Need to know is one of the oldest euphemisms in intelligence. While it’s often used in jest with a knowing nod and a wink, it reflects a core principle of operational security: restricting access to information based on necessity. Unless that information is absolutely essential for someone to perform a specific duty or task, then the need to know does not exist.
“I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”
There are times, though, when that need might exist, but access isn’t provided. Those can be frustrating moments, and many of us have contended with the need to maneuver through blocked access at some point. While most of us work the system, there are others who find creative – and sometimes illegal – solutions.
The NEED-TO-KNOW Mindset
Frankly, not everyone has a need to know. In fact, most people can perform their duties and responsibilities without detailed knowledge of classified or sensitive information. Although I held a Top Secret clearance for most of my military career, I rarely needed that level of access to do my job. And even when I did, I was often content without the need to know.
But, as British historian David A. T. Stafford once noted, “Access to secret intelligence is one of the most potent aphrodisiacs of power.” Stafford, who served in the British Diplomatic Service before joining academia, is not your average college professor. He is an expert on twentieth-century intelligence and espionage and the author of several scholarly works concerning the intelligence community. Few people better understand the power of secrets.
In a 2017 article in Studies in Intelligence, Ursula Wilder described three essential factors that pre-dispose someone to push beyond the limits of need to know: “dysfunctions in the personality, states of crisis, and opportunity.” Of those, personality is often the most telling. Wilder continues: “Psychologists consistently detect four personality characteristics when they study spies: psychopathy, narcissism, immaturity, and grandiosity.”
The Politics of Spillage
But sharing the need to know doesn’t necessarily involve espionage. Spillage, in the vernacular of intelligence and cybersecurity, refers to the unauthorized or accidental disclosure, transfer, or exposure of classified or sensitive information. Spillage is a critical concern because even a small breach can have far-reaching consequences, including compromised operations, loss of trust, and potential exploitation by adversaries.
Politicians are notorious for spilling the need to know. In the more public cases, such as with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the reasons are rarely nefarious. In a 2024 article for the BBC, Robin Levinson-King wrote, “High-level officials – whether they are the president or the member of a cabinet – are often not properly training in security best practices in the same way that a senior aide may have been.” They get careless, they get forgetful, they make mistakes.
However, as Wilder noted in her article, spilling the need to know can also have a dark side. Viewed through the lens of psychology, spillage is not always unintentional. Those secrets – as Stafford so aptly remarked – are “potent aphrodisiacs of power.”
Spilling the Need to Know
Under normal circumstances, spillage might occur if classified information is mistakenly sent via an unclassified email system or stored on a device that lacks the necessary security clearance. It might also happen when sensitive data is inadvertently shared with individuals who do not possess the need to know.
But when the wrong person has access to the right information, the statutory requirement to safeguard that information is overcome by a psychological compulsion to share the need to know. The knowledge is power dynamic is often seen among narcissists as a means of manipulation over others. They hoard information to appear more knowledgeable or important. The need to know is a control mechanism lorded over others as a form of power.
Immaturity and grandiosity alter that dynamic. Both are underpinned by the psychology of inferiority, plagued by persistent feelings of inadequacy and insecurity. When such feelings are deeply rooted in someone in a position of authority, they can manifest in a number of ways, ranging from a fear of judgment to hyper competitiveness. They are compelled to prove their worth at every turn, including using knowledge to demonstrate that they are as important as their title or position suggests.
At the mid-point of my career, I worked with someone who suffered from an inferiority complex, an officer who shared my same level of access to classified information but not my concern for safeguarding that information. At the time, I assumed he was careless and stupid because I didn’t completely understand the psychology behind his actions. He spilled the need to know because feelings of inadequacy and insecurity overrode his better judgment. He needed others to acknowledge his worth, and sharing the need to know when that need didn’t exist was a path to that recognition.
“I have a secret” is a dangerous game played far too often by people who probably shouldn’t possess the need to know.
