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Keeping Secrets - The USA Experience
November 12, 2013 posted by Steve Brownstein
When Bradley Manning disclosed an estimated 700,000 classified documents in 2010, he was only 22 years old and held the second lowest rank in the U.S. Army.
When Edward Snowden escaped from the United States in June of 2013 with a mass of secret material, he was not even an employee of the US government; he worked for a consulting firm.
The 29-year old Snowden did not graduate from college, but like Manning, he held a “Top Secret” clearance and was in a position that gave him wide access to information the US government labels secret.
Why were these two young men selected to serve as guardians of the American “government of secrets?”
The answer is that the body of information classified by the U.S. government is so vast that a huge army of operatives must access this “secret” information in order to do their jobs every day.
According to the annual report of the U.S. Director of National Intelligence, more than four million people hold a security clearance that enables them to view classified information.
Among them, an astounding 1.4 million hold the “Top Secret” clearance, just like Manning and Snowden did.
