Well there was that Snowden kid…
Do not forget the traitor Chelsea Manning.
When I was a kid my dad was on nuclear subs in the US Navy. When he went out to sea, we only knew he went out to sea, not where he actually went. That’s just how it is.
I’ve been subject to numerous NDAs over the years related to jobs and other projects I’ve been involved with. It can be a real pain. 
But it’s necessary.
Inigo Montoya 'Well there was that Snowden kid… ’
And the worst traitor this side of Benedict Arnold. Maybe we should call him Benedict Orangeold?
Ha, ha.
Snowden and Manning weren’t annoyed by regulations on not being able to talk about things that were already in the newspaper. They sought to put things into the newspaper.
Because they felt those things should be talked about, but otherwise wouldn’t be because of regulations ya? There is the superficial difference of talking about something before vs. after the word is out, but at its heart they spread the word despite the rules. Which in retrospect is a bit off the OP track. Sorry. I’ll go somewhere and shut up now.
I guess there is a difference between shooting a live person and shooting one who is already dead, but I wouldn’t apply the term “superficial” to that distinction. It’s very, uh, sub…ter… ficial.
As you like
The biggest difference, of course, is that the President can pretty much declassify anything he wants, at any time. So can his peeps, when he delegates that down (ie, agency Secretaries).
As for Snowden, he deserves the death penalty. So does Manning, and Reality Winner, who hopefully gave her parents hell for giving her that name.
And of course there are Dads whose kids don’t know that they work with things nuclear at all, or that even your Dad, no disrespect, might have been not accurate with you on which subs he was on on any tour.
It’s possible. I know what sub he was officially assigned to (I also visited it a few times) but who knows.
Of course, sometimes people can take secrecy unnecessarily too far. An airmen in a friend’s leadership class showed up on the first day, and when asked where she worked replied with “Sorry, I can’t tell you” until my friend reminded her of the large National Reconnaissance Office badge on her uniform.
I know that some units in the IDF are “special” in that they wear, quite conspicuously (:)), no unit tag.
To me that’s just a BMOC thing and seems kind of silly.
Paging Alessan if I have that right…
It is frowned upon (or even explicitly prohibited) to mention in, say, an internet forum or social media where one works. If I was to say I worked at the NRO* I would probably attract the interest of one or two obvious countries, and might expect spear phishing attacks or similar some time in the future.
I don’t get to say who or what I work on here. But I am free to talk to friends and family about it within the bounds of classification, corporate confidentiality, and ITAR rules. Heck there are videos on YouTube I show my family. Some of this is about not making claims about representing the company’s position on something, but also very much about not being stupid and attracting unwanted attention.
*If I were a US citizen I would love to work for the NOR. But I probably have a completely skewed idea of how interesting it really is.
It sounds absurd … common knowledge… accessing …is illegal
I think that the only difference between your two positions is that he thinks it’s absurd, and you think it only sounds absurd.