restricted, confidential, secret, and top secret.

Documents and other information must be properly marked 'by the author' with one of several (hierarchical) levels of sensitivity-e.g. The clearance process requires a satisfactory background investigation. Access is restricted by law or regulation to particular groups of people with the necessary security clearance and need to know, and mishandling of the material can incur criminal penalties.Ī formal security clearance is required to view or handle classified documents or to access classified data.

Notations with leader lines at top and bottom cite statutory authority for not declassifying certain sections.Ĭlassified Information is material that a government body deems to be sensitive information that must be protected. The classification of individual paragraphs and reference titles is shown in parentheses-there are six different levels on this page alone. The original overall classification of the page, 'top secret', and the Special Intelligence code word 'umbra', are shown at top and bottom. National Security Agency report on the USS Liberty incident, partially declassified and released to the public in July 2004.