Why classified information is a big deal

It’s been amusing to watch the news coverage of Hillary Clinton’s email woes and apparent lack of understanding of government rules for handling classified information. Especially when politicians and media pundits say it’s not a big deal.

Classified information was a big deal when I was in the Navy, especially when I was assigned to a joint-forces nuclear weapons headquarters in Albuquerque at the height of the Cold War. I needed to show a special pass to get into the building where I worked even though all the guards knew me. Everyone, including the janitor, had a top-secret security clearance.

Virtually every piece of paper in the office (even the typewriter ribbons) went into a safe at the end of the day whether it was marked classified or not. Safe combinations were memorized and could not be written down. Every safe had a signup sheet that had to be signed by the person who locked it at quitting time and countersigned by a second person who verified that it was locked. A signup sheet at the door certified and verified that every desk and wastebasket in the room had been checked for classified material. One of my chores was to perform a final security check on the admiral’s office after the boss had left for the day, including opening every drawer of the admiral’s desk.

Everybody was security-conscious because there were consequences. Every night the security force checked the safes and signup sheets, and periodic surprise inspections combed the offices for violations. A serious violation (such as leaving documents out or jotting down a safe combination on a desk calendar) meant losing your security clearance at a minimum, and a quick transfer to, say, the supply depot in Guam.

We knew what to safeguard because we had clear guidance on what information was classified. That’s why Hillary Clinton’s claim that that a document was classified only if it bore specific markings misses the point. Even as a green junior officer I had the tools needed to perform security reviews as part of my job. With enough confidence to walk into my boss’ office once and tell him: “We can’t say this, colonel, it’s classified.” Apparently nobody at the State Department said that to the Secretary of State.

Even with a security clearance, access to information was further limited by a need to know. I did not know specifically what my friends in other departments were doing, and we were careful not to talk shop when we were out on the town. When people asked us what the Navy was doing in Albuquerque we couldn’t tell them, so we made up stories about a subterranean channel under the Rio Grande and a secret submarine base.

Classified information was equally serious aboard ship. Radio codebooks were kept in a safe in weighted bags – to be thrown overboard if the ship faced imminent capture. When one of my roommates needed to read one of the secret intelligence publications in my custody he had to sign for it. Ships’ schedules were technically classified even though the bar hostesses outside our base in Japan seemed to know more than we did.

Classified information is still a big deal for the federal government. Most of the time, anyway. Last year a Naval Reservist was sentenced to probation and a fine for putting classified information on a personal electronic device. And General David Petraeus was convicted for sharing classified notebooks with his biographer/mistress (even though she was a military officer with a security clearance).

So while Hillary Clinton’s disregard of security requirements is no big deal for Democrats, I suspect folks who have actually worked with classified information (unlike media folks and pundits) take the issue a little more seriously.

However, I don’t think a Clinton presidency will put state secrets at risk. Her painstaking effort to hide the Clinton Foundation’s influence on the State Department makes Richard Nixon look like a rank amateur. So Hillary Clinton has the potential to to be the most security-conscious president in history. And there’s a bonus: Her eventual presidential library will be really small – without a shred of evidence.