information is substantially aligned. Under Executive Order 12968, the investigative and adjudicative guidelines for NSI and AEA clearances are identical. This enables reciprocity between NSI and AEA clearances, although some exceptions exist. The United States' Executive Order 12968's standards are binding on all of the United States government agencies that handle classified information, but it allows certain agency heads to establish Special Access Programs (SAPs) with additional, but not duplicative, investigative and adjudicative requirements. The Intelligence Community's Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) control systems are a family of SAPs, and SCI eligibility must be granted prior to accessing any particular control system or compartment (which may require additional investigation or adjudication). SCI eligibility policy is described in Intelligence Community Directive 704 and its implementing policy guidance Within the Intelligence Community, the access to SCI information is far more common than "Collateral Top Secret information," and therefore operatives will routinely include SCI in a TS product, just to ensure they do not have to meet the "cradle-to-grave" accountability requirements of Collateral TS information. Any additional clearance measures used by SAPs must be approved by the Office of Management and Budget, which has generally limited such measures to polygraphs, exclusion of persons with non-US immediate family members, requiring more frequent reinvestigations, and requiring annual updates to security questionnaires. Hierarchy A security clearance is granted to an individual and generally recognizes a maximum level of clearance. Exceptions include levels above compartmentalized access or when an individual is cleared for a certain type of data. The President of the United States will be given access to any government or military information that they request, even if they would not otherwise be able to normally obtain a security clearance were they not the President. Having obtained a certain level security clearance does not mean that one automatically has access to or is given access to information cleared for that clearance level in the absence of a demonstrated "need to know". The need-to-know determination is made by a disclosure officer, who may work in the office of origin of the information. The specified need to know must be germane to the prospective user's mission, or of necessity for the integrity of a specified security apparatus. Controlled Unclassified Controlled Unclassified does not represent a clearance designation, but rather a clearance level at which information distribution is controlled. Controlled Unclassified designates information that may be illegal to distribute. This