One of the more intriguing redactions that classification reviewers made to the sheaf of recently released commiques between the Justice Department and the Central Intelligence Agency is the codeword used to compartmentalize the existence of and information about the secret detention facilities and the enhanced interrogation techniques.
Apparently, that code word is still in use -- and is therefore classified. In 2002, the Washington Post's Dana Priest wrote that the covert CIA activities were organized in a compartment called "GST," which was, she reported, a shortened version of a classified code name.
The government has never acknowledged the existence of a GST compartment -- until now, that is.
That marking comes from the third page of a much larger 2004 memo written by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel. It was among the memos provided to the ACLU last week. The letters "CRU/GST" are blacked out -- except for this one reference.
The memo refers to both the detention program and the interrogation techniques, and the classification doesn't contain any additional caveats. It follows, then, that CRU/GST denotes a large compartment. Generally, if a special access program has several components, and documents related to only one of those components are distributed, the classification will include a secondary codeword, followed, if necessary, by a number. The classification epicycles upon epicycles are used to restrict access even to people who are cleared -- read in to -- the general program.
If GST is the designator for the administration's covert detention/interrogation programs -- and possibly for all of its Al Qaeda-related ops -- then what's CRU?
Intelligence sources wouldn't say. The only public reference to CRU being used in the classification schema comes from a Lockheed Martin job posting for a paralegal at the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Eastern District of Virginia. The applicant must possess both the " SI/TK/G/HCS/CRU and CRU-GST" clearances.
Here's a guess: CRU refers somehow to the legal justifications -- the golden shields -- that were written to sanction the CIA's GST program.
Or it designates a classification review unit (CRU)?
Or, CRU refers to some new program entirely?
Further proof that when handling security, Democrats are incompetent idiots.
Because nothing like THAT, has EVER happened during a Republican Presidential Administration....
Well, what did you expect from a party composed of idiots AND fascists? Breathe DAF, breathe....
Speaking of incompetence, it seems we are approaching an infamous date that should represent the cut-off line on comments such as this related to Dems vs. GOPs handling of National Security. Can we make a deal that you stop floating these baseless accusations after Mr. Obama crosses said threshold established by the previous administration?
The job posting listed the accesses required? They're not supposed to do that, because people possessing those accesses aren't supposed to talk about them.
CRU = Classification Review Unit
GST = Government Sanctioned Tactics
For more from someone claiming to be an insider re: CRU/GST, see here.
Per the passage above:
"SI/TK/G/HCS stand for, in order, the compartments restricting access to info obtained from communication intelligence (eavesdropping), spy satellite, super-sensitive collection programs and from human sources -- HCS stands for HUMINT control system."
Not to be pedantic, but, "in order," the classification marking SI/TK/G/HCS stands for Special Intelligence (SI); TALENT KEYHOLE (TK), the compartment(s) for overhead imagery, both satellite and airborne; GAMMA (G), the compartment for COMINT; and HUMINT Control System (HCS).
Basically, having SI/TK/G/HCS access means that one has access to all-source intelligence (i.e., derived from images, communications intercepts, and human sources).
And as carolinacharlie linked to above, CRU indeed stands for Classification Review Unit, while GST stands for Government Sanctioned Tactics.
DAF,
I love how all you republicans constantly say that the democrats are facist incompitent idiot retards who should never ever be in charge of anything and everything they touch will turn communist, socialist and AIDS infested. Yet right now all that the republican party has become is mud throwing talking head pundits waiting for the next controversy so they can tell you red neck shotgun humping hicks who to hate this week. Now granted democrats are complete pussies who cant stand up for themselves at all but remember this your republican party is getting its ass kicked by these liberal pussies so what does that make you guys? Oh and on the story we need a new intelligence committee to oversee all this super black ops that is going on. When you start lying to your populous you sow the seeds for rebellion.