you just really need a lot of bodies and it's sometimes easier to get them outside. Those people do go through security clearance reviews. But you know, if you look at
Edward Snowden
and some cases since, that seems to be where there is a loophole.Share
24:27
Government investigators thought they knew
Edward Snowden
. He went through a background check, took a polygraph test and sat through personal interviews. Then, the government gave him access to some of its biggest secrets.Share
Nick Capodice
24:39
Edward Snowden
was the contractor who leaked classified information from the NSA, the National Security Agency, revealing government surveillance programs that had secretly monitored individuals through their phones.Share
Hannah McCarthy
24:52
I also remember how after President Trump was elected, there was some controversy about his son-in-law, Jared
Kushner
, being given clearance.Share
Nick Capodice
24:60
Right,
Kushner
like Rex Tillerson
had quote foreign interests, those personal or financial ties to other countries. In Kushner's
case, he had met with Russian contacts, including the ambassador and the head of a Russian owned bank, in the months leading up to his security clearance investigation.Share
Juliette Kayyem
25:17
Any other human being who did what he did - and just to remind your listeners, he failed to disclose a lot of these meetings and his first round of disclosures through the classified screening process -, any normal person like you and me who was going through this process who did that, you're so not going to get your security clearance or it's going to be revoked.
Share
25:39
In other words, if I got security clearance and then it was later learned that I had recent, that's what I have to remind people, these were recent meetings, between myself and
Russia
, my security clearance would be revoked.Share
Hannah McCarthy
25:54
It's interesting because you have this ostensibly airtight process to grant someone security clearance, and a person like me or you, would have to jump through so many hoops to get there, right? But someone with potentially more red flags than either of us combined, given how close they are to power, how much power they themselves have, can find the loophole into that elite world of security clearance.
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26:24
People have entirely different experiences on getting security clearance based on how much power they have.
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Nick Capodice
26:30
This is a system that was put into place to ensure that only people who could be trusted with sensitive information are able to have access to it, especially information that could impact our safety and security. But as with most systems of government, it is designed and run by people, so it's only as strong and secure as the individuals who uphold it.
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Nick Capodice
Hannah McCarthy
Juliette Kayyem