Replying to a message of Jeff Binkley to Bob Ackley:

 BA>> According to the story investigators were going through every
 BA>> computer the guy had access to to try to trace where he sent the
 BA>> stuff he swiped.  As of the date
 BA>> on the story, which was this past summer IIRC, they hadn't actually
 BA>> linked him to WikiLeaks.  But they did say that many if not of the
 BA>> documents were diplomatic in nature (why they were even accessible
 BA>> on a military network was not explained)..

 BA>> Back when I handled classified material = and I handled a LOT of it
 BA>> over a period just shy of 20 years (evern wrote some of it) - your
 BA>> access to material was limited by your need to know it.  If you
 BA>> didn't need it you just didn't get access to it, period.

 JB> It was the same way when I was in.  An Army PFC would have never had 
 JB> access to this much to type of classified materials.

Decades ago I was given rather broad access to 'special compartmented information,'
which was kept in a limited access vault in a sub-basement of SAC headquarters.
In the two years I had that access I never bothered to check any of it out.  When I
was debriefed I had to ask what some of the stuff was and they just said 'you don't
need to know.'  I still have no idea what it is I'm not supposed to be
talking about... 

I did have access to satellite photography (in those days KH-9 and KH-11)
for most of my
tour at SAC, but I only looked at a little of it (and I don't know what I
was looking at).  I
was never all that interested in the subject.  Whether or not our
satellites can read a license plate or tell if some sweet thing lying on a
beach is wearing a bathing suit I've no idea; nor do I care, it simply
isn't something that interests me.

If memory serves, the KH-9 satellites periodically spit out a film cannister that was
retrieved (caught in mid-air) by a specially equipped C-130; when it ran out of film
it became a piece of space junk.  I think the KH-11 was the first to use a comm
downlink rather than film cannisters - note that was over 30 years ago...

--- FleetStreet 1.19+