It’s six minutes before midnight, so I won’t have the time to write a proper blog post here. I haven’t actually committed to daily blogging, but I wrote a post on 3 January about my curiosity towards daily blogging and the possible effects this would have on my life, and it would be really annoying […]
The Power of Daily Streaks
The National Anti-Corruption Commission bill contains a flaw that would allow an attorney-general to cover up investigations into national security or international relations.
Integrity commission subject to a secrecy clause that could hide national security corruption
The Book The Killing Code released in September 2022. Why did we pick this book? It’s been a while since we’ve read historical fiction so we thought we’d start 2023 with The Killing Code, a YA historical book set in Washington, D.C. and Arlington, Virginia. The book is set during World War II and as […]
January 2023 Book Club: The Killing Code by Ellie Marney
Photo by Jan-Rune Smenes Reite on Pexels.com This letter was published in the Herald on the 3rd January 2007. It followed after decades of the Scotland’s Oil campaign that highlighted how Scotland’s people were being robbed of their opportunity to share in the wealth off our shores. Instead London took control and under both Labour […]
THE SCALE OF THE ROBBERY
While the eyes of journalists, Congress and the public are on the Department of Justice investigation of the classified documents that former President Donald Trump removed from the White House, a recent report about a different critical issue of government secrecy has gone unnoticed. This report was given to the Biden administration on July 26 and was written by Mark Bradley, director of the National Archives’ Information Security Oversight Office, which is responsible for overseeing the safeguarding of critical classified information. The report warns of a “dire need” to reform the current system of classification and declassification — cautioning that secrecy itself is out of control. Government officials are classifying so much that it is becoming impossible to prioritize and protect truly sensitive information, much less review classified records so they can eventually be released to the public. “We can no longer keep our heads above the tsunami,” wrote Bradley in his letter introducing the ISOO’s annual report. The security classification system is designed to control information according to its level of sensitivity, ranging from confidential to top secret. Anyone seeking a security clearance to handle these materials must undergo rigorous background checks and training. But being approved for a level of clearance does not automatically give one access to classified information. Only those who already have access to a specific program’s information can grant others with clearance permission to see it, and only if the requestor has an explicit reason for their “need to know.” The system creates the impression that only a select few are permitted to handle carefully defined categories of truly dangerous information. But these rules do not describe what is actually happening. In 2017 alone, officials told the ISOO that they had stamped something with “confidential,” “secret” or “top secret” more than 49 million times. At the time, this seemed like an improvement. In 2012, similar self-reported data added up to more than 95 million classifications, or three new state secrets per second. Bradley now says that a lot of the data in these earlier reports “was neither accurate nor reliable,” but cannot offer better estimates. And so many Special Access Programs — which may require additional security measures and bear the designation “Sensitive Compartmented Information” — have proliferated across the government that Bradley could not create a complete list. The ISOO report warns that excessive secrecy and underinvestment in declassification is contributing to a lack of trust in government, which recent polls show is nearing historic lows. The number of people who currently have some level of government security clearance to access classified information totals nearly 3 million. Trump has claimed that he had a standing order to declassify the records that ended up in Mar-a-Lago — but there is no evidence of such an order and numerous officials have called this claim ludicrous. The fact is, the declassification of even one document involves a page-by-page inspection, and often requires sign-off by multiple departments and agencies. Yet the government employs fewer than 2,000 people to review, redact and determine which of these records can eventually be released. Since World War II, in the earliest days of the current security classification system, some information has been kept secret simply to cover up incompetence. For instance, in 1948 the first chair of the Atomic Energy Commission, David Lilienthal, was appalled by the “lack of integrity” in how officials pretended the “meager” intelligence they had on the Soviet nuclear program was too deep and too delicate to share with Congress. Yet nearly 75 years later, this intelligence is still top secret. Some officials admit overclassification is endemic but insist that what they give presidents is always sensitive. But even former presidents have said this isn’t the case. George W. Bush started receiving briefings from the CIA at his Texas ranch while the outcome of the 2000 election was still in doubt. After almost a month, Bush suspected the CIA was holding out on him. “I’m sure that when I become president, you’ll start giving me the good stuff,” he said. But the briefer knew the president-elect would be disappointed — “We’ve already been giving him the good stuff,” the briefer thought. Harry Truman estimated that 95% of American military secrets were actually revealed in the media. Richard Nixon complained, “The CIA tells me nothing I don’t read three days earlier in the New York Times.” Howard Baker, the long-serving senator and Ronald Reagan’s chief of staff, said that, during his entire career, he only learned one secret that remained so. But many with security clearances tend to only pay attention to classified information related to their specific duties and are unaware of how much of it is already public knowledge. Some classified information is truly sensitive. But if so much is treated as secret, the public cannot know what government officials are doing in our name. When historians look back at this time, they should read the ISOO report to comprehend the scale of classified information that they likely won’t be able to see. Bradley predicts that so much has been hidden “most of it will never be reviewed for declassification.” It is our history that is being shrouded in secrecy. Matthew Connelly is a professor of history at Columbia University and author of the forthcoming book “The Declassification Engine: What History Reveals about America’s Top Secrets.” He wrote this column for the Los Angeles Times. [related_articles location=”left” show_article_date=”false” article_type=”automatic-primary-tag”]
Matthew Connelly: Why we’re drowning in a tsunami of government secrets
No. It is not. These are government documents and citizens have a right to see those not marked Top Secret or above. In an actual civilized country, Sweden, any citizen’s tax return can be acquired by any other Swedish citizen who goes to a local tax office, fills out a form, and pays a small […]
OMG, Making Trump’s Tax Returns Public! It is an outrage!
Have you ever thought about what you’d do if you were the last person on Earth? Just roaming around freely and doing whatever you wanted? Well, if you haven’t, maybe these answers from folks on AskReddit will give you some good ideas! Let’s see what they had to say! 1. Good idea. “The first thing I do is go to the hardware store and get a ton of those triangular door stops — the rubber ones you get to jam under a door to keep it open. The last thing I want to do is end up trapped in some parking garage stairwell and slowly d** of thirst.” 2. Find the fancy house. “Break into the fanciest house I can find and live in it. Gather supplies. Read survival/farming books.” 3. Smart. “Just go to a shady website. Somehow hot single women would spawn near your location. It’s easy after that.” 4. Enjoy it. “Loot every gamestore, grocery stores, Domino’s. Then drive to an airport, and fly a plane to a dream hotel. Enjoy my last few days before the world collapses.” 5. What’s going on here? “Area 51 would be my first trip. Not for aliens, but just to see what they’re working on.” 6. I hope you’re hungry! “Go and find a farm where food is already growing, and live there. Yes there will be tinned stuff but I am going to need a supply of fresh food also that I can maintain.” 7. Sad. “Cry hard. I’m already not looking forward to losing any of my family but to have them ALL gone at once would break me.” 8. Their new leader. “Assuming animals are still alive, I’d go try to join a band of gorillas. Teach them rock paper scissors or something.” 9. Gather the info. “Download as much reference material as I can from the internet, including maps, before the infrastructure starts to go down. Back it up as many ways as possible.” 10. Going on a trip. “Go to a pharmacy. Take drugs. Lots of drugs.” 11. There you go! “As a woman: Get to a fertilization clinic and impregnate myself with some (hopefully still working) sperm. This is my chance to become the Eve of a new population!” 12. Got it all figured out. “Find a famous preppers house that has a way to generate power(probably solar panels) and a big food supply then I would hit the supermarket and take all foods that expire soon because a lot I probably can’t t create myself. I would print out a lot guides and information i can find on the internet as i have no idea if it will remain operative. I don’t think food will be hard to come by for the first couple of years as i could probably survive the stock that people/supermarkets have. I would then go to a police station to get some guns and ammunition to protect myself from wildlife and possible other survivors and eventually shoot myself through the head as i can’t think this will be fun for more then a couple of years. Then i would need to find a large truck and weld battering ram in front of it (to clear the roads). I’d probably take one or two dogs as companions. And explore the shit out the world. I’d go the all the places im not supposed to go, Area 51, find out what’s going on in the Vatican, Check out loads of government secrets.”
What Would You Do First if You Were the Last Human on Earth? People Shared Their Thoughts.
…. in law and order and justice and the agents who impose such. As opposed to those Americans who don’t give a shit about such things except as a way of gaining political advantage and who very much believe in political revenge and love double standards. The number of such Americans who believe the latter […]
An appeal to those who still believe
The destiny of a nation belongs to patriotic people. When the masses speak, not even a NUKE can silent them. When the masses accept psychopaths to rule over them, then their destinies will be at stake. When media houses are manipulated by governments to disseminate propaganda, lies, hate and all sorts of negative informations, the […]
IMPERIALISM – FREEDOM OR SLAVERY AND POVERTY…
ITS AloT ppl don't know 