It seems less likely that UMBRA is the undisclosed compartment of the COMINT (SI) control system, which is listed in the most recent Intelligence Community Classification Manuals, because in that case the marking would have read TOP SECRET//COMINT-UMBRA//etc. The latter option seems very well possible, because the most recent Intelligence Community Classification Manual (pdf) acknowledges the existance of "registered but unpublished SCI control systems" which "must remain unpublished due to sensitivity and restrictive access controls". That would mean UMBRA is a normal SCI control system, in this case one that is apparently kept secret, as it was never mentioned anywhere since 1999. In that case UMBRA wouldn't be a Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) label for intelligence information - which it actually looks like most - but a codeword from another category, like for example a Special Access Program (SAP) or Foreign Government Information (FGI) (Marc Ambinder favors this option).Īnother option is that there should have been just a single slash between both terms. One option is that the double slash between COMINT and UMBRA is correct. Now it seems that the same could have happened to the codewords UMBRA, SPOKE and maybe also to MORAY, but there's a difference: NOCON is a dissemination marking, a category which is less strictly controlled than a compartment, like UMBRA.Īs the classification line of the newly disclosed slides seems not fully correct (there has to be a single, instead of a double slash between ORCON and REL USA, FVEY), which makes that there are a few options for what UMBRA could actually represent. As such it isn't listed in the official Classification Manuals, which are declassified regularly. The general use of that marking was terminated in 1995, but NSA kept using it as an internal marking. NSA using codewords that were generally considered abolished, reminds of a similar case in which the NOCON marking appeared in a document from the Snowden-trove. Der Spiegel said that it's an "analysis of the communication paths between Belgium and Africa prepared in January 2009". Given the rather old-fashioned logo-type of the letters SD, it's not quite clear whether the document, or at least the header might predate 1999, although the content is clearly from more recent years. STRAP is the codeword that GCHQ uses to protect sensitive information, with STRAP1 denoting the least sensitive category: One document from the Snowden-leaks, which was published by Der Spiegel on December 20, 2013, is marked SECRET STRAP1 SPOKE. Very interesting is that not only UMBRA, but also the codeword SPOKE seems to be still in use. The Top Secret codeword TRINE was compromised when the North Koreans captured the NSA spy ship USS Pueblo in 1968. Since World War II, the NSA and her predecessors used codewords for protecting highly sensitive COMINT information and they were generally replaced by a new one every one or more years. From then on, the kind of information they were used for, had now to be protected by the general COMINT control system, or by specific compartments thereof for more sensitive information. It is the ephemeral moments and at the same time eternal that spark life to my music.(click for the full document as pdf-file)Īccording to instructions like these, the use of the codewords UMBRA, SPOKE and MORAY was terminated as of May 1999. Maybe the taste of that goulash or the eyes of the old ladies that cook it in the streets of Budapest, or the sound of a night train that goes through Ljubjana and Zagreb or again just simply while my mother is cooking as the cat wittingly asks for something to eat. It could be the smell coming from a shop that sells spices in the Barrio Raval in Barcelona, Spain. It can be picking raspberries along the Tiber river in Umbria, to watch the sun disappear in the red air in Monte San Bartolo di Pesaro at sunset. The land where I was born and grew up, my trips to foreign countries and everything that surrounds me is the vital lymph for my musical compositions. Liuto attiorbato / Archlute in G 14 courses
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