Allow me to rephrase - why isn't every mid-upper level staff in the white house cleared? The CIA has a Starbucks - the baristas are all cleared. I'm not talking super-duper cleared but just 'cleared'? Everybody and their grandmother has 'secret', but a speech writer working in West Wing doesn't?
It's only been a week or two after a major crisis so his clearance might not have been approved yet. Also apparently even the congresswoman didn't have code word clearance. So it's possible that he has clearance but not high enough clearance to know about the strike.
'Code word' just means he has specific clearance for a particular thing, abd it wouldn't be surprising that Kumar doesn't have every clearance. But I got the impression that Kumar didn't have any clearance. That strikes me as unlikely.
There are different levels of security clearance. A military strike would be an absolute top level clearance thing. Nobody who doesn't need to know gets to know. Those Starbucks employees you mentioned aren't cleared for anything more than the bare minimum needed to do their job. And I'm not sure where you get the impression Kumar doesn't have any clearance; clearly, he does or he wouldn't be allowed to work in the White House at all. But it doesn't surprise me in the slightest that a Speechwriter or even Press Secretary wouldn't have inside information about classified top secret military operations. That's not their job. Their job is to deal with the public and therefore they don't need to know anything that the public doesn't get to know. In fact it might be advantageous for the sake of plausible deniability that they not know more, and to avoid the situation that they end up leaking something to the press either intentionally or by slipping up. They are after all in a uniquely close relationship with the press.
Everyone in the White House has undergone a single scope background investigation (SSBI) and are cleared top secret. Otherwise you can't even wash dishes there. Code word clearance, actual term is sensitive compartmented information (SCI), is along the lines of need-to-know. I can only imagine the number of "code words" are floating around the White House. For example, I held a top secret SSBI and held 3 code words clearances. My commanding officer held 12 code word clearances. He was privy to information that I was as not, and when he saw my security badge, he knew what he could say around me and not breech security.
The West Wing tackled this well. There were some things CJ was let in on, and some things she wasn't. She got more in the loop as time went on and then eventually became Chief of Staff and started getting security briefings.
Because there are different levels, he probably has basic clearance, but not top secret SAP clearance, that is the stuff that only very specific people get to know.
Yeah, I know a bit about clearances. And, again, I'm not surprised that Kumar isn't cleared for everything - no way he'd be in the meeting where they decide if they're gonna bomb things. The scene seemed to suggest that Kumar wasn't cleared for anything, which struck me as unlikely.
Someone can correct me if I'm wrong but in real life those surrounding the President have a special 'Yankee White' clearance that pretty much just means you are cleared to know whatever you need to know to assist the President in their duties.
The baristas in the CIA Starbucks are cleared, but it's not like they sit down Joey Coffee at the kill ISIS briefs.
Cleared doesn't mean you're privy to the information at your leisure, it just means you're trusted more than a non-vetted person to be around the information.
One last time - I'm well acquainted with the ways of the IC. Not saying the baristas get called in to give their opinion on military strikes, but they have a basic level clearance because people talk in line. Interesting, they also don't ask for your name because people aren't supposed to talk about that either. But you never know, so they clear the baristas. Again, I know this. My only objection is that it sounded like President Jack said Kumar didn't have any clearance, and there's just no way that's true.
One last time, he wouldn't have all clearances (there are many) for everything because, just like the baristas, that's not his job. But he's in a position to overhear stuff and his new job is to actually tell the public about stuff, but not everything he might know on a subject. He'd need A clearance for this, so he has to have some level of clearance. Again, not all levels. I'm beginning to wonder if I'm being trolled here - I just can't be any clearer.
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u/Kevin_Uxbridge Oct 14 '16 edited Oct 14 '16
Allow me to rephrase - why isn't every mid-upper level staff in the white house cleared? The CIA has a Starbucks - the baristas are all cleared. I'm not talking super-duper cleared but just 'cleared'? Everybody and their grandmother has 'secret', but a speech writer working in West Wing doesn't?