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CHAPTER 1
WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF TOP SECRETS
To understand how and why government agencies classify data, it is important to have an appreciation of the nature of what constitutes classified material, as well as the various levels of secrecy that exist within officialdom and why. Often, the term "Top Secret" is recklessly tossed around by conspiracy theorists — usually in distinctly misleading style — to describe the contents of a particular file that is withheld by officialdom, or the circumstances surrounding an event that is considered to be deeply sensitive. In reality, most governments have systems in place that allow for documentation to be covered at varying degrees of classification, not just Top Secret. Those classifications depend on (a) the gravity of the particular material, and (b) the extent to which national security might be damaged if the data was released or compromised. And contrary to popular belief, there are no categories that are classified "above Top Secret." Rather, there are restricted access projects that, to gain entry to their inner sanctums, a person may be required to provide additional clearance in the form of a particular codeword. These operations are known as Special Access Programs, or SAPs. If it all sounds a bit confusing, well, read on.
SECRECY IN THE STATES
Let's begin with the United States of America. National security statutes and regulations are defined by what is termed an Executive Order of the President. The most recent one — EO 13526 — was passed on December 29, 2009, by President Barack Obama. The EO makes it clear that within the United States there are three specific levels of official secrecy: Top Secret, Secret, and Confidential. As for the highest degree of classification, we are told that: "Top Secret shall be applied to information, the unauthorized disclosure of which reasonably could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security that the original classification authority is able to identify or describe." Material considered to be of Secret level is described in similar terms to those which apply to Top Secret status, except that, whereas the unauthorized release of Top Secret material may cause "grave damage" to U.S. national security, Secret material leaked outside of official channels might provoke "serious damage." Regarding the Confidential category, this is the lowest level of secrecy in the United States' military, government, and intelligence arenas. Even so, EO 13526 makes it clear that significant damage to security of the nation could still occur if data of a Confidential level was compromised and shared with hostile forces (Executive Order 13526 — Classified National Security Information, 2009).
As for the particular topics that fall under the umbrella of EO 13526, they include: (a) Army, Navy, and Air Force strategies and programs; (b) the current state of U.S. military capabilities; (c) information on overseas — and potentially — enemy nations; (d) the means by which the U.S. government secures intelligence-based data; (e) the names and locations of both domestic and foreign covert sources of material; (f) the ways America can defend its nuclear arsenals; and (g) matters relative to one of the biggest, potential problems facing the free world today: weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).
DECLASSIFICATION AND NON-DECLASSIFICATION
It is a fallacy to assume that all documentation, regardless of its level of secrecy, ultimately gets declassified by those U.S. agencies that are withholding it or have jurisdiction over it. EO 13526 makes it clear that at the time the security level of a particular document is decided upon, "the original classification authority shall establish a specific date or event for declassification based on the duration of the national security sensitivity of the information." If, however, the person or persons who determined whether a particular file should be stamped Confidential, Secret, or Top Secret cannot decide upon a particular time when declassification should occur, "information shall be marked for declassification 10 years from the date of the original decision, unless the original classification authority otherwise determines that the sensitivity of the information requires that it be marked for declassification for up to 25 years from the date of the original decision" (Executive Order 13526 — Classified National Security Information, 2009).
As for any data that might be considered important enough to be withheld for more than a quarter of a century, this requires certain "standards and procedures for classifying information" to be carefully studied. This, generally at least, revolves around the important question of: How damaging to national security might it be to release the relevant file, regardless of its ever-increasing age? As a result, files can, and assuredly do, get withheld for more than 25 years. Nevertheless, as the documentation that President Obama put into place on December 29, 2009, makes clear: "No information may remain classified indefinitely" (Ibid.). Technically, that is completely true. But, even so, there are still a number of means and methods by which data can remain outside of the public domain for decades, even lifetimes. Let's look at the facts on the matter.
Section 3.3 of EO 13526, titled Automatic Declassification, informs government personnel that: "... all classified records that (1) are more than 25 years old and (2) have been determined to have permanent historical value ... shall be automatically declassified whether or not the records have been reviewed." That is, theoretically, in the year that the book you are now reading was published, 2013, every single document ever produced by the U.S. government up until 1988 should now be in the public domain. Then, in 2014, the 1989 files should be declassified. Well, sometimes it works like that, but certainly not always. Although millions of pages of formerly classified files can be accessed in person at the National Archives, in College Park, Maryland, there is a particular clause contained within Section 3.3 of EO 13526 that has a major bearing upon this 25-yearlong period of limitation on what we can, or often cannot, be allowed to see (Ibid.).
The clause in question allows the directors of government agencies the ability and right to deny the public and the media access to files that are older than 25 years, providing certain criteria are met. Those criteria cover, as one would expect, a wealth of critical national security–themed matters, including such issues as U.S. military technology, sources and methods of gathering intelligence data, safety issues surrounding the president and his staff, plans for war, and relations with overseas nations, both friendly and aggressive. As a result, and on many occasions, a period of 25 years is not the end of the line, after all. And should anyone within government decide to sidestep these regulations, and surreptitiously share secret files with outsiders, he or she can end up in deep trouble. It may even mean spending the rest of his or her days securely locked in a small room in Guantanamo Bay.
TALKING OUT OF TURN
One of the actions that the U.S. government can take against those employees that do leak classified material is to invoke the Espionage Act of 1917, which was signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson. A little-known piece of legislation that, as its name suggests, is now almost a century old, it is still in regular use to this day. Certainly, one of the most visible examples of how the act has been used in recent years is in the case of Bradley Manning, a U.S. Army soldier who was placed under arrest in May 2010 for passing classified materials on to WikiLeaks, the controversial and notorious body overseen by the equally controversial Australian Julian Assange. Two years later, in 2012, a former CIA officer named John Kiriakou was charged under the terms of the same act for sharing secret information with journalists on matters relative to undercover agents involved in crushing al-Qaeda.
Secrets, as all the above shows, are a fact of life in government. They are also guarded and maintained with the utmost zeal. Sometimes, however, secrets are allowed to enter the public domain, as we shall now see.
CHAPTER 2
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION AND NEED TO KNOW
It was on Independence Day 1966 that President Lyndon B. Johnson signed an historic piece of documentation that brought into being the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The FOIA permits members of the general public and the media the right to file a request with government agencies to (a) obtain copies of files that may already be declassified, or (b) request that files which are currently withheld — either in whole or in part — be declassified into the public arena. The FOIA, however, is not a tool that is guaranteed to open all doors. There are many clauses within the act that permit government, military, and intelligence-based bodies to withhold their files, if they deem it appropriate to do so. The grounds for denial of access to files via the FOIA include national security concerns, matters having a bearing on the defense of the nation, privacy issues, data relative to legal and criminal subjects, and the internal operations of the relevant agency or agencies.
As all of the above shows, although there certainly are ways and means by which government-based Top Secret files may be declassified, there are also stringent laws available that allow for the continued non-disclosure of records for many years — decades, in some cases, and particularly so where agency chiefs have deemed the papers to be extremely sensitive. It's much the same in other countries, too.
SECRETS OF THE OFFICIAL KIND
In the same, precise way that official documentation in the United States is subject to varying levels of secrecy, such is also the situation in the UK. The classifications in Britain are, in rising order of importance: Unclassified, Protect, Restricted, Confidential, Secret, and Top Secret.
In the UK, a piece of legislation exists that is designed to prevent certain employees of Her Majesty's government from breaching security and sharing classified materials with non-cleared individuals. It is called the Official Secrets Act (OSA). Those that fall under the auspices of the OSA are termed Crown Servants. This includes members of the Royal Navy, Royal Air Force, and British Army, as well as employees of British Intelligence, such as MI5 (the UK's version of the FBI), MI6 (Britain's CIA), and the Government Communications Headquarters (the British equivalent of the United States' National Security Agency). Prosecution under the terms of the OSA, for such actions as revealing the contents of classified documents, can result in lengthy prison sentences, particularly if potentially dangerous damage to national security could have resulted, has resulted, or, in the future, still might result.
As far as the general public's right to access official documentation in the UK is concerned, this used to fall under the banner of what was called the Thirty Year Rule, a 1958 creation of the British Parliament. As its title implies, the Thirty Year Rule ensured that all government records, regardless of their level of sensitivity, remained behind closed doors until a period of 30 years had passed since their creation. At that point, they were flagged for review by the agency that possessed them, after which they could have been released and made available to one and all. Or not. The vast majority of those now-visible files are housed at the National Archives, a huge building situated in Kew, England, which acts as the primary resource facility for public access to official records in the UK.
At the turn of the 21st century, however, everything changed. The Labor Government of the day passed the Freedom of Information Act 2000, which followed broadly similar guidelines to those present in the United States' FOIA. The British people no longer had to wait 30 years to see certain government files. The ability to continue to deny access to old records for matters relative to national security and the defense of the realm, however, was still in place.
A glance at the rest of the world shows that many developed nations have followed in the tracks of both the United States and the UK. For example, Canada, India, and New Zealand have Official Secrets Acts. Freedom of Information laws apply in numerous nations, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Mexico, Norway, Sweden, and Turkey. Like Britain and the United States, all of the above countries have laws that permit agencies to keep files under lock and key as they see fit, providing that justification is seen as being firmly warranted.
SPECIAL ACCESS AND NEED TO KNOW
As noted in the previous chapter, contrary to what is often assumed — or claimed by alleged whistleblowers of distinctly dubious credibility — there are absolutely no levels of secrecy that extend beyond Top Secret. Not a single one. That does not mean, however, that having a Top Secret clearance provides a person with carte-blanche access to every secret, every conspiracy, and every cover-up under the face of the Sun. In fact, quite the opposite is the general rule of thumb. Here we come to something termed "need to know." Person "A" might have the same level of clearance — let's say Top Secret — as person "B." But here's the important point: To protect the security and secrecy of the project on which "A" is working, he or she is given a classified piece of data that acts as a key to open the door to that same project. That key might be in the form of a piece of documentation, such as a sternly worded, nondisclosure agreement. Alternately, it might be a classified codeword that, without which, access to the program would be denied at all times. So we have a situation where "A" and "B" possess the exact same clearance level of Top Secret, but only "A" knows what is afoot in the classified world of "Project X." Such "Project X"–type operations are termed SAPs (Special Access Programs).
In the United States, where SAPs are far more prevalent than anywhere else, they primarily relate to (a) the "research, development, testing, modification, and evaluation or procurement" of new and sophisticated technologies; (b) the "planning and execution of especially sensitive intelligence" operations; and (c) the "execution and support" of classified military programs. It is within the arena of SAPs that some of the most guarded of all secrets remain deeply buried (Executive Order 13526 — Classified National Security Information, 2009).
And, while we're on the subject of some of the most guarded, official secrets of all time — and how and why governments withhold reams of secret documents from public view — let's now take a careful and close look at a wealth of world events, incidents, and affairs where missing papers, denied documents, hidden archives, burned files, and shredded dossiers absolutely abound. Collectively, these are the most interesting, amazing, controversial, and dangerous files of all. They are the files that are deemed for nobody's eyes only. We'll start with a tale of, quite possibly, other-world proportions.
CHAPTER 3
THE ROSWELL FILES: ABDUCTED!
The July 8, 1947, edition of the New Mexico–based Roswell Daily Record newspaper had a bold and dynamic headline that quickly caught the eyes of amazed locals. It read: "RAAF Captures Flying Saucer on Ranch in Roswell Region." It sensationally revealed that military personnel from the town's Roswell Army Air Force (the RAAF, as it was known back then) had obtained an honest-to-goodness flying saucer. No, this was not a case of someone getting confused and thinking it was April 1st. And yes, the military was talking about a real flying saucer. The RAAF's Press Information Officer, Walter Haut, prepared a press release on the affair and the excited editor of the Daily Record wasted no time in unleashing its contents upon the town and its people:
The many rumors regarding the flying disc became a reality yesterday when the Intelligence office of the 509th Bomb Group of the Eighth Air Force, Roswell Army Air Field, was fortunate to gain possession of a disc through the cooperation of one of the local ranchers and the sheriff's office of Chaves County. The flying object landed on a ranch near Roswell sometime last week. Not having phone facilities, the rancher stored the disc until such time as he was able to contact the sheriff's office, who in turn notified Maj. Jesse A. Marcel of the 509th Bomb Group Intelligence Office. Action was immediately taken and the disc was picked up at the rancher's home. It was inspected at the Roswell Army Air Field and subsequently loaned by Major Marcel to higher headquarters ("RAAF Captures Flying Saucer On Ranch in Roswell Region," July 8, 1947).
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "For Nobody's Eyes Only"
by .
Copyright © 2014 Nick Redfern.
Excerpted by permission of Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC.
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