The Two Reasons That Intelligence Information is Classified

1. Such information could be damaging if revealed to adversaries or potential adversaries. That is the reason most people think of when they think about classified information. It is one important reason to keep some information secret.

2. Such information could be damaging, politically, if revealed to the public at large or to politicians. This reason for classification of information is less often discussed, but is the reason that much information is actually classified, in reality.

Major nations have extensive intelligence collection systems. In some cases, intelligence is shared among allies, but a lot of information is never shared, particularly when it involves collecting intelligence about those allies. A lot of effort in the intelligence community is spent in trying to find out what intelligence agencies from various nations know and do not know. Oddly enough, a lot of highly classified information is widely known by intelligence people from multiple nations, and often by adversaries.

A larger problem, in some ways, occurs when people outside of intelligence circles know about classified information and how it is collected. That is why a large part of the effort of intelligence agencies in every nation is spent in keeping intelligence and intelligence-gathering methods out of the hands of the politicians and the general public.

The bottom line is that much of what is classified at the highest levels is widely known by both allies and adversaries, but is not known by politicians and the public. That's one of the real secrets of intelligence gathering.