Post by kcres on Aug 14, 2022 14:13:47 GMT
YESTERDAY EVENING, THE Washington Post broke the blockbuster news that FBI agents who searched former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence on Monday were looking for “nuclear documents,” a phrase that immediately set off alarms inside national security circles. The nation’s nuclear systems and plans are considered among the most sensitive and most narrowly known secrets.
Trump denied the report, calling the “nuclear weapons issue” a “hoax.” But assuming the Post’s reporting is correct, what could such a vague phrase as “nuclear documents” mean, and what could we learn about such a category?
Broadly speaking, the US intelligence and defense communities would possess four different categories of files that might be considered “nuclear documents”: nuclear weapon science and design; other countries’ nuclear plans, including the nuclear systems and command of allied nations (UK, France) and adversaries (Russia, China, North Korea, Iran), as well as countries whose nuclear programs exist in a more gray zone (Israel, India, Pakistan); details on the United States’ own nuclear weapons and deployments; and details on US nuclear command & control procedures, known in Pentagon parlance as NC2.
Each category of these documents would carry with it some unique classification peculiarities. And all of them exist at the so-called Above Top Secret level, because a simple Top Secret clearance on its own isn’t enough to access the files.
The rest:
The President does NOT have the authority to declassify willy-nilly, any documents he wants.
WIRED has a reputation for being straight up and down factual.
Trump denied the report, calling the “nuclear weapons issue” a “hoax.” But assuming the Post’s reporting is correct, what could such a vague phrase as “nuclear documents” mean, and what could we learn about such a category?
Broadly speaking, the US intelligence and defense communities would possess four different categories of files that might be considered “nuclear documents”: nuclear weapon science and design; other countries’ nuclear plans, including the nuclear systems and command of allied nations (UK, France) and adversaries (Russia, China, North Korea, Iran), as well as countries whose nuclear programs exist in a more gray zone (Israel, India, Pakistan); details on the United States’ own nuclear weapons and deployments; and details on US nuclear command & control procedures, known in Pentagon parlance as NC2.
Each category of these documents would carry with it some unique classification peculiarities. And all of them exist at the so-called Above Top Secret level, because a simple Top Secret clearance on its own isn’t enough to access the files.
The rest:
The President does NOT have the authority to declassify willy-nilly, any documents he wants.
WIRED has a reputation for being straight up and down factual.
