Apr. 17, 2006 - 20:38 MST

THAN THE EYE

The old snake pit seems to have a modern offspring. Our "Official" federal government, and not Just the present one. In this morning's Rocky Mountain News is an article by Dale McFeatters of the Scripps Howard News Service, herewith in quoted in full (italics and bolds mine):

SECRET HISTORY IN THE ARCHIVES

The movie Animal House launched the phrase "double secret" into circulation when Dean Wormer confided that the rambunctious Delta fraternity was on "double secret probation." Time magazine's Matt Cooper wrote in an e-mail to his boss that his interview with top Bush aide was on "double secret background." But it took the staid, august National Archives, guardian of our most precious records, to elevate the suitably ludicrous expression "double super secret" into government policy."

"After having its arm twisted through the Freedom of Information Act by the Assiciated Press and a nonprofit research group, the National Archives confessed to being complicit in surrepititously removing previously public records from its shelves and reclassifying them as secret."

"And here's where the "double super secret" part comes in: The fact that the Archives was doing this was itself secret."

"Before the dodge was discovered, the Archives had pulled and reclassified 10,000 records containing about 55,000 pages, some of them dating back to the 1940s. The AP said some of the subjects range "from information about 1948 anti-American riots in Columbia to a 1962 telegram containing a translation of a Belgrade news article about China's nuclear capabilities." I think we'll all sleep better at night knowing the government has clammed up -- in this case re-clammed -- about 58-year-old fracases in South America. On the other hand, we may not sleep so well knowing that our intellegence on Chines nukes was coming from a Serbian newsstand. The reclassification was done at the request of the usual suspects among government agencies -- the Departments of Defense and Justice, the CIA, the DIA and the Air Force."

THE PROGRAM BEGAN IN THE LAST YEAR OF THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION, when the agencies were chafing under an executive order that said most government records would be declassified after 25 years with the very sensitive proviso that if an agency objected it would have to demonstrate why a document should remain secret."

"The program really picked up steam when President Bush took office. In 2002, the Archives, where the great documents holding government accountable to the people are housed, SIGNED AN AGREEMENT WITH THE VARIOUS AGENCIES PLEDGING TO KEEP SECRET: the agreement, the reclassification program, the role of the intelligence agencies, and the "true reason" spooks were prowling around the archives. It also pledged to keep this secret from its own people, except those "VALIDATED" to know. The Archive employeees, like the Deltas were on "double secret probation."

"Congress should order the Archives to dump all 10,000 documents and 55,000 pages of the reclassified material in a pile and let researchers, historians, reporters and people in off the street paw through it and see what's there."

"Maybe there's a legitimate secret in there somewhere -- if there is, we're betting it's not much of one -- but it's worth the risk of disclosure to establilsh that the top-secret stamp should be used sparingly and subject to review. Classification is not Whack-A-Mole.

"And here's something that's not double secret, or even single secret: We're paying for all this.

++++++

Opens a whole can of worms, it does. I wonder which president signed the executive order ? Guess it could be Googled to find out, but the thing is that those agencies seemed to feel threatened that the public might find something out they wanted to keep under cover and kept on agitating. Of course it fits quite well with the present administration's policy it would appear.

Could it be those re-classified archives might hold information on corruption, misfeasance malfeasance and "scurrilious-feasance" of any other sort ?

I wonder how soon The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution will be re-classified, and who will have the duty of rewriting them to fit the cloth of the present regime's whim ? Or will pertinent documents begin to totally disappear ?

Seems like the feds are doing the old "Shell Game" wherein the hand is quicker THAN THE EYE . . . . . . . . . .

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