Classified Materials Allegedly Found in Former Veep Mike Pence's Home

army judge

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I had access to classified documents for decades.
In fact, after I retired, I was allowed to retain my Top Secret Crypto Clearance.
I retain that clearance as I write this post.
I have never taken any classified materials out of the secure area in which I was allowed to enter to access the classified material.

The latest trove of classified materials were found in Pence's Indiana home.

I'm looking forward to a thorough investigation into these and all other instances of classified materials being discovered in unusual and unauthorized locations.


https://www.newsmax.com/politics/pence-classified-documents/2023/01/24/id/1105698/


Former Vice President Mike Pence discovered classified documents in Indiana home
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Biden's document drama 'only going to get worse': Karl Rove | Fox News Video
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I had access to classified documents for decades.
In fact, after I retired, I was allowed to retain my Top Secret Crypto Clearance.
I retain that clearance as I write this post.
I have never taken any classified materials out of the secure area in which I was allowed to enter to access the classified material.

The latest trove of classified materials were found in Pence's Indiana home.

I'm looking forward to a thorough investigation into these and all other instances of classified materials being discovered in unusual and unauthorized locations.


https://www.newsmax.com/politics/pence-classified-documents/2023/01/24/id/1105698/


Former Vice President Mike Pence discovered classified documents in Indiana home
...

Biden's document drama 'only going to get worse': Karl Rove | Fox News Video
.........
sigh...

I'm going to post the same comment here as I did down the street. "OFFS!"
 
I am just going to say this. I really don't care what classified documents anyone has. Unless it is about our military capabilities, military equipment. They can classify the location of the portable toilets in a combat area. Look those idiots in public offices have hundreds of people working for them. So anyone of those people could have placed a classified document into a folder without anyone knowing. If these documents are of sensitive nature than we need to figure out where the system failed.
 
I am just going to say this. I really don't care what classified documents anyone has. Unless it is about our military capabilities, military equipment. They can classify the location of the portable toilets in a combat area. Look those idiots in public offices have hundreds of people working for them. So anyone of those people could have placed a classified document into a folder without anyone knowing. If these documents are of sensitive nature than we need to figure out where the system failed.

Discussions, even debates, have occurred about the classification system itself.

Many soldiers and leaders say there is a tendency to classify everything, rather than select things.

I tend to agree.

That said, I suggest to those that hold a clearance to refamiliarize themselves with what they've agreed to do regarding classified materials.

One thing I've never seen is that very few are allowed to take the materials home, or out of the SCIF = Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility {some say Secure Compartmented Information Facility}.

Suffice it to say, the entire system should be revamped and security increased.
 
Suffice it to say, the entire system should be revamped and security increased.

I've already seen several editorials saying the system for managing classified material is obviously broken given recent revelations and that changes are indeed needed to fix it. I would assert that one of those changes should be to tighten up what is eligible to be given some kind of secret classification. Agencies do indeed assert classified status for things that don't really affect security or law enforcement interests. Some are classified simply to cover the agency from unwanted criticism for the decision that was made.
 
In fact, after I retired, I was allowed to retain my Top Secret Crypto Clearance.
I retain that clearance as I write this post.

Isn't that because, while you are retired, you are subject to recall to active duty under 10 USC § 688? I'm assuming here that you were not retired on selective early retirement basis. So you'd still need that clearance to do your duties should you ever be recalled, right?

I have never taken any classified materials out of the secure area in which I was allowed to enter to access the classified material.

I suspect, but have no solid information to back it up, that military members and members of the intelligence community do a better job securing such information than civilian employees given clearance in some other role or elected leaders do.
 
So you'd still need that clearance to do your duties should you ever be recalled, right?

In some cases, allowing someone to keep a clearance is a courtesy.

If a person were to be recalled, a background check is conducted, clearance issued, if appropriate.

In my case, I couldn't be called back. I was allowed 35 years. Anything beyond 30 years requires special approvals.



I suspect, but have no solid information to back it up, that military members and members of the intelligence community do a better job securing such information than civilian employees given clearance in some other role or elected leaders do.

Your intuition is spot on, mate.

However, military members an Intel community people are punished very harshly if convicted of doing anything that they swore not to do regarding classified materials.

An interesting article by the AP:

Classified records pose conundrum stretching back to Carter
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Love it. I'm gonna use it.

In exchange I'll give you one.

BOHICA.

Bend over, here it comes again.

To say to someone who has done something stupid with consequences coming.

Years ago (90s) I worked for top 3 HR Consulting firm doing benefits consulting for a large oil/gas/chemical company in the Texas region. They were forming another spinoff and had an employee contest to help name it. One of the top ten suggestions was actually BOHICA -- luckily it didn't get picked LOL
 
Here are some of my favorite acronyms:

FISH - First In, Still Here

FUBAR - F***ed Up Beyond All Recognition

DZ - Drop Zone

AO - Area of Operations

KISS - Keep It Simple, Stupid
 
A blast from the past.

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WASHINGTON — On a winter's day in 1984, a briefcase stuffed with classified government documents showed up in a building in Pittsburgh, borne by someone who most certainly wasn't supposed to have them.

That someone was 13-year-old Kristin Preble. She took the papers to school as a show-and-tell project for her eighth grade class. Her dad had found them in his Cleveland hotel room several years earlier and taken them home as a souvenir.

As a different sort of show and tell unfolds in Washington over the mishandling of state secrets by the Trump and now Biden administrations, the schoolgirl episode from four decades ago stands as a reminder that other presidents, too, have let secure information spill.

The Grade 8 escapade and one known as Debategate both involved the mishandling of classified documents that Democratic President Jimmy Carter used to prepare for a debate with Republican rival Ronald Reagan in Cleveland on Oct. 28, 1980. In the latter instance, the Reagan campaign obtained — some said stole — Carter's briefing materials for the debate.

In today's docu-dramas, special counsels have been assigned to investigate Donald Trump's post-presidential cache of classified documents, which he initially resisted turning over, and Joe Biden's pre-presidential stashes, which he willingly gave up when they were discovered but did not disclose to the public for months.

With classified material also found at former Vice President Mike Pence's home, there is now a palpable sense in the halls of power that as more officials or ex-officials scour their cabinets or closets, more such oops moments will emerge.

The Carter files fell into Kristin's hands through a somewhat meandering route.

Two days after the 1980 debate, businessman Alan Preble found the papers in his Cleveland hotel room, apparently left behind by Carter press secretary Jody Powell. Preble took them to his Franklin Park home, where they sat for more than three years as a faintly appreciated keepsake.

"We had looked through them but didn't think they were important," Carol Preble, Kristin's mother, said back then, apparently unimpressed by the classified markings. But for social studies class, Kristin "thought they'd be real interesting. I thought they'd be great, too."

Off the girl went to Ingomar Middle School on Jan. 19, 1984, with the zippered briefcase.

Teacher Jim DeLisio's eyes popped when he saw the warnings on the documents inside. Among them: "Classified, Confidential, Executive" and "Property of the United States Government."

"I truly didn't want to look at it," he said then. "I was just too … scared. I didn't want to know."

Curiosity got the better of him. That night, he said, he and his wife and daughter pored over the documents, containing "everything you'd want to know from A to Z" on world and U.S. developments. One folder was marked "Iran." Libya was also in the mix.

Unable to reach Kristin's family by phone, DeLisio the next day called the FBI, which swiftly retrieved the papers.

A Justice Department official who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity at the time said the bundle of documents was 4 inches (10 centimeters) thick.

Despite steering the secrets back to their proper place, DeLisio was reprimanded by school officials for calling the authorities before reaching the Preble family or them. The discovery fed into a broader investigation by a Democratic-led congressional committee of the official Carter papers obtained by the winning Reagan campaign.

The Reagan Justice Department declined calls by the committee to appoint a special counsel in that matter. A court case trying to force that appointment failed, and no criminal case was brought. Debategate faded, but not the concern over how classified documents are handled by those in power.

As for Kristin, she earned a niche in history and a "B" on her school project.
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How classified documents became girl's show-and-tell in 1984 | kcentv.com
 
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