This caught my attention yesterday but I didn’t get around to it:
Here's another Trump abuse of power that should alarm you. Trump will likely pervert classification authority to keep info buried that would undercut his campaign claims and inform voters about Russian interference. I talked to @ChrisMurphyCT about this:https://t.co/1FVy9CiYMu
— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) February 7, 2020
And if you follow the link to the article it becomes clear…
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) has called on the Government Accountability Office, or GAO, to undertake a review of whether the administration is over-classifying government information to keep it hidden from public view to protect Trump.
…that it already happened.
I’m talking about the NSA classified server where Impeached-for-Life Prznint Stupid’s minions buried the so-called perfect call’s actual transcript, which so far has not seen the light of day. “Read the transcript,” he’s moo’ed at us, endlessly. And I would be delighted to, so please declassify it.
But I think even the GAO will be stonewalled because those servers are generally compartmentalized so even knowing that a project exists can be a breach of security.
Here’s kinda how it works:
- Clearances are given on a project-by-project basis. A Top Secret clearance on Project A does not mean someone has any clearance on any other project.
- People assigned to Project A might not ever know about the existence of Project B. (Famously the Stealth Bomber team did not know about the Stealth Fighter team during the Carter administration, so when Carter [oops!] announced one, that was the first time that the other team [officially] knew about it!)
- The list of people assigned to any project is itself classified.
- Compartmentalized information is compartmentalized for a reason: by restricting access, they can restrict leaks and/or track down who leaked more easily. If only 5 people knew about X, one of ’em is the leaker.)
So… Someone at the GAO would have to be given clearance for a project that officially doesn’t exist (Project Quid Pro Quo) and would only be allowed to see that. So on a practical level, this is never going to happen, at least not while The Russian Usurper is in office.
Republished with permission from Mock Paper Scissors.
