# The colour-coded badges > **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou. > > Cite as: "The colour-coded badges," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-colour-coded-badges/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia. *The CIA's badge system as John Kiriakou describes it — blue for the top secret compartments everyone in the building holds, green for contractors, yellow for the language instructors cleared only to secret, red for the man in the cafeteria doughnut shop and the woman who vacuums at night — and the lettered suffixes that were dropped once the letters themselves gave the game away.* - **Blue:** Top secret SI/TK/gamma — everyone in the building - **Green:** Contractors - **Yellow:** Cleared to secret only, e.g. most language instructors - **Red:** Not cleared — cafeteria and cleaning staff - **The old suffix:** An H on the blue badge, for SI/TK/gamma - **Extra compartments:** Further letters — H, L, E, Q, S, T — since abolished - **Now standard:** Across the entire intelligence community **The colour-coded badges** are the visual clearance system at [CIA](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cia) headquarters, described by [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) on 19 November 2025 in answer to a viewer asking whether private contractors can hold higher clearances than some agencies. His answer to that was yes — *"especially at places like DARPA, NSA and CIA"* — and the badges were the illustration.[1] ## The colours The base case covers everyone who works in the building. *"The badges are colour-coordinated at the CIA. Now they're standard across the entire intelligence community. So a blue badge means top secret SI/TK/gamma. Everybody's got it — everybody, if you're in the building."*[1] The blue badge once carried a letter. *"It used to have an H on it. The H meant SI/TK/gamma"* — that is, in his gloss, *"special intelligence, talent compartment, keyhole compartment, gamma compartment."*[1][2] Below and beside it sit three more colours. *"Green badges are contractor badges. Yellow badges mean you're cleared only to the secret level — so most of the language instructors only have yellow badges, because they don't need access to top secret information. They're just there to teach a foreign language."*[3] And then the colour for no clearance at all, which Kiriakou illustrates with two people rather than a category. *"Red badges mean you are not cleared. So the guy that works in the Dunkin' Donuts at the cafeteria, he's got a red badge. And the lady that vacuums the floor in the evening, she has a red badge."*[3] ## Why the letters were abolished Above top secret, the system used to advertise itself. *"If you had compartments above top secret, they would add letters to that blue badge. So you wouldn't just have an H — you'd have an H, an L, an E, a Q, an S, a T. And they all meant something."*[3][4] The practice ended for the obvious reason. *"Then they did away with that. So now, if you're cleared for something special, you know you're cleared for something special, and everybody else in that compartment knows you're cleared for something special. So they're not going to advertise it on your badge."*[4] The host's summary — *"the badge is encoded"* — drew agreement.[4] ## The office he could not enter Kiriakou's own position was near the top of the scale. *"When I was the executive assistant to the deputy director, I had access to literally everything that the [directorate of operations](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/directorate-of-operations) was doing around the world. So I had like eight different compartments beyond SI/TK/gamma."*[5] It was still not enough. Two colleagues from the [Directorate of Science and Technology](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/directorate-of-science-and-technology) — *"a man and a woman there; they were colleagues, but they were really having an affair, and they made no effort at hiding it"* — attended his morning meetings. *"When I needed to give them a briefing book, or to go talk to them, or ask a question or whatever, I had to buzz their office, but I was not allowed to step inside the office. And it was because whatever they were doing back there, it was too highly classified for John to know about it."*[5][6] ## See also - [Classification compartments](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/classification-compartments) - [The Directorate of Science and Technology](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/directorate-of-science-and-technology) - [The Directorate of Operations](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/directorate-of-operations) - [Central Intelligence Agency](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cia) ## Sources 1. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-11-19), at 28:20. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqfGXMDtams&t=1700s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-11-19-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/ 2. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-11-19), at 28:50. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqfGXMDtams&t=1730s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-11-19-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/ 3. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-11-19), at 29:21. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqfGXMDtams&t=1761s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-11-19-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/ 4. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-11-19), at 29:51. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqfGXMDtams&t=1791s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-11-19-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/ 5. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-11-19), at 30:22. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqfGXMDtams&t=1822s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-11-19-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/ 6. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-11-19), at 30:54. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqfGXMDtams&t=1854s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-11-19-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/ --- From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. 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