- Trump releases thousands of classified files about the JFK assassination…
- The banality of secrecy…
- Have you taken advantage yet of one key loophole in the tax code can LEGALLY save you thousands in taxes this year?
Dear Reader,
The Trump administration has released — or is in the process of releasing — some 80,000 pages of files concerning the 1963 Kennedy murder.
Thus declares Ms. Tulsi Gabbard, Director of National Intelligence:
- President Trump is ushering in a new era of maximum transparency. Today, per his direction, previously redacted JFK Assassination Files are being released to the public with no redactions. Promises made, promises kept.
What have these previously classified documents revealed?
Very little… evidently.
My agents inform me they do nothing to validate or invalidate the lone gunman theory or the conspiracy theory.
I am told they are as exhilarating to read as observing paint dry upon the wall… or grass grow upon the ground.
I am further told that many of these files have been released before — yet many of their previous redactions have been lifted.
Much Ado About Nothing
ABC News, in summary:
- Most of what the government released tonight is not new — in fact, much of what has attracted attention on social media and in news reports has long been in the public domain, except for minor redactions, such as the blacking out of personally-identifiable information of CIA sources or employees, including names and addresses, which have now been disclosed…
- Several of the newly-released pages detail how the CIA went about tapping telephones in Mexico City between in December 1962 and January 1963 to monitor the communications of the Soviets and Cubans at their diplomatic facilities, which Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald visited in the months before the assassination.
- The previously-redacted pages spell out specific instructions for CIA operatives on how to wiretap, including the use of certain chemicals to create markings on telephone devices that could only be seen by other spies under UV light.
- For decades, the CIA has urged the continued secrecy of these details out of fear that they would reveal the methods of the agency’s spy craft.
I hazard that many of these methods of spy craft are antiquated.
What is more, I suspect strongly that rival spy agencies are well aware of them already.
The true scandal — as I see it — is that many of these trivialities were classified at all.
The Government Likes to Keep Useless Secrets
The government of the United States simply likes to keep secrets. Its initial and overriding instinct is to classify.
“President Roosevelt was observed wiping drool from his mouth upon emerging from a nap at exactly 3:39 on the afternoon of April 21, 1938.”
That must not get out!
“The deputy vice assistant to the assistant to the Agriculture Minister for the republic of Togo was observed munching popcorn at 7:13 p.m. on August 2, 1997.”
State secret!
“The Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs of Chile claims his Honduran counterpart has very bad breath.”
Classify it!
Do I stretch the facts? I do not.
We Can’t Release the Sex of Conan the Dog!
A certain Lauren Harper previously directed public policy and open government affairs, so-called, for the National Security Archive.
Her researches revealed that, as reported in The Conversation:
- The CIA labeled as confidential a weekly terrorism situation report on Dec. 17, 1974, stating, “A new organization of uncertain makeup, using the name ‘Group of the Martyr Ebenezer Scrooge,’ plans to sabotage the annual courier flight of the Government of the North Pole. …” The memo, a CIA inside-office joke, wasn’t made public until 1999.
- A 1975 government biographical dossier on former Chilean Gen. Augusto Pinochet, kept secret on national security grounds, stated that the dictator’s favorite liquor was “scotch and pisco sours.”
- The government argued that records documenting the sex of Conan the dog, which participated in the 2019 raid to kill Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, were a national security secret.
Now you have the flavor of it.
The Real Reason They Classify so Much
I hazard the bulking majority of classification is intended not to conceal sensitive state secrets.
It is not intended to “save lives” and “preserve sources.”
It is instead intended to conceal government botchwork, bungling and incompetence.
The remainder is intended to conceal unsavory affiliations, unseemly connections and ungentlemanly conduct — perhaps even criminal conduct.
That is, much classification is intended to simply skirt embarrassment.
And are you so naive as to think the United States government would ever release documents conceding that its own agencies murdered an American president?
If such files do exist — if they exist — they will go into the shredder before they go public.
Meantime, The United States House of Representatives Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations concluded the following in 2004:
Perhaps 90% of classified material did not require classification whatsoever.
90%!
The Banality of Secrecy
I say throw the files open. Err on the side of security if need be.
Yet the vast bulk do not merit classification.
When the United States government classifies information it throws an exotic air of mystery around it.
Thus it becomes the object of fascination and intrigue.
It fans oxygen into conspiracy theories and stimulates the profusion of tinfoil hats.
“Hey, the government classified all its files on (insert the topic). What are they trying to hide? Hmmm?”
In nine instances of 10 they are merely attempting to hide their blemishes.
I hazard public exposure of these blemishes would have many conspiracy theorists emptying their tinfoil headwear into the hellbox.
They would be deeply disappointed in the lack of high jinx.
Author Hannah Arendt once authored a work about the “banality of evil.”
Mass declassification would expose the banality of secrecy.
It would — in certain respects — expose the banality of the Deep State.
Brian Maher
for Freedom Financial News
