Regarding Security of Classified Information [View all]

[MineralMan]

Many years ago, while in the USAF, my final duty station was the NSA building at Ft. Meade. Very strict security, as you might imagine, due to the high classification level of materials there. So, how secure?

Well, when I was discharged from the USAF, on the last day I was there, I went to the library in the building to ask if I could have some Russian Language dictionaries that were surplus property for the agency. I explained that I was planning to return to college as a Russian major, and specialized dictionaries were really, really expensive.

The guy I talked to in the library took me to a room full of shelves and said, "Help yourself." So I did. I filled up a big cardboard box with books. Nothing classified, of course, just dictionaries. Then, I left the building, passing through a locked security gate. "What's in the box," the guard asked. "Russian dictionaries," I answered. "OK," the guard said and let me through the gate. That was it. I loaded them in the trunk of my car, and was discharged the next morning.

Just dictionaries. But nobody checked. Big box, too. Weighed about 50 pounds. Nobody looked in the box. They just took my word for it. I remember thinking that I could have carried out pounds of classified documents. I certainly had access to them. Just dictionaries.

And there you have a typical security exit from a building that is jammed full of stuff that is classified at levels hard to imagine. I was cleared for access to most of it, except for stuff that was accessible only to a few specialists. And yet, I could carry a heavy box out the door and pass through a locked security exit. Just dictionaries.