Comment by secthrowaway

I'm assuming you aren't actually asking me to prove a negative. If a reading of NISPOM doesn't clarify it for you, then there's really nothing more I can say that will persuade you from your conspiracy theory.

http://www.dss.mil/isp/fac_clear/download_nispom.html

Army Grunts are required to have a clearance. General Infantry (18yo cannon fodder in your parlance) must have at least a Secret clearance. Army Cooks, may even be required to be cleared.

Think you can run around with 5th generation night vision goggles and state of the art body armor, talk on encrypted radio equipment, know troop movement information, chase after specific enemies and report back on activities on Secret level systems without a clearance? Think again.

Let's do a thought experiment. Let's say we can say there's a piece of information that is so dangerous, so important, that releasing that information could endanger the entire population of the planet. Say, the nuclear codes.

These are arguably the most sensitive information in the world. Why would there need to be a classification level above and beyond TS and the appropriate compartments and or SAP program to protect them? Some sort of Super Top Secret?

Or for fun, let's say Area-51 has alien tech there, or we have a secret military base on the moon, or a Stargate. Why wouldn't it just be protected under a SAP? A Super Top Secret doesn't buy you anything at all in terms of protecting that information. Nor does a Super Duper Top Secret. As somebody not in the SAP and not with a need to know, I wouldn't even know the SAP exists to protect the Stargate program, or the alien autopsy videos, or whatever. Only the people in the SAP and a handful of people managing the SAPs of the agency that created it even know of the SAPs existence and/or what it protects. SAPs can even have sub-compartments that provide even further protection.

Practically speaking this offers what can be perceived to be "high levels of clearance" but in fact are all just plain jane Top Secret.