Oh… Space aliens. Okay.
BIGmatt said:
Um, did it ever occur to you that the reason they haven’t “gone public” with information about contact with aliens is that there is nothing to “go public” with?
There is little doubt that the government overclassifies stuff, and that has already been explained by others here. But the idea that they shouldn’t classify anything is ludicrous. What’s the point of developing new secret weapons if they give away the secrets? You may claim that other governments already know this stuff, but what about the recent hoo-ha about the Chinese supposedly stealing some of our nuke secrets? If they already knew about 'em, why would we be upset that they might have stolen them?
Same for new propulsion systems. If we really are developing them, they may give us an advantage. Why should we give away that advantage?
Matt may deserve a break…after seeing DHanson’s one-liner I reread Matt’s post, and noted that his reference to aliens was in reference to supposed classified material.
There is absolutely no doubt that the Roswell Incident question could have been cleared up (except among the True Believers, who wouldn’t listen to negative evidence anyway) if Project Mogul had been declassified long before it was.
Odds that the “foo fighters” of the late 1940s were extraterrestrial vehicles: pretty long. Odds that they were not inexplicable phenomena but connected to some government project that has not yet been declassified: still probably fairly long but a lot shorter than the ET hypothesis.
Finally, there is a valid point to having things classified: there is information that the government, to do its job, needs to have that would be counterproductive in general circulation. The obvious example is the Manhattan Project, which was, granted, a wartime situation, where German and Japanese spies (and Soviet!) were interested in the results.
But consider this present-day example. To serve the country properly, our strategic planners are to take every reasonable situation into account and develop a plan to defend us in such a situation. Two possible such situations would be for Mexico or Canada to turn into a rabid-Ayatullah dictatorship. We (the U.S.) would need a means of defense and a counterattack scheme in case of war with one of them. Since they are both peaceful democracies with whom we as a country get along, we certainly don’t want them to get irate about such plans. But our military planners would not be doing their job properly if they did not provide for that contingency. (Note that no doubt the Royal Canadian Army staff and the Mexican general staff have similar plans in case we go off the deep end; it’s not a one-way street.)
There are, obviously, things that ought to be declassified and aren’t. And there are probably things that should never have been classified. But there are also things properly classified and should stay so.
Why would they deny it unless it was true! If you have nothing to hide then why wouldn’t you lie about it?
The scary part, Cooper, is that there are really people who think that way (I use the word “think” very loosely there). I’ve had arguments with such people (I was going to say “discussions” but they really weren’t). Obviously, the only reason the government is denying that aliens crashed at Roswell is because aliens crashed at Roswell! Obviously the reason people say the Protocols of the Elders of Zion aren’t true is because they are true! Obviously…
OK, right, I’m going to explain myself one more time…
In a peacetime scenario (in which, loosely speaking, we are at the moment) there is no reason to classify technology and science which other governments know about and that the public don’t. The NSA and all those other agencies under the government out there all work 24 hours a day gathering intelligence on other governments too, and so it’s pretty certain that the government knows that the other one knows almost as soon as they do (I think that makes sense).
If they KNOW that a classified project has
been compromised, then they can make the decision about whether to declassify it or not, and since most of the projects currently in operation probably have been compromised in this way, then I think it’s about time that the government reviewed exactly WHAT it is hiding from the public (I very much doubt that it has much of an idea at the moment).
Also, I like the idea of automatically declassifying documents after 30 years, whoever suggested that, it would save all this nonsense about Abe Lincolns stuff still being classified (as stated previously).
At least then I’d have something to look forward to in the 2030’s (or whatever) when they declassify all the stuff that I’ve been reading about lately (including continued research into Roswell - sorry if you buy the ‘weather balloon’ explanation - but in my opinion the people who came up with THAT should have been sacked on the spot…)
“Now be quiet before I rather clumsily knight you with this meat cleaver” - Edmund Blackadder
75 years. Many classified diplomatic files are dynamite. Especially those involving things we do to ‘friendly nations’.
Is an appreciation of beauty a function of the human soul?
How about 40-50, given that the administration in question probably ceased it’s ‘reign’ several decades before the declassification.
You could also have a maximum limit of, say, 50 years, but have a tier system for other stuff that’s less classified (although then the government would probably put everything in the ‘50 year’ category for whatever reasons it may have).
I admit that diplomatic files are a special case in that the contain evidence of ‘less than honest’ behaviour towards supposedly allied or friendly nations. Is there such a thing as a ‘friendly’ nation any more, anyway?
“Now be quiet before I rather clumsily knight you with this meat cleaver” - Edmund Blackadder
It’s all balls if you ask me.
The smell of cheese isn’t a pleasant one.
Here in the UK we have the 30 Year Rule, under which classified documents are released each year.
It’s always a boost for the media on slow news days - the number of “security services planned coup” stories or tales of MI5 watching Labour ministers in case they ever felt like handing over Britain to the Russian Army.
However, I’m 99% sure that not all documents are released under the rule - it would not surprise me to learn the many more remain classified, or are conveniently “lost”.
I don’t regard myself as a conspiracy theorist - I believe that governments are generally too incompetent to keep things hidden for too long (how many Brits had heard of GCHQ - the UK’s electronic and signals intelligence centre - before that interesting old lady Mrs Thatcher stamped her little foot about trade union members working there?).
On the whole, though, I don’t know if I want to know everything about what’s going on. I’d probably be more worried by the tales of stupidity and incompetence than concerned about being kept in the dark on hidden technologies.
Government conspiracies are a complete waste of time and I think that all of you who wish to discuss the validity of such subjects are ultimately sad.
The smell of cheese isn’t a pleasant one.
Ha. This thread amuses me.
Big Matt amuses me. Right from the OP about “true democracy” until he got suckered into bringing up aliens, which is exactly what his opponents wanted.
There’s a common misconception (mostly portrayed by the media) that the government just goes around and does shit for no reason other than to oppress the citizens. Seriously, let’s assume for a minute that aliens did land in Roswell (DISCLAIMER: I do not believe this to be true). Why in the good name of Choo-Choo Charlie would the government conceal this fact?? There are two possible explanations:
- The extremely bright (brighter than most of us, anyway) people they have in Washington determined that this information would somehow threaten national security, or
- It didn’t happen.
The US government is only as good as the faith that the people of the country have in it. It’s a government of us, by us, and for us, so we have to either trust it if we have faith in the system or get involved with it if we don’t.
P.S.–Have any of you ever seen a declassified document? Roughly 40-50% of your average declassified document is blacked out. If we made some half-assed “30-year rule,” I guaran-freaking-tee you that the American public would not learn one single stinking thing from the documents that the government wouldn’t have told them otherwise.
The IQ of a group is equal to the IQ of the dumbest member divided by the number of people in the group.
You’re right, I WAS suckered into bringing up aliens in this thread, and look at the mess it’s caused.
MattK,
I am a UK resident - born and raised here - but I must admit I didn’t know about the ‘30 year rule’. I’m gald we’ve got it though, even if it does mean polluting the atmosphere with the CO2 of burning documents…
I guess the reason that I opened this with ‘true democracy’ is that I WANTED to encourage debate. It looks like I’ve been pretty successful on that count…
It disgusts me that even when a previously classified document is realeased most of it is ‘blacked out’. I can understand blacking out names and places - but blacking out 90% of the document is a complete joke.
Also - I resent being called sad, Cheeseybloke. Since when was trying to understand the world around you sad? I’ve always found it to be quite an advantage… although please correct me if I’m wrong.
“Now be quiet before I rather clumsily knight you with this meat cleaver” - Edmund Blackadder
What’s this? The world has suddenly run out of things to say about government cospiracies etc.? Somehow I doubt it…
We were all silenced by Big Brother, ya see.
Wll why didn’t you say so…?
(ha ha - - - dies)
On a slightly more serious note, surely SOMEONE who has contributed above has SOMETHING else to say…?
Let’s see…
“On the whole, though, I don’t know if I want to know everything about what’s going on. I’d probably be more worried by the tales of stupidity and incompetence than concerned about being kept in the dark on hidden technologies.”
Does everyone feel this way?
“Now be quiet before I rather clumsily knight you with this meat cleaver” - Edmund Blackadder
It’s none of your business.
The majority (supposedly) elects people to govern them. In military matters, blabbing all of the technological secrets to the general public is equal to giving them directly to any hostile or potentially hostile nation.
***A point here:
There was a bunker built in great secrecy under the White House designed so that if a Nuclear war hit, as many of the leaders of America might survive as possible to continue to defend the country plus organize damage control, launch aggressive measures and organize any national rescue and rebuilding forces necessary. It cost millions back then. A snoopy newspaper man discovered it years later, and, for individual fame only, spread it on the front page of his paper.
Not only did he violate national security, for which he was never accused or tried, but he deliberately exposed a military and national secret to the enemy, which required that a new bunker was later built in a less accessible place at the cost of billions. The current bunker is still secret. The old one is a tourist attraction. The reporters’ lack of discretion not only forced the building of a new bunker but put out of work the old staff which manned the old one.***
There is a record of a plastic model making company accidentally getting its hands on the designs of a new, secret submarine of the Navy and making a detailed model of it, which they sold to the public. The Russians stated that they could not believe their luck and promptly bought several of the toys, shipped them back to Russia and chortled delightedly over the previously unknown and very detailed plans included in the kit!
Besides, militarily, with all of the protest groups floating around the States, if they actually exposed all of their weapons research, they would be heavily targeted for protests and someone would manage to stop the research. In the meantime, any hostile nations would go on with their and in the event of war, we’d get slaughtered by them using the very weapons our protest groups forced us to abandon.
Remember the COBALT BOMB? A nuclear device which upon detonation, would kill all life within a certain area but leave everything else intact, like buildings, power supplies, roads and food stores. The general public thought this was horrible and forced the military to abandon it. No one considered the simple face that the greatest cause of death after any bombing, nuclear or otherwise, is from the resulting destruction of shelter, transportation, power sources, fire control, food stores and medical supplies. Wipe those out a hundreds of thousands die from disease, no treatment, exposure or inability to be rescued by the survivors because rescue gear was destroyed.
The Night Watch always knows things.
I think this thread never fully got off the ground because the prevailing dynamic limited discussion to scientific/technological concerns. It is quite obvious that some such knowledge is best kept out of the hands of lunatics. However, it is also quite obvious that thte clsassification of information concerning circumstances, such as the Martin Luther King assassination, serves only to protect culpable parties from facing justice. This is how document classification truly inspires fear and mistrust.
Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those
who dare not, are slaves. -George Gordon Noel Byron (1788-1824)
A couple of points on the more paranoid side of the argument:
“Nobody ever suggested there shouldn’t be a cover-up” – one of the Watergate figures
During the closing years of the Carter administration, the Soviet Union sent one of their leading physicists over here to share with us what they’d learned towards controlling fusion. He did a public presentation on the subject. Following which, the U.S. security people (I’m not sure which agency, DIA is what I was given to understand but cannot confirm) literally threw a blanket over the blackboard he’d used for notes during his presentation and classified the entire presentation. Jerry Pournelle reported this in a column, and asked the intelligent question, “Who are we keeping this secret from?”
NITWATCH2–You are a prime example of ignorance on the hoof. You got every singe one of the examples you cited W-R-O-N-G!
1- the bunker was not located under the White House, it was located in the Appalanchia Mountains. There was & is *no * replacement planned. It’s existance was revealed when it became obsolete.
2-The platic model story is rubbish. The Navy has denied it, as has Revel. However, this Urban Legend has a basis in fact. The Revel plastic model was so detailed that the Navy used it to train it’s people. Revel got clearance before making the model–as one company rep put it : “We’d be crazy to touch classified material”. I believe that Unca Cecil addressed this in some detail.
3- Neutron bomb, NOT COBALT . Cobalt bombs were enhanced fallout weapons, designed to make vast areas radioactive. Neutron bombs were enhanced radiation weapons; producing a powerful but momentary release of hard radiation that slaughtered the innocent & the guilty alike. But didn’t render the area unusable for generations; as a cobalt bomb would. And who says the work on the neutron bomb stopped?
If this is the best you can do, go play Nintendo. I hear the new Pokemon is coming out. That seems likely to be just your intellectual speed.
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