1.25 Million People Have ‘Top Secret’ Access in the U.S.

[Ed. Note: It’s like they always say… 1.25 million people can keep a secret if 1,249,999 of them are dead.]

The recent leak of classified Pentagon documents has highlighted the vulnerability of the system which grants access to classified government information.

Initially suspected to have been an intelligence operation by a state actor, evidence is increasingly indicating that the leak originated from an individual working on a U.S. military base – motivated by impressing members of an online chat group.

As Statista’s Martin Armstrong details below, the federal government grants top secret security clearance to large numbers of government employees and contractors: 1.25 million according to the latest publicly available figures.