Technology can track secret docs
Documents seized during the Aug. 8 search by the FBI of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. Credit: AP
As an Army veteran who was a military intelligence field agent, one of my tasks was to check on the security of classified documents in the hands of worldwide department head officers and their subordinates on military bases [“Document drama has us guessing,” Opinion, Jan. 26].
The process wasn’t perfect, but one rule was primary: “No document leaves the base for any reason.” That would be a security breach and prompt an investigation.
Documents could move between offices and personnel with proper clearances, but the document had to be signed out of the locked cabinet or safe and put back in it when returned.
Today, it would be easier to track if every classified document had a computer-generated number with a bar code. That number would be coded by the originator and have a time limit to be in circulation, more or less like a library book.
Every office and department should have a high-clearance security officer to check the comings and goings of any classified documents.
— Orlando T. Maione, Stony Brook
How much energy and money is being spent to possibly put former President Donald Trump in jail and investigate President Joe Biden because of classified documents?
This is an insane waste of time and our money. Stop the politics and the insanity.
— Jeff Ward, Medford
A reader was right on point in comparing the removal of classified documents to checking out books from a library [“Protect the security of classified papers,” Letters, Jan. 18].
Now, in his sixth decade in government and several years since the classified documents were removed, it appears that President Joe Biden may have a hefty past-due fine assessed on his library card.
— Glenn Tyranski, Huntington
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