On 14 Jul 2003, petesbarman@yahoo.com (Tim) wrote:

Let's see, I'll try to answer as much as I can.

First of all, thanks for the information, Tim.

1. I'm in the Navy
2. High enough for me to do my job, not any higher
3. Not with any black project - I launch Tomahawk missiles.
4. Yep - People who have that classification are not kept in prisons
you know...
5. I'm sure I DO have info being kept from me. I'm sure you do too.

I'll go further than that. It's a dead cert!

However, keeping a few facts from someone is a lot easier than
conducting a cover up ans immense as the one we are talking about.

Correct. I am saying that one reason this is possible, is the credibility
gap. If everyone, or almost everyone, agrees that UFOs do not exist, are
the result of misidentification or hallucinations, the province of crackpots,
and so on, then the overall paradigm is a general support for this view
(in the mainstream media and the general public) Therefore the government
line is supported by default - and the fact that the media take virtually no
interest whatsoever in this subject while events of an unusual nature
continue to occur around the world, discourages the public from taking an
active interest. This is hardly a situation in which it would be difficult to 
maintain a coverup, if the basic premise that some UFOs represent
a genuinely unidentified mystery worthy of research, has been declared
invalid from the start, and proponents labelled as kooks.
          So I don't agree that it is not easy to conduct a coverup as immense
as the one we are talking about. If only a marginalised segment of society
question the official line, then the first and most important step of the
coverup has already been achieved - without a shot being fired.
        Consequently, it does not matter how many bureaucratic bungles,
slip-ups and leaks occur because the system still holds water; the
core denial is reinforced, (or mostly the issue is simply ignored) in all
major areas that people depend on for information. If people have
no information on the subject, then there is no reason for them to question it,
and the question of a coverup becomes something of a red herring,
since the coverup is largely self-sustaining.

6. Bad. Very very very very bad.
7. Like I said, I can give you as much as I can. 

To give you a little background on the way classification levels work
(at least in the avy) : I work with a system that contains sensitive
information. So I obviously couldn't tell you how it works, or any of
the info held on the system. In the broader scheme of things I
wouldn't be ableto tell you about things like the deployment schedule
of my ship (When we are leaving, where we are going, or what ports we
will visit). But as far as simple info, yes I would be able to tell
you. I can tell you I work with Tomahawk missiles, I can tell you that
my security clearance is high enough to use the system and that I find
the work interesting. I can tell you that I am a second class petty
officer - middle management essentially. What I am saying is that many
people who talk about this seem to think that everyone in the military
is monitored on a 24/7 basis.

Not saying that. 

 They aren't. If the military finds that

classified info is being leaked, yes that person is arrested and put
in jail and rightfully so.

and if the degree of classification is such to merit surveillance,
then it would  occur? If one has no idea from the start
which areas are classified and at what level, how is one to know
one way or the other?

 I just think that maybe many people have

the wrong idea of what the government knows. They don't know anything
more than anyone else. 

That I find very difficult to believe. You are in charge of the most powerful
country in the world, with communications assets totalling trillions of
dollars, with technologies under development at the cutting edge still undeclared,
the NSA can virtually read a numberplate from space, you have blanket NORAD
surveillance of all objects entering earth's atmosphere 24 hours a day,
yet you have no more power to understand the situation than the average
plonker munching donuts on Times Square? Forgive me, but that seems  
absurd. If one person has access to little or no information, slanted
information, and another person has access to every information-gathering
technology on the planet, and every classified project ever conducted,
then who is going to know more?
            You seem to infer that the government is like a five-year old
behind the wheel of a Rolls-Royce, driving at full speed down a motorway, 
incapable of making use of a tremendously powerful engine, helpless
to understand what it's for, and in imminent danger of crashing. 
          I find that premise difficult to accept.

Or if they do, the info is so broken up that so

many people know so many little bits of it that recombining the info
would be impossible.

On this we agree; the question of compartmentalisation. The question
here is, who knows what, and just who has the real power? I don't
think the government has the real power. The government represents
undeclared interests.

Bottom line (Before I ramble on anymore) is that perhaps the energy
directed at the government should be redirected somewhere else. 

In the sense that all enquiries in this direction will meet with a brick wall,
yes.

There

is obviously a strange phenom going on.

more than one.

Maybe if we all tried to

figure it out, rather than waiting for the govt to tell us all, we'd
figure it out...

absolutely.