The aviation security manual included details on TSA procedures for screening passengers, special rules for handling the CIA, diplomats and law enforcement officials and the technical settings and tolerances used by metal and explosive detectors used at airports.

The document included information on the frequency with which checked bags are to be hand screened for explosives, the names of 12 countries whose citizens are automatically sent to secondary screening and a list of items for which screening is not always required. Also included were images of sample credentials used by members of Congress and the CIA which the TSA said could be easily imitated. Each page of the manual carries the admonition:"NO PART OF THIS RECORD MAY BE DISCLOSED TO PERSONS WITHOUT A 'NEED TO KNOW.'

The document, which was posted on the Federal Business Opportunities Web site was discovered on Sunday by blog. The manual was posted as part of a TSA contract solicitation and was supposed to have been redacted.

But rather than removing the sensitive text from the document "they just drew a black box on top of it," the blog noted. "Turns out that PDF documents don't really care about the black box like that and the actual content of the document is still in the file."

The TSA document has since been removed from the federal Web site. But numerous copies of the documents have since become available around the Internet.