Need to Know

Last week, President Trump initiated what is certain to be a series of actions ending the security clearances of certain former Obama Administration officials, along with other swamp creatures who have been shown to have connived with Russians to tamper with the Trump campaign in 2016.

Naturally, the left, whose media outlets had been paying some of these types (like John Brennan, the former CIA head under Obama), are in a stew.  "Punitive", they call it, against wonderful people like Brennan, opposing the Trump administration at every step and calling him treasonous and other pleasant things, and calling for his impeachment for .. for ... well, give him time, Brennan will come up with something.  Maybe even a lawsuit to restore his clearance, if either he or his lawyer is a complete moron.

But he won't "come up with something" because he has access to classified data.  He no longer does.

It is generally understood that holding a security clearance, as millions of Americans do, is analogous to a driver's license.  Just because you have a Top Secret clearance doesn't mean you can walk into the Situation Room at the White House, any more than holding a driver's license allows you to drive on a sidewalk, even though police cars in pursuit may have to.

Holding the clearance means that you have been investigated and deemed to be not a risk of being compromised or blackmailed, and are thought to be able to protect information at the level of classification that goes with how deep the investigation of you was.  After five years, you have to be re-investigated no matter what.

But that just means that for X number of years, you are eligible to be exposed to classified information at the level of your clearance, not that you are entitled to.  In other words, along with being personally approved to see or work with such sensitive information, you also have to have a need to know, based on your job requirement.

For a civilian contractor, that means working on a specific contract that includes classified information, and that your role on that contract requires you to see or work with that data.  For a government employee, there is a similar requirement.

In other words, holding the clearance is an "approval" for the holder, to where he or she, if there is a need, may work with classified material without having to go through a further investigation.  Do you follow the difference? 

Then typically, if a cleared person goes through two years without being assigned to work on a classified project, their clearance expires and they require re-investigation if they ever need it again.

John Brennan no longer had a need.  While past CIA directors had been asked to consult with their successors on sensitive matters, it's pretty clear that the Trump Administration CIA is not asking John Brennan for help.  If they don't need his help, and if he is working, not for a Federal contractor on a classified contract, but for a media outlet, then John Brennan does not have a need to know.

Simple -- no "need to know", no clearance needed.  Having been out of office nearly two years anyway, his clearance would have expired regardless, and he would have required a re-investigation -- which, given his remarks about the president in which he suggested that he could be blackmailed by Russians, probably would not have gone well for Brennan.

So we can presume that it was just as well that Brennan got his ticket pulled when he did, before he somehow got access to material that a sworn enemy of the President of the United States should probably not see.

He may have been the first, but he should not be the last.  That clearance was a privilege, and if we were picking a finite number of individuals on whom to grant that privilege, John Brennan would not be on that list.  He drove on the sidewalk without permission.

Better now than later.  Now let's pull the tickets of the rest of them.

Copyright 2018 by Robert Sutton
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