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Anonymous Coward
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Join Date: May 2004
 
2021-10-13, 22:11

Quote:
Originally Posted by turtle View Post
To expand on his position, he was an officer even. We expect sailors to be stupid when they are junior, but this guy was a seasoned officer.
Thanks for the update on this. I read the story on the BBC a couple of days ago, but at that time there were fewer details and I just assumed he was enlisted. I wondered how much information could really have been passed that foreign governments don't already know.

I mean, yes, a breach of trust is serious, but I was never on a special operations boat, and I think at one time, when I was stationed on my first or second submarine, I might have had a Secret clearance, but when the enlisted Walker family was caught, everyone's security clearance was downgraded to the minimum necessary.

When I was nearly out of the Navy, I was on a tender (repair ship) transiting from overseas, and was on some kind of trash detail, when I saw classified materials being thrown out in the regular trash. The other enlisted thought I was, I don't know, wasting their time since, besides some documents, most of what I found were empty binders (which are still supposed to be handled in a specific way, but I only knew that because, at one time, I was in charge of archiving engineering logs and maintaining manuals, which meant I was more familiar with the document handling procedures of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 than most people). From what I could tell, the Duty Officer took me seriously, but I wasn't quite sure. Anyway, that was just to say, I know how low level classified materials can be mishandled, especially when most of the crew has never had a security clearance. (The repair ship serviced both nuclear and non-nuclear powered craft, so the radiological controls division had operating manuals for the various nuclear reactor plants, and those binders, in fact, from currently used reactor plants.)

But the fact that this person had Top Secret clearance and also was not "just" a sailor on a ship or prototype plant, but worked at a laboratory in Pittsburgh (which, based on my time handling documents, but otherwise, I have no real information, sounds like the facility where the nuclear plant operating manuals are written).

This is not as far reaching as the above linked Walker case, but I would not expect much leniency.

P.S. The level of a person's security clearance is also classified information.

Last edited by Anonymous Coward : 2021-10-13 at 22:49.
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