Article by Thomas L. Knapp September 25, 2019 (duluthnewstribune.com)
• The US Navy recently confirmed that three online videos of military jet encounters with UAPs: ‘unidentified aerial phenomenon’ are authentic. But what is more disturbing is that the Navy seems less concerned with the UAPs themselves, than with the notion that the videos, while not classified, had not been “cleared for public release”. A Pentagon spokesperson told The Black Vault website, “The videos were never officially released to the general public by the (Department of Defense) and should still be withheld.”
• The oldest ‘Tic Tac’ UFO video is from 2004. Now, 15 years later the Navy still hasn’t determined what these UAPs are. But the Navy’s biggest concern is that the videos were released? The videos are not “confidential,” “secret,” or “top secret,” based on degrees of potential damage to national security. No such long-term category as “not cleared for public release” should exist with respect to information generated or acquired by the government.
• If the government works for the people, why should it keep so many secrets from the people in the first place? There should be a time limit in which any given piece of information must either be classified or made available to the public. All government information not classified within 30 days of its creation or acquisition should be stored in databases that the public can search at will. Concealing information from the public should be incredibly difficult — not a matter of course. “Not cleared for public release” shouldn’t exist as a new category.
• UFOs may be extraterrestrial in origin. The public needs more information. But it shouldn’t be the government’s prerogative to conceal such information from the rest of us indefinitely, tell us tall tales about weather balloons and swamp gas, and offer lame “national security” excuses when called out. A bigger problem than determining what these UFOs are may be the how the post-World War II national security state apparatus has developed a culture of general secrecy that we accommodate at our peril.
The U.S. Navy confirms that three online videos showing two military air encounters with what it calls “unexplained aerial phenomena” and the rest of us call “unidentified flying objects” are authentic, as Popular Mechanics reported.
The videos are interesting, and some might find them disturbing. What’s more disturbing to me is that the Navy thinks the videos are none of our business, not even 15, or even four, years after they were recorded in 2004 and 2015.
Pentagon spokesperson Susan Gough told The Black Vault website, “The videos were never officially released to the general public by the DoD (U.S. Department of Defense) and should still be withheld.”
The videos aren’t classified. They just haven’t been “cleared for public release.”
No such long-term category as “not cleared for public release” should exist with respect to information generated or acquired by government.
There are legal standards for “classifying” information as “confidential,” “secret,” or “top secret,” based on supposed degrees of damage to national security disclosure of the information might cause.
I’m personally against allowing the state to keep secrets at all. They claim to work for us. If we’re really their bosses, we should get to look over their shoulders any time we please.
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