The US President and top secret things

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2002-12-04 08:09pm

I watched Species 2 a week ago and one conversation from that movie caught my interest. It went something like:

"I'm gonna call the president."

"This goes way beyond the president."

Is that possible in real life? For a top-secret project, installation, or whatever to be above the president?

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2002-12-04 08:11pm

If the President wanted in on a military program, I don't think his request could be denied. I'm not sure what the requirements are on presidential oversight of the military, though.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2002-12-04 08:12pm

In theory the president must always be informed on request. How that works out in practice are another matter entirely. I suspect operations have and are carried out without him knowing.

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2002-12-04 09:18pm

For those that don't know here's a brief describtion(public knowledge) of How Secruity works in the US Goverment

At the Basic Level is RESTRICTED Information, Restriction Information basicly means if your not a memeber of the media wait 24 Hours then you get to know what it is(IE The Preisdent's State of the Union address is given out ahead of time to the media but not the public)
Most of your common "no-duh" secrets fall in this area that are worth protecting but not for long

Next up is "Top Secret" acutal the very bottom rung of the intellgence ladder is of course Top Secret, Tons of things can fall under here, anyting from what the President's Heath state is to how many pairs of shoes the Army ordered, Basicly anything that might be vaugly useful and the media has no business(Or use) knowing is labled top secret, nothing a few weeks and a judge can't fix but its things the public does not need to know about(Requsition orders fill the bulk of this level)

Next up the ladder is Area Information, Sometimes called the "thingy" level as no one came up with a good name for it yet, But this is information that the general public does not know but everyone in the field does(By field I mean as in specific job/insutition not as in a physical location)

Now we get serious above that with Comparmentile information, Information specific to one location or one partcilar parsuit, IE Information on Nuke Sub Reactors would be here while preformance Data would be another, so somone can be cleared for one(How to fix it) but not for the other(How well it runs)

Above that is exaclty as Clancy Describes, Keyword Matrial, You are cleared on a indidual basies for any of this stuff and normaly only temporarly, All material is studiously checked and rechecked and normaly you are confined to not be to mobile with whatever it is your looking at

The President has the right to any and all information but he has to REQUEST Keyword Matrial first before he can see any of that, He can't go, Show me everything Keyworded and have it pilled on his desk, its a matter of a case by case request for it

Could their be anything higher I don't know about? Possibly but no real reason, when you already have access limited to half a dozen or less indiuals where else can you go in making it more secure?

Ted · Post by **Ted** » 2002-12-04 09:36pm

Well, the US President is the Commander-in-Chief of the US military, so it would seem logical that anything dealing with the military is not above him. It would be like a boss not knowing what people under him are doing.