The BYEMAN Control System, or simply BYEMAN (designated BYE, or B), was a security control system put in place to protect information about the National Reconnaissance Office and its operations.

History

The BYEMAN Control System (BCS) was put in place in 1961 by the

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...

. Discussions regarding BCS retirement were held as early as 2003. NRO Director Peter B. Teets spoke at a 2003 NRO Town Hall meeting, mentioning that retiring the BCS would remove barriers that prevented the NRO and U.S. Intelligence Community from working together as a team. The use of BCS was so prevalent throughout the U.S. Intelligence Community, that a handful of websites were set up to direct users through the retirement process.National Reconnaissance Office: "New website invites questions about BYEMAN retirement," The Recon, 26 March 2004
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Origin of name

An individual inside the CIA's Special Security Center chose the name from a random list of four words drawn from the CIA's codeword file. A ''byeman'' is a man who works underground; it is unknown if the individual knew the word's meaning before its selection.National Security Archive: "The Retirement of BYEMAN"
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Programs within BYEMAN

This is a small list of the publicly acknowledged programs that were held within the BCS: * CORONA (declassified 1995) *

ARGON Argon is a chemical element; it has symbol Ar and atomic number 18. It is in group 18 of the periodic table and is a noble gas. Argon is the third most abundant gas in Earth's atmosphere, at 0.934% (9340 ppmv). It is more than twice as abu ...

(declassified 1995) *

LANYARD A lanyard is a length of cord, webbing, or strap that may serve any of various functions, which include a means of attachment, restraint, retrieval, activation, and deactivation. A lanyard is also a piece of rigging used to secure or lowe ...

(declassified 1995) * GAMBIT (declassified 2011) *

HEXAGON In geometry, a hexagon (from Greek , , meaning "six", and , , meaning "corner, angle") is a six-sided polygon. The total of the internal angles of any simple (non-self-intersecting) hexagon is 720°. Regular hexagon A regular hexagon is de ...

(declassified 2011) * GRAB (declassified 1998) *

POPPY A poppy is a flowering plant in the subfamily Papaveroideae of the family Papaveraceae. Poppies are herbaceous plants, often grown for their colourful flowers. One species of poppy, '' Papaver somniferum'', is the source of the narcotic drug ...

(declassified 2004) *

QUILL A quill is a writing tool made from a moulted flight feather (preferably a primary wing-feather) of a large bird. Quills were used for writing with ink before the invention of the dip pen/metal-Nib (pen), nibbed pen, the fountain pen, and, event ...

(declassified 2012) * DORIAN (partial declassification 2012) *MELVIN (declassified 2011) * UPWARD (declassified 2012) * IDEALIST (declassified 2025) * OXCART (declassified 2025)( Lockheed A-12 reconnaissance aircraft) While many other NRO programs resided within the BCS, their codenames have not been made public through proper disclosure or official declassification.

Retirement

By order of the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI), BYEMAN was retired on 20 May 2005.National Reconnaissance Office: "BYE Control System Retirement Executive Level Overview" Most information held within the BCS was transitioned into the Talent Keyhole Control System.National Reconnaissance Office: "The ONE Book - Implementation Guidance for Retiring the BYE Control System"

In popular culture

In the 1998 blockbuster movie '' Armageddon'', a misspelling of the word, (i.e. "BYMAN") is used on a cover sheet protecting photos of the incoming asteroid. (the correct spelling, BYEMAN, was still classified " Confidential" at that time.) In the 1985 spy movie “The Falcon and the Snowman”, the main character played by Timothy Hutton is entering a top secret spy satellite support facility for the first time when he passes a sign stating that it is “RESTRICTED ENTRY - BYEMAN CLEARANCE REQUIRED”

References

{{Template:National Reconnaissance Office National Reconnaissance Office Classified information in the United States