The Extra-Secret White House Computer System, Explained

A whistle-blower stated advisers improperly limited access to a document of President Trump’s Ukraine name. Here is how that storage machine works. WASHINGTON — The whistle-blower who found out President Trump’s attempt to stress Ukraine’s chief to open investigations that might advantage him politically also accused White House officials of basically hiding a rough report of the communique by putting it in the same tremendously confined computer device for intently guarded government secrets.

In his complaint, the whistle-blower noted White House officials who portrayed the storage of the decision report in that device as “totally for the motive of defensive politically sensitive — rather than national security touchy — records” and labeled it an “abuse.” Here is how the restrained garage system works, in line with interviews with greater than a half of-dozen former National Security Council group of workers members who spoke at the situation of anonymity.

How do aides typically store records of presidential calls with foreign leaders?

Most of the time, the National Security Council — the foreign coverage arm of the White House — memorializes presidential phone or video calls with overseas heads of the country on the so-called TNet machine, the officers stated. This is a top-secret-level pc network that is the principal platform the aides use to do their jobs. It connects with a top-secret network referred to as JWICS, which is extra extensively used elsewhere in the government branch.

TNet has got right of entry to controls and auditing safeguards. For example, it keeps the song of who created or uploaded files, who looked at them, who changed them, and how and who published them out. When officials create a “package deal” — basically, a brand new document — in TNet, they can set controls. Hence, any colleague who works on a particular concern, like European affairs or counterterrorism, has to get entry.

What goes in TNet?

Officials can save any report this is classified to the top-secret degree — the best classification — goodbye as it isn’t always “code word,” a term regarding a specialized class of even extra delicate top-mystery data that officers are authorized to realize approximately simplest if they had been granted particular get admission to it.

Officials with a widespread top-secret security clearance will not be given code-word clearance to learn about covert sports unrelated to their paintings. For example, an aide operating on North Korea policy might no longer have been told about making plans for the 2011 raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan. Similarly, documents containing intelligence supporting the deliberate raid were not stored within the normal TNet device.

Where does the National Security Council store its extra touchy documents?

The council additionally has an excellent extra locked-down gadget referred to as NICE for N.S.C. Intelligence Collaboration Environment. NICE appears to be what the whistle-blower becomes regarding as a “stand-alone” computer system managed using the council’s directorate for intelligence packages. One former legit said it became higher understood as a subdomain of TNet.

Foreign coverage aides generally use NICE to broaden and keep documents associated with code-word applications. For instance, staff participants operating on a covert interest may use NICE to draft a presidential finding or choice memo about it. When they may be carried out, they could print a replica for the president to signal.

Why save secrets and techniques in NICE?

It notably reduces the variety of folks who can advantage get right of entry to it. One former official stated the handiest 20 percent of National Security Council personnel members are NICE users. They can log into the system from their paintings computer systems using a digital personal network software program that limits each of them to the use of that unique workstation. When NICE customers create or add a brand new report, they could give the best different individual NICE customers to enter it through call; unlike in TNet, they cannot invite entire businesses, the previous legitimate stated.

Is it an “abuse” to apply the NICE machine to shop a document that is not a top-secret code word?

Using the NICE gadget to curtail access to the file of Mr. Trump’s name with the leader of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, may very well be, because the whistle-blower additionally wrote, a sign “that White House officials understood the gravity of what had transpired in the call.” But calling it an “abuse” appears to be subjective. Generally, the countrywide safety adviser can decide who can see what documents. No rule prohibits placing a file with a decrease-degree type into the NICE device that allows you to take gain of its greater get right of entry to regulations, a former professional stated. The respectable stated by assessment might honestly be an abuse — violating a particular prohibition in a govt order governing labeled information — to mark something labeled at an unjustifiably higher degree to disguise violations of the law or prevent embarrassment. However, the launched call report becomes merely marked “mystery,” the subsequent maximum degree of class after pinnacle mystery.

How do readouts of head-of-country calls get to prepare?

According to more than one former official who’ve helped create the facts, the method usually begins with a be-aware-taker who works for the White House Situation Room and monitors the call. The Situation Room uses voice-to-textual content software to create a hard transcription in actual time — no recording is made — and then the notice-taker takes the first bypass at cleansing it up via correcting any obvious garbled moments. That draft is then passed to a topic-rely expert at the National Security Council body of workers who become also listening to the call. That specialist — who has a greater familiarity with foreign names and places — edits the file. At the cease of the process, the aides deliver the file to the countrywide protection adviser.

Is the White House account of Trump’s Ukraine call correct and whole?

Beyond the truth that the memo isn’t a verbatim transcript, it contains 3 ellipses where Mr. Trump changed into talking — and every in an area in which he became asking the Ukrainian president for investigations. It isn’t clear if this indicates that Mr. Trump trailed off or that something was reduced out of the reconstruction. It is also no longer clear whether or not any notes exist via American officers that could indicate whether or not he stated something greater in those spots. But one professional stated that any notes or draft files discussed via two or greater National Security Council officers count as a “record” that may not lawfully be destroyed below the Presidential Records Act. However, the initial report produced with the aid of the voice-to-text software program might not be counted as a record and may be lawfully deleted, the legit said.

What approximately in Ukraine?

It isn’t always clear whether or not the management of Mr. Zelensky recorded his call with Mr. Trump. Previous Ukrainian governments did no longer document calls with world leaders, keeping with a former senior Ukrainian authentic familiar with the procedure. Instead, with excessive-profile and strategically crucial foreign officials, Ukrainian leaders would have advisers concentrate in and take exact notes, he said. The transcript launched via the White House of Mr. Trump’s July name with Mr. Zelensky became accurate and complete, a Ukrainian respectable acquainted with it said, adding that considerable information changed into not ignored, together with by the ellipses.