Security Clearances


Due to the sensitive nature of the Agency and it's operations, all of it's material must be classified in order to maintain security measures and ensure the safety of the United States and the Agency itself. Classification in the Agency works in a very similar fashion to the national standard. Due to the esoteric nature of the Agency, several important changes have been made; specifically, additional classification levels and designations are utilized to organize material. A brief guide to our classification standards can be found below.

Primary Classifications
The levels of classification that are applied to the vast majority of Agency documents.

  • Restricted: Information which, while an unauthorized disclosure would cause no damage to the security of the Agency, is classified for the sake of preserving Agency secrecy and preventing the widespread knowledge of anomalous affairs. Material within this classification level is available to Agency staff on a need-to-know basis.
  • Confidential: Information in which the unauthorized disclosure could reasonably be expected to cause measurable damage to the security of the Agency. To gain access to Confidential-level material, one must go through several months of investigation. This security clearance must be renewed every ten years.
  • Secret: Information in which the unauthorized disclosure could reasonably be expected to cause serious damage to the security of the Agency or provide a meaningful advantage to any foreign organization. To gain access to Secret-level material, one must go through one year of investigation. This security clearance must be renewed every five years.
  • Top Secret: Information in which the unauthorized disclosure could reasonably be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the security of the Agency or provide a decisive advantage to any foreign organization. Gaining access to Top Secret-level material requires satisfactory results from a Single Scope Background Investigation. This investigation may take anywhere from 4 to 18 months, depending on the individual. All individuals with Top Secret clearance must undergo an SSBI Period Reinvestigation every two years.
  • Echelon Ultra: Information in which the unauthorized disclosure can be reasonably expected to cause the end of the world. Access to Echelon Ultra is limited by the Agency administration to only the most capable and trustworthy individuals within its ranks; an individual may only enter Echelon Ultra through satisfactory results from a Single Spectrum Anomalous Probe Investigation1 (SSAPI). This investigation must be performed without the knowledge of the agent and is conducted over the course of 6 months. Every individual with Echelon Ultra clearance should be regularly screened for irregularities and is required to undergo an ISBI Period Reinvestigation at the beginning of the year. Once an individual is approved for Echelon Ultra and accepts the clearance, for the purposes of world safety, that individual will remain in the Agency's care for the rest of their life.

Secondary Classifications
Levels of classification that are to be used only in specifically outlined circumstances.

  • Controlled Unclassified: Controlled Unclassified does not represent a clearance designation, but rather a clearance level at which information distribution is controlled. Controlled Unclassified designates information that may be illegal to distribute. This information is available when needed by Agency collaborators, such as United States Department of Defense (DoD) employees, but the designation signifies that the information should not be redistributed to users not designated to use it on an operational basis.
  • Yankee White: Information pertaining to any material with a significant relation to any acting or ex-president of the United States of America. In addition to being considered as Top-Secret information, an individual must possess legal U.S. citizenship and display unquestionable loyalty to the State before being granted clearance to Yankee White material.

Additional Designations
Additional categories applied to any material's individual classification in order to further limit access or give context as to the status of that information.

  • Basilisk (-BSK): Information that possesses the qualities of an info hazard2. Only individuals possessing attributes that protect them from the effects of any material designated as Basilisk will be granted access to it in order to protect Agency staff from potential danger. Furthermore, all Basilisk information is subject to Compartmented standards.
  • Contractor Accessible (-CAS): Information that, due to any number of circumstances, requires extensive collaboration with contractors that are not federally owned assets. Contractors working for the Agency are to be extensively screened and all involved employees are to receive the necessary background checks (as determined by the assigned security clearance of this designation) and be personally interviewed by administration before coming into contact with Agency property.
  • Compartmented (-CMPT): Information that has been determined to be SCI may only be stored, used, and discussed in specific location that must follow strict, specific procedures. Typically, this location is indicated within the material, though this is not always the case.
  • Special Access Program (-SAP): Information within a Special Access Program adheres to all the standards and regulations of Compartmented information with the added limitation that only directly involved parties may access material. Additionally, security measures for this material are greatly increased using any number of methods, including but not limited to:
    • Being unacknowledged3 by the rest of the Agency,
    • Limiting access to those who are directly affiliated with the material except for when necessary,
    • Limiting the ways in which information regarding this material is stored,
    • Preventing information regarding this material from being produced outside of specific, unlisted compartment sites, and
    • Preventing higher clearance levels from accessing the material, even if they would otherwise be able to.
  • Q-Clearance (-Q): Adopted from the Department of Energy, this category is applied to Classified and above materials that require additional partitioning of information due to partial involvement in other, more classified anomalous projects; it is only to be used for resources whose classification cannot, or should not, be fully classified due to the nature of anomalous entities involved.
  • Stargate (-SG): This category is applied to any material containing information regarding man-made anomalies or anomalous weapons created through Agency intervention. Materials with this designation cannot be accessed by Agency staff, even those who would have the necessary clearance, unless they are approved to do so by another member of staff with Q-Clearance.
Footnotes
Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License