Back when I was in the service, there were just three levels of classification, confidential, secret, and top secret. The story I was told, goes like this. Congress passed this into law with the intent of preventing bureaucrats from refusing to show classified to Congressmen on the excuse that the stuff was classified too high for Congressmen to see. Congressmen don't like being told they cannot see stuff and took steps to insure that they would not be locked out of juicy stuff.
Well, even way back then, three levels of classification wasn't enough. We had all sorts of top-secret nimbus, and top secret nuclear, and so on. This was done to implement need-to-know. Set up a classification with a weird name, and then restrict access to those holding a weird name clearance. This worked, and everyone understood that you didn't want to ruffle any Congressional feathers by being stuffy about their clearances.
Fast forward to now. They are raking Hillary over the coals for possessing "Top Secret SAP" classified on her server. And the TV newsies are claiming that Top Secret SAP is so secret that Congressmen are not allowed to see it. Ohh. We never would have said that back in the day. USAF policy used to be, treat Congressmen right, and that includes showing them anything they want to see. Most we would do is try to impress them with the need for keeping their lips buttoned.
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