05-30-2016, 05:18 AM
(05-29-2016, 10:25 PM)radind Wrote:(05-29-2016, 10:14 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Indeed, the best defense is non-detection. Are the federal computers secure enough? I'd more likely trust the servers that Amazon.com uses. So transmit the secret or potentially-secret stuff fast and destroy the secret stuff quickly so that the hard copies of the secret stuff can never end up in the wrong hands.
The primary basis for protection of classified information is the integrity, judgment and trust of everyone who has access to sensitive information.
True. If one is the SoS, then even the decision to keep possession of potentially-classified information is a judgment of the potential harm that discovery of such information can create. So is the material truly secret? Not if it isn't already proprietary. This is very different from the situation with a federal employee who has access to classified information and the potential for brokering it to those (like the Russian FSB) for personal gain or other considerations.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.