# Does the President still operate on Need To Know? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 21, 2011, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-president-still-operate-on-need-to-know/593511 "2011-08-21T05:22:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-president-still-operate-on-need-to-know/593511/21 "2013-08-20T06:19:38Z")
That’s for the American people - through their elected President - to decide. Nothing is immune to oversight. ---
**Author:** ![Ranger\_Jeff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranger_jeff/32/2065_2.png) [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-president-still-operate-on-need-to-know/593511/22 "2013-08-20T06:35:36Z")
> [@Baron\_Greenback](#): > > What would happen if the President wanted to know the name of an asset in the Kremlin or the Chinese government or whatever? “I’m sorry sir, you do not have a need to know and if you insist on knowing this then I have to resign”? More likely, it’d be something like "Sir, are you absolutely certain you want to know the name of the asset we have in the Kremlin? As things stand now, there’s no way you can inadvertently reveal his name. " The POTUS is certainly cleared for all classified information, regardless of its level of classification. He has the authority to decide if he has a “Need To Know”. Why a POTUS would need to know the value of resistor #12 of the guidance package for a Minuteman missile is beyond me, though. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-president-still-operate-on-need-to-know/593511/23 "2013-08-20T06:55:39Z")
> [@Ranger\_Jeff](#): > > Why a POTUS would need to know the value of resistor #12 of the guidance package for a Minuteman missile is beyond me, though. It’s a 5kΩ pulldown resistor. I’d tell you more about it but there are men in black suits knocking on my door. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-president-still-operate-on-need-to-know/593511/24 "2013-08-20T16:46:11Z")
The President can’t know everything, for the simple reason that it would take many lifetimes to give him or her all that information and longer for him or her to absorb it. But there cannot be a piece of information which a low-level employee could keep secret from the President, because no low-level employee could possibly understand all the reasons that the President had for asking about it. That kind of information flows upward, not downward. ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-president-still-operate-on-need-to-know/593511/25 "2013-08-20T17:24:57Z")
> [@user\_hostile](#): > > There are clearances higher than Top Secret, but they are in themselves classified. I’ve known two people who worked communications at the White House (LBJ & Reagan) who independently informed me of this odd little tid-bit. YMMV Perhaps you may be thinking of the administratively named [Yankee White](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yankee_White) (Wikipedia), and documented in [DOD 5210.87](http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/pdf/521087p.pdf) from 1998 (PDF Warning). ---
**Author:** ![user\_hostile](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/user_hostile/32/474_2.png) [@user\_hostile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/user_hostile)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-president-still-operate-on-need-to-know/593511/26 "2013-08-20T18:18:09Z")
> [@Duckster](#): > > Perhaps you may be thinking of the administratively named [Yankee White](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yankee_White) (Wikipedia), and documented in [DOD 5210.87](http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/pdf/521087p.pdf) from 1998 (PDF Warning). Perhaps. **smithsb** actually gives the proper context to my fuzzy post. At the time I was only familiar with Confidential/Secret/Top Secret rankings and this was 15+ years ago. With respect to “SCI” (plus “Poly”), I was unintentionally aware of these acronyms as a result of parsing through the _Washington Post_ want ads. These jobs never held any appeal because they mostly involved managerial positions, so I never bothered to figure out what the stood for. By the way, having those clearances doesn’t necessarily mean that your smarter for it; I found this [link](http://m.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/02/daniel-ellsberg-limitations-knowledge) to be interesting. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-president-still-operate-on-need-to-know/593511.md?page=1)