Secrecy...outdated concept?

[ShotOne]

I was intrigued by some comments on secrecy on another thread which raised the question of how much of our secret material actually needs to be classified.

It's interesting to see that sensitive details of, for instance, the bin laden mission quickly find their way into the public domain while much more mundane stuff hides inside bright red file jackets.

There are always going to be codes/intentions/capabilities which would cause genuine harm if they were revealed. But the suspicion is that the system is also handy for burying bad news. How true is this?

[Pontius Navigator]

But the suspicion is that the system is also handy for burying bad news. How true is this?

One reason for something remaining Secret is the same lack of manpower, time, or incentive to downgrade once the need has passed. Take the Libyan adventure. Inevitably much will have been secret. Some may remain secret in case we have to do something similar any time soon. The rest is now well known and could be downgraded but probably hasn't.

Some years ago (a lot :)) we were encouraged to challenge a classification and to seek downgrading. I challenged a particular document as it would have enabled the downgrading of a file. I was rebuffed by the SO2 at Command.

As I was acting under instruction of my stn cdr I kicked it upstairs. The SO2 was instructed to downgrade the document. He was not best pleased. It dd raise another issue though.

He sent out a signal authorising downgrading and consequently ALL the original recipients had to do extra work locating and downgrading their copies.

The Do Nothing Option remains the most attractive as it involved least work amongst hard pressed staffs. The active review and FOI process might please journalists looking for copy but does nothing to help staffs.

[dervish]

My understanding is that to downgrade it must be downloadable by TWO levels. Top Secret to Secret is insufficient. Rules may have changed since I was a lad.

[gr4techie]

I remember going on an RHWR course where the instructor claimed we could not keep the notes we wrote, as what he says is so secret.

Despite the fact if you did a search on Google for radar warning receiver, it brings up two hundred and seventy eight thousand results and a nice article of Wikipedia.

Also other airforces through out the world have their own versions anyway, like the L-150 or SPO-15 rhwr thats fitted to MiG29 and SU27. So I doubt what we were told would be news to them, unless Bin Laiden wanted to come and fix our aircraft for us.

[Pontius Navigator]

gr4, ah, but we know they know, but do they know we know they know?

A bit like ESM parameters. They know what their parameter are but do they know we know?

[gr4techie]

There is a good chance I was asleep that day, but we were never told parameters. So nothing of interest.

But I'm sure if "they" really wanted to find out, they use a bit more sophistication than look at some young pups hand written A4 sheet that looked like a spider had fallen into a glass of whisky and then stumbled across an inkpad and onto my paper.

And I never got seduced by a stunning east European super model nynphomaniac who kept on buying me beers all night and who's interests included cinema, fine dining, walks along the river bank and radar homing receivers :-(

[Melchett01]

Remember - the Official Secrets Act does not exist to protect secrets, it exists to protect officials.

If you remember that, then the policy makes so much more sense.

[gr4techie]

[sarcasm on] But the Russian girl...half his age! Said she wasn't a spy. She was madly in love with Mike Hancock, MP for Portsmouth Naval dockyard. He must have a nice personality [sarcasm off]

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01831/hancock_1831643c.jpg

[dragartist]

Some of you may recall the C4 Documentary by Dr Hugh Hunt of Cambridge University when they went off to Canada and dropped one.

We had Hugh and his students deliver a lecture to the RAeS. Odd really as it was his lecture theatre. He spoke of how Churchill had ordered that all the drawings and calculations be destroyed. Hugh and his team had to derive same from first principles. He showed a drawing they had generated from what photos remained and memories of some involved.

I had worked on these three strange aircraft we had at a facility in Cambridgeshire that moved to another facility not far from Lincoln in 1995 and was a frequent visitor to the factory that made them not far from Manchester. The same factory that designed the Bombers during the war. the military business moved to another factory in Manchester at around the same time we moved to Waddington. They were having a clear up and came across microfiche copies of the Lancaster Modification drawings listing all the part numbers contract numbers of the constituent parts (lots of bicycle chain was involved) the drawing was Classified "Most Secret" it had been declassified to Restricted as late as 1968!

I was able to pass copies of these drawings to Dr Hugh. I am not sure if he and his team were able to get hold of the other drawings referenced on the GA.

The guys up at Woodford rescued quite a bit from the skip. Well done them.

Regarding mention of block 7 and some of the C130 SF kit migrating onto the J. One of the jobs I did in 1981 was put ex Vulcan RWR (ARI 18228/1) onto the Chinook. Nothing changes.

Funny how the purpose of all these lumps and bumps can remain classified. We had two little fairings under the 4a tanks on this aircraft I worked on. I was able to convince people that they were super secret equipment I could not talk about. In fact they were covers over some little wheels that would have come into effect in the event of a wheels up landing. It was a good story we kept up for a while. Our unit motto was "Lead and Mislead"

[clicker]

Rather like the "Blue Circle" radar in some Canberra TT versions rumoured to have been made of ..... Sorry can't tell you, I've signed the O.S.A.

[ShotOne]

I appreciate that continually reclassifying files would quickly become a ballache. I'm thinking more on things which should never be classified to start with, like millions of pounds worth of Chinooks rusting in a hangar cos of no software codes. melchetts comment on protecting officials hits the nail.

[Pontius Navigator]

I read only last week that the classification system was being reduced from 4 to 2. I am not sure if the 4 included TS, but apparently it will be Secret and Official. It will save millions as civil servants will be able to communicate with each other over ordinary systems.

What was it you said Mr Melchett?

[Lynxman]

The new document security system to be introduced in April 2014 will consist of only three classifications: Official, Secret and Top Secret. No further details yet.

[dervish]

I wonder if this new system is MoD catching up with the Freedom of Info act? It's Official, so you can't have it.

[Melchett01]

Dervish,

To my cynical mind it's to bring us more into line with the US system which doesn't do Restricted - they have For Official Use Only. That said I am quite happy to see the back of Confidential - what a balls ache that one is.

As for downgrading policy, remember that unless you are the originator of a document then officially you shouldn't be downgrading it at all. So unless you get it in writing from up the chain that you are auth'd to downgrade stuff you didn't produce, and unless you have very specific criteria for what can and can't be downgraded, you're potentially on a sticky wicket.

[dervish]

Melchett

I think "originator" means the current postholder, not the actual author. Constant reorganisations probably make identifying even a postholder difficult. And a certain retained knowledge is needed which is also increasingly difficult given the manpower cuts and general dumbing down.

Under GOCO, will this be contracted out? :E

[Melchett01]

Dervish

I agree with you on the idea of 'originator' but I think that is a common sense interpretation rather than the official rule. In my last place, the 1-star auth'd is to downgrade material from subordinate units without further reference because of the factors you mention, along with his opinion that as the higher HQ we 'owned' the unit and therefore any information it generated.

If my 1-star explicitly takes on that risk, as he acknowledged at the time rather than leaving my team and I out in the cold, then I'll do what I'm told. The Sy section in our higher HQ unfortunately nearly had kittens because they interpreted the policy literally.

[Romeo Oscar Golf]

And I never got seduced by a stunning east European super model nynphomaniac who kept on buying me beers all night and who's interests included cinema, fine dining, walks along the river bank and radar homing receivers


Well blow me down, that's a coincidence!!:{

[NutLoose]

You too?

The slapper, she gets about :p


One reason something's are probably secret is not necessarily what's in it, but to protect the source and how they collected it. No point telling them how you are collecting information as your source will soon dissapear.

[Pontius Navigator]

Melchett, agree. Now if somone submitted a paper for open publication and it was approved, then one presumes it would have been seen by a subject matter expert who approved its release.

Now, let us assume a subsequent paper was submitted, you would assume that there would be no issue with previously approved material and only additional material might be at issue.

Now, what would you think if an issue was raised with previously cleared and then published material?

I presume you could continue to use the originally approved information but now citing Wikipedia or a previous article.

[dazdaz1]

Let me slip this teaser in........ Tell me all about Roswell and in later years Rendlesham forest/Colonel Charles Holt? Happy for any info. I thank you.

Daz

[Haraka]

BTW it's the Official Secrets Acts that we are all subject to ( whether we have "signed" them or not. )



Pedant exits left, pursued by a bear.

[Pontius Navigator]

Haraka, quite, which is why I have my original signed copy but neglected to sign any further copies on retiring. Having returned the pensions paperwork but not the OSA paper no one said a thing.

[xenolith]

Secrecy...outdated concept?

Hmmmm I could tell you but then I'd have to............. you know the rest.:cool:

[Al R]

I once inadvertantly took away from work a Face to Face book (if you need to ask, etc..) which wasn't even classified Restricted. Yet before going on my Jungle Warfare Instructors Course, I was sent a document describing Brunei in terms which could have been lifted from a Thomas Cook travel guide.. which was. You have to ask where the consistency is.

[Pontius Navigator]

Back in the '60s BMC discovered that the RAF had breached copyright on the Mini's workshop manual. They had taken the BMC product and turned it in to an AP marking it Restricted in the process.

What did the RAF do? They threatened BMC with a breach of the OSA!

[ricardian]

The American method of classifying each and every paragraph made life simpler, if a TS document had just 2 or 3 paragraphs marked TS and the rest were Unclassified then just removing the 2 or 3 TS paragraphs made the document Unclassified.

[Pontius Navigator]

Ricardian, while the US system (also applies to NATO) has some benefits and it was applied in UK for a while, it has disadvantages too. First, it highlights to someone without the need-to-know what is most sensitive, and secondly it relies upon the originator to identify accurately if a part of the whole can be safely accorded a lower classification.

I recall once being 'told' the content of a Secret caveated letter from a 2*. Later the letter was reassessed, and the inclusion of just one word meant the letter was upgraded as a whole to TS. As TS I was not only allowed to read it but was responsible for filing it too.

[gr4techie]

Anyone know what is the official criteria for deciding what classification to place a document in?
For example, what would make a document top secret rather than secret?

[MPN11]

gr4, ah, but we know they know, but do they know we know they know?
A bit like ESM parameters. They know what their parameters are but do they know we know?

That's exactly the fog one hopes still gets generated. During an 'interesting' posting I was connected with <redacted> and the one thing that made it so <classification> was that we didn't want "Them" to know what we knew, and how we knew it, if indeed we did (or didn't, or couldn't on Thursdays).

In consequence, even the <codeword> had a codeword, and the name of, or codeword for, <redacted> was never used either in writing or in conversation, and even my desk diary was a registered <classification> document.

So, when I first heard <it> mentioned in the Media, I nearly sh*t myself!! :eek:

Capabilities (and deficiencies) are as precious for National security as hardware details and/or Op plans.

[/pompous old bloke]

[Pontius Navigator]

MPN, a bit like the group captain being filmed for a Panorama programme briefing a crew for a mission - like he did that every time. We NEVER mentioned what he said and the operation itself was usually programmed with a nickname.