Access to the most hidden corners of the nation’s security bureaucracy can be a golden ticket to some of the realm’s most precious jewels.
The Defense Department calls them “special access programs,” or SAPs. Spy agencies call them “controlled access programs.” Other agencies such as the Department of Energy, which manages the nation’s nuclear weapons labs, have their own names for walling off information they only want a select few to see.about the labyrinthine classification system to protect secrets that is also often derided as overkill.
A former senior intelligence official described the network of SAPs as “its own ecosystem in the biodome of classified programs.”The official, who agreed to speak about the sensitive topic on condition of anonymity, offered an analogy: If a building contained classified information, many officials would have access to the facility.
“You have access to it because essentially you are put on a list and the only people who can access that category of information are people who are on that list,” the former official added. One recent example is the Air Force’s nuclear-armed B-21 stealth bomber that is being developed by Northrop Grumman. ItBut that is an “acknowledged SAP.” While the Air Force doesn’t divulge details of the program itself, it is publicly known that the project falls in a special category to protect it from prying eyes or ears.
“There are a small number of people who are so-called ‘super users’ who have access to any SAP,” said Eric Edelman, who served as undersecretary of Defense for policy in the administration of George W. Bush and as ambassador to Turkey and Finland. “I was technically a super user as undersecretary, but was I read into every SAP? Hell no. I didn't necessarily need to know about a lot of the things. If I needed to, I would be brought into whatever it was.
Trump often appeared unconvinced and expressed the view that “these damn generals are so damn cautious. They don’t know how to win a war anymore. I know better,” the former senior official said.
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