#Snowden: Last Word For Today, and It's For You, DU...

[jmowreader]

85. I'm interested in how you were able to get out of a SCIF with top-secret documents

SCIF means "sensitive compartmented information facility." To say they are heavily guarded is an understatement. There are three strands of chain-link fence around them, the tallest fence you can buy, with barbed wire atop each. There are armed guards walking between the strands. It's not electrified so the guards won't get killed, but I think it was tried once. There are motion sensors on the fence, though. There is one passage through the fences, and it's got armed guards manning it. There are cameras. There is a security checkpoint before you enter the building, and it's got armed guards, metal detectors, X-ray machines, people who search all your bags on entry and exit...and, occasionally, you get frisked when entering or exiting. You can't bring a fucking Furby in those places. You can't bring a cell phone. If you brought a book along to read on the bus, the guards would flip through it to be sure there weren't any little pieces of paper stuck between the pages. And you're not supposed to be able to bring a CD, a tape, your calculator, some film or anything like that. (You know how checkbooks come with calculators in them sometimes? The MPs at my site would look in people's checkbooks to make sure there were no calculators in them.) So I am really wondering how Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden got out of their buildings with all this classified information. More to the point, how did they copy this stuff onto removable media without anyone noticing?