LETTER: What a 'Top Secret' clearance used to mean

I received a “Top Secret” clearance with “crypto access” in 1962 from the Department of Defense; I had this for the time I was in the military. When I left the military and went to work for a computer company out of Minnesota, I kept my “Top Secret” clearance for the next 18 years plus added the Atomic Energy Agency clearance to it.

I went through security seminar reviews every two years and signed a statement at each — basicly saying I’d be tried for TREASON if I told or let information fall into the hands of an unauthorized person who was not cleared and had a NEED TO KNOW. (Even with a Top Secret clearance, there is still the NEED to KNOW!)

There was NOT one word in those documents that said “it had to be INTENTIONALLY committed”! Also what I’d seen or heard could not be talked about for the next 50 years! Signing into this document made one proud, but also made one’s blood run a little cold thinking of what could happen if I screwed up!

Now I look at what Hillary Clinton has done. This woman has committed outright TREASON! If I or anyone I know had done just one of the things she has committed, the government would have prosecuted us to the full extent of the law! Clinton’s aides were not even cleared to see the items that existed on her server, including the lawyers that deleted the emails! This is outright neglect of duty and TREASON when Hillary Clinton was secretary of state!

In the security seminars I attended, they covered the classification markings on documents, but then you were told how to recognize information that was NOT marked also. You were still responsible for treating the information as if it was marked with a classification!

Hillary Clinton should be in jail, NOT trying to be president of the United States!

I guess it pays to have the last name Clinton! —Jerry Peterson, Polson