Hey, folks! So, we all remember that time when some leaky-leak leaked out some top-secret info, causing a huge hoo-ha for our national security, right? Well, let’s not cry over spilled milk, because we’ve got some solutions to prevent that from happening again. And nope, it’s not some old-fashioned backward-looking stuff. We need some new age, integrated approach to disseminating and protecting our top-secret docs. Luckily, both the government and the private sector have some potential solutions lurking around.
The government can’t just rely on policy manuals and procedures to keep a lid on things. We need a culture of trust and compliance, people! But how do we build that culture? Well, the government can create a sense of mission and public service, and they can also keep an eye on employee behavior. We gotta vet and monitor them in a legally appropriate way, of course. Most of the folks with top-secret clearance understand that blabbering their mouths could put their buddies in danger. But we need to reinforce the importance of national security, especially for those newbies from Generation Z who might not get it.
Okay, so we can’t just make everyone take some boring online course about handling classified documents. That’s a recipe for snoozeville. Instead, we should make every applicant for top-secret clearance go through a psychological exam and a polygraph. Yeah, it might weed out some troublemakers, but it’ll also make the employees feel like they’re part of a super-secret squad. And this vetting shouldn’t just happen once during the hiring process. It should be an ongoing process, especially for those fresh-faced 18-year-olds who might change their views faster than they change their Instagram filters.
But even with a trustworthy work force, there will always be some folks who can’t resist a little peek at some classified docs. That’s where technology comes in, baby! And the government can learn a thing or two from the private sector’s fancy-schmancy innovations. I mean, pharmaceutical companies and defense contractors are using tech to prevent theft of their goodies. So, why can’t we do the same with our top-secret docs? We can go all high-tech and install some paper-thin R.F.I.D. tags on our papers and binders. When someone tries to sneak them out, an alarm goes off, just like in a retail store. And we can use artificial intelligence to catch some shady behavior, like when someone is printing out something they shouldn’t. Hey, if every A.T.M. has a camera, then every top-secret printer should have one too, am I right? Sure, it might cost some green, but it’s worth it to keep our national secrets under lock and key.
Serious News: nytimes
