Dissecting 7 Key Photo Pieces of Documents Found at Trump’s House

In an effort to investigate the handling of confidential materials by Donald Trump officials included in the court case a single, tantalizing photo showing a series of documents found on the former president’s Mar-a-Lago, Florida property.

taken by FBI , the photograph shows several papers labeled with so-called “classification marks”. These government codes are designed to indicate the sensitivity of the information they refer to — and set out the rules for how they should be handled.

While the contents of the more than 100 classified documents that have been recovered from Mar-a-Lago remain unknown, the government markings on this handful of pages offer intriguing clues to the sensitivity and provenance of the information contained in these materials.

THE CNN details what we can learn from markings in photography.

1 – Covers of Time magazine. These documents are not classified, but were apparently placed among the classified documents. While Trump has been authorized to store magazine covers in a secure government facility, he is prohibited from keeping classified information in an unsecured storage room.

2 – Cover of a material with information classified as secret/SCI, that is, Confidential Compartmentalized Information, category reserved for information derived from intelligence sources. Covers serve two purposes: to let the handler of the information know what rating level they are dealing with, and to protect classified material from people who do not have a “need-to-know” about its content. The cover itself is not classified.

Covers such as those found at Mar-a-Lago may also include markings that indicate special handling procedures, called “controls”, which may suggest the type of information that may be inside. However, since covers are standardized documents that only list the highest possible rating level of the accompanying material, it is impossible to conclude exactly what types of documents are inside just based on the first sheet.

The “secret” designation means that if information is improperly disclosed, it could cause “serious harm” to national security, according to the government’s definition. The “SCI” appendix means that the information is “compartmentalized” or limited to only a select group of employees authorized to see it. It can refer to a specific government program or asset, and not everyone with a “top secret” security clearance is authorized to access it.

3 – Cover information classified as top secret/SCI. If improperly disclosed, “top secret” level information can cause “serious harm” to national security, as defined by the government.

4 – Rule placed by the FBI to show the scale of the photograph, standard practice for photographic evidence.

5- White House document marked “Confidential”. This is the lowest level of classification, but sensitive-level information can still cause “harm” to national security if improperly disclosed, as defined by the government.

6- Documents marked as secret with the Orcon and Noform controls. Orcon means “controlled originator”, meaning that the agency that owns the information must approve its release or dissemination. Noform indicates that information cannot be disclosed to foreigners without approval. Both are pretty common markings.

7- This cover has HCS-P/SI/TK control markings.

Here’s what that means: HCS-P is a “product of the human intelligence control system” and indicates that the information comes from clandestine human sources. There are some safeguards: most content that contains HCS-P information generally does not disclose the identity of the specific source, but provides a general statement about the reliability and access of the source.

SI stands for Special Intelligence and suggests that the information was derived from what is called “signal intelligence” — things like intercepted foreign phone calls and emails, for example.

TK stands for Talent Keyhole which is a highly ranked government satellite program.