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A very, very rare visitor to Austria packed with at least 3 armored vehicles and a lot of other stuff was in VIE. The whole journey was marked from the military as Top Secret because of the special guest onboard: The CIA-VP. He was visiting the US-Embassy in Vienna.

Gossip Newspaper Picture and Article:

http://www.krone.at/Nachrichten/CIA-Viz ... ory-221099

A lot of pictures from Spotters (please scroll down)

http://www.austrianaviation.net/phpBB3/ ... &start=360

Sigh...just more fodder for the TSA and DHS to keep claiming photogs are terrorists.

The intelligence agencies, not least the CIA, have ways of transporting people across international borders without detection. Simply because the trip was uncovered, I'd be inclined to believe that Mr Morrell's visit was never anything "Top Secret" (OMFG!!) to begin with: it was just a fairly routine trip to Vienna to rendezvous with the commies. If the CIA seriously can't transport its Deputy Director across the pond without being foiled by a bunch of plane geeks with telephoto lenses then somebody needs to cross-post this in the fail thread.

44Magnum wrote:The intelligence agencies, not least the CIA, have ways of transporting people across international borders without detection. Simply because the trip was uncovered, I'd be inclined to believe that Mr Morrell's visit was never anything "Top Secret" (OMFG!!) to begin with: it was just a fairly routine trip to Vienna to rendezvous with the commies. If the CIA seriously can't transport its Deputy Director across the pond without being foiled by a bunch of plane geeks with telephoto lenses then somebody needs to cross-post this in the fail thread.

It's one thing to say it is top secret, and for it to actually be top secret. Not all secrets are meant to be secret.

Hopefully, this has nothing to do with the B-3 bomber.

captoveur wrote:It's one thing to say it is top secret, and for it to actually be top secret. Not all secrets are meant to be secret.

IIRC, there are several levels of secrecy, with 'Top Secret' meaning that it isn't that secret.

Plus, a C-17 flight cannot be associated with low-level people.

captoveur wrote:It's one thing to say it is top secret, and for it to actually be top secret. Not all secrets are meant to be secret.

Legally they are. That's not to say that it doesn't sometimes work a little differently in practice, though.

AndesSMF wrote:IIRC, there are several levels of secrecy, with 'Top Secret' meaning that it isn't that secret.

In the United States:

Confidential < Secret < Top Secret

Many other Western nations, including my own, insert a fourth classification before Confidential, usually termed Restricted.

44Magnum wrote:In the United States:Confidential < Secret < Top SecretMany other Western nations, including my own, insert a fourth classification before Confidential, usually termed Restricted.

For Official Use Only, FOUO is before confidential - but doesn't mean the information is classified. Conf., Secret, and TS are actually three very low levels of clearances.

Update:

A few more details "leaked" through to the media.

Michael J. Morell's first visit was in fact classified Top Secret. It was no routine visit. He talked not only with the US CIA Agents in Vienna (located in the US Embassy of course), but also with the Austrian Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution about Al-Kaida.

Michael J. Morell's second visit a few days later, which went unnoticed by the media, was another no-routine visit. He brought files and information regarding the current (in Germany and Austria big) Hypo-Bank criminal case.

http://www.krone.at/Oesterreich/CIA-Viz ... ory-223471