How Does Security Clearance Work?

Civics 101

NHPR

Education, History, Supreme Court, American History, Elections, Democracy, Society & Culture, Government, Civics, Politics, Social Studies

4.6 • 2.4K Ratings

🗓️ 8 February 2022

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

From "top secret," like the names and locations of intelligence agents, to "confidential," like the drinking habits of a prime minister, the federal government has a lot of sensitive information. What are the different levels of security clearance, and how does it all work?

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hannah, if you had top secret clearance and you could access any classified government
0:06.4	information, what would you want to know about?
0:09.6	I think I would want to know what the real plan is in the event of nuclear war.
0:15.2	There's no point in you getting historical at a moment like this.
0:18.6	I bet it's a little more grim than we think it is.
0:22.2	What about you?
0:23.2	The Mary Celeste.
0:24.2	What's the Mary Celeste?
0:25.2	Is that a ghost ship?
0:26.2	The ghost ship.
0:27.2	It was discovered and no one was on board and there's no sign of a scuffle.
0:31.4	It was like the 1800s though.
0:33.8	I don't think that top secret clearance is going to tell me but the Mary Celeste.
0:39.0	I have another question for you though.
0:40.8	How good are you at keeping secrets?
0:43.7	I think I'm pretty good but then at the same time when I buy something fun for their
0:48.9	birthday, I could just tell you right now.
0:56.0	I've always prided myself on the idea that I think I would be able to keep any secret
1:01.7	if I really had to.
1:02.7	But the stakes were high enough and it was like people will get hurt if you share this
1:06.7	secret.
1:07.7	Yeah, I'm taking it to my grave.
	...

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