"[2] Sensitive site exploitation was conducted during the invasion of Iraq in Operation Iraqi Freedom when a key part of the Coalition Forces' mission was to discover weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).
The "sensitive" of SSE referred to the possibility that sites searched might have contained chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear (CBRN) materials inherent in WMDs.
The term SSE was used in the 2012 film Zero Dark Thirty, when Navy SEALs attempt to retrieve as much data as possible from the computers and paper files of Osama bin Laden once they have secured his compound in Abbottabad.
It was also used in the 2017 television series SEAL Team during missions against high value targets (HVT) in several episodes, and in the 2018 series Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan, when CIA Special Activities agents are discussing the plan to infiltrate Mousa Bin Suleiman's compound in season 1 episode 7.
In the 2019 video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare it is mentioned at the end of the "Clean House" mission, in which the player clears a townhouse in north London with the SAS.