peter strzok is the former fbi counterintelligence agent, and is a former united states attorney appointed by former president george w. bush. peter, paul, nice to have you guys here this morning. first question i m going to throw it to. peter peter, i want to know your reaction to the official confirmation, now, there is going to be a damage assessment of the top secret information that was found at mar-a-lago. it seems that this would be a pretty urgent priority in order to protect, perhaps, those human sources that are so critical for our national security. okay, absolutely. these are the kinds of things that for the intelligence community, the first order of business is to figure out what potential sources and methods messages are in play. but we, know because their documents that were documents controlled by the human control system. that these relate to the most sensitive and detailed information becoming from sources. getting handling with those sources aren t whether or n
that are operating around the world. if that information gets out, they could be targeted, they could be jailed, they could be killed. yes, this is extremely sensitive information in many different realms. you ve handled this information, peter. this is can you imagine a post-it note here, a calendar here, and then classified and this highly sensitive material there? no, not at all. when you start talking about top secret information and sensitive compartmented information, hcs, human control system, which is dealing with human sources at a level where you might not only know what they re reporting on but in the hands of the wrong person say in china, in russia, in cuba, they could figure out who is providing that information. go out, round them up, shoot them, imprisonment for life would be the worst case. but this is handled at the most restrictive levels in the united states government. and this idea that it s just floating around mar-a-lago is crazy. so a number of us aroun
surveillance collecting foreign intelligence. orcon means so sensitive the agency which collected that intelligence must approve any request to share it, even within this country. noforn is intelligence too sensitive to share with any foreign entities, including close allies. and si or special intelligence is from signals intercept such as the nsa. the affidavit then defines something far graver in the list of intelligence terms and that is hcs, human control system is an sci control system designed to protect intelligence information derived that clandestine, secret, human sources overseas commonly referred to as human intelligence. in other words, information which if disclosed could get secret foreign intelligence agents captured or even killed. just to underscore, this is not what agents recently took from mar-a-lago, it is from the 15
document. again, ndi is national defense information which is alarming enough. fisa is court-ordered surveillance collecting foreign intelligence. orcon means so sensitive the agency which collected that intelligence must approve any request to share it, even within this country. noforn is intelligence too sensitive to share with any foreign entities, including close allies. and si or special intelligence is from signals intercept such as the nsa. the affidavit then defines something far graver in the list of intelligence terms and that is hcs, human control system is an sci control system designed to protect intelligence information derived that clandestine, secret, human sources overseas commonly referred to as human intelligence. in other words, information which if disclosed could get
these caveats mean. a point i would add is they are not mutually exclusive. so i would suspect that some of these documents at least, which is typical, particularly with hcs, human intelligence control system, could also be orcon and noforn which emphasizes the sensitivity and potential profound damage that could accrue if these are not protected, which they weren t, and if they are exposed. of course in the case of human control system, that is designed to protect assets that we have recruited overseas who are risking their very lives to provide u.s. government information. not only does that have a current impact, the content of what they re reporting, but it has a future impact in that it would serve to chill other potential assets from being recruited.