The Secretary of Defense or the National Security Advisor? Is it possible for them to have a higher security clearence then the President? Can ANYONE have a higher security clearence then the President?
My wag is that neither has a “higher” security clearance, although one of them might have a wider range of “need to know” on interesting topics (or not)
Even though someone is cleared for top-secret/classified, they can’t just strut around storming into offices and opening safes because “I’m cleared”. Everything is still on a need-to-know basis. Basically, everyone with top clearance is on a level playing field with everyone else as far as their clearance goes, they just need to know different stuff to do their jobs. So, it’s meaningless at the highest level to talk about “who has a higher clearance”.
IIRC, there can be different levels of Top Secret clearances. (At least that’s what I seem to recall from when I was involved in the intelligence community back in the early 70’s.)
I believe there were at least Secret, Top Secret, and Top Secret Cryptologic clearances. (Probably a bunch of others I wasn’t cleared to know about.)
While working at NSA in the office dealing with the “Viet Nam problem”, one day the Secretary of Defense Mel Laird called our office to ask a question. He had to speak through an intermediary however, because even though he was cleared to know WHAT we knew, he wasn’t cleared to know HOW we knew it. He was not allowed to speak with us directly, lest we accidentally let something slip.
It was a different working environment there. Every time your phone rang, you had to shout “Phone’s up!” to the rest of the office before picking up the handset and answering.
Of course, everything revolves around the “need to know.”
AFAIK, there is no longer a “Cryptologic” category. Now it’s TS/SCI, for sensitive compartmented info. And most folks still yell “Phone’s Up” when necessary–this is a great practice and more valuable now than ever.
As for the OP, I don’t have a factual answer, but my guess is that the SECDEF has a higher level of clearance (unrestricted, really) than does the Ntl Sec Advisor. There are, btw, things beyond Top Secret. The SECDEF and POTUS make up the NCA, so I’d think that both of them can have whatever info they want whenever they want it. I’m not sure why the Ntl Sec Advisor would merit the same access.
Jeez… after 30 years I’d’ve thought they’d’ve come up with something a little more high tech.
Do they let you take in cell phones, Palm Pilots, or laptops these days?
They weren’t an issue back in my day.
Why do they need to yell “Phone’s Up”? So some other staff member can listen in? I can’t really think of any reason why people would need to do this but hey, the government’s weird.
It’s done because one of the biggest security leaks, from a monitoring aspect, is done by listening to the background conversations going on during a call. The folks talking on the line may be careful to avoid anything classified, but when you’re in a secure area, where classified stuff is talked about all the time, then the other people in the office will have no idea if you’re talking secure or unsecure, and they won’t stop talking about the classified stuff unless you give them a heads-up by saying “Phone’s up!” This immediately shuts everyone up, or gets them talking at an unclassified level.
Fibonacci, cell phones are never allowed. I’d guess that 99% of the facilities out there will also not allow palms, although the place I work does, because they realize that the things don’t impose a risk to security. For some reason, people are scared of them and can’t be convinced otherwise. For laptops… probably not alllowed, although it may depend on where you are.
Just a WAG here, and flyboy88 correct me if I’m wrong, but seeing as how the SECDEF is actually in the Chain of Command and a Nat’l Security Advisor is just that: an advisor, I would tend to think that the SECDEF is more privy to things than an advisor.
That’s not to say it’s the case, but I could understand how one would have a few more points than the other.
Tripler
Again, just a WAG.
I agree with you, Tripler, although like I said earlier, I’m no expert at cabinet-level clearances, so I don’t know for sure. Short of asking them personally, I don’t think there’s any way to know. And it wouldn’t surprise me if the answer itself was classified.