Tag: transparency

How government over-classification may hide UFO videos and harm our security

Remember those videos taken by U.S. military pilots showing unidentified objects flying at incredible speeds and executing impossible maneuvers? They’ve appeared widely in various media since 2017, but soon — if DOD gets its way — you may not be able to watch them, thanks to a move to classify all such videos and other materials relating to UFOs, officially known as unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs). 

Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Avril Haines recently acknowledged that excessive government classification undermines U.S. national security. As she wrote in January in a letter to U.S. senators, “It is my view that deficiencies in the current classification system undermine our national security, as well as critical democratic objectives, by impeding our ability to share information in a timely manner.”

She also acknowledged that excessive classification damages the public’s faith in government and “reduces the Intelligence Community’s capacity to effectively support senior policymaker decision-making.”

The DNI’s testimony followed that of senior military officers who have complained to Congress regarding excessive classification.

This is, in fact, a problem familiar to anyone who has worked extensively with classified U.S. government information. 

The DNI’s concerns are particularly timely and important. As I used to remind my security and counterintelligence colleagues in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, we did not win the Cold War because we were better at protecting information; we won the Cold War because we were much better at moving and sharing information, especially in the private marketplace, where the resulting efficiencies and innovation enabled us to consistently outpace and outperform the Soviet Union.

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British Medical Journal Demands Immediate Release of All COVID-19 Vaccine, Treatment Data

The British Medical Journal (BMJ) has demanded the full and immediate release of all data related to COVID-19 vaccines and treatments, saying it is in the public’s interest to do so.

BMJ, a weekly peer-reviewed medical trade journal published by the trade union the British Medical Association, called for the release of the data in an editorial published on Wednesday.

“Today, despite the global rollout of COVID-19 vaccines and treatments, the anonymized participant-level data underlying the trials for these new products remain inaccessible to doctors, researchers, and the public—and are likely to remain that way for years to come,” BMJ said.

“This is morally indefensible for all trials, but especially for those involving major public health interventions.”

BMJ also accused pharmaceutical companies of “reaping vast profits without adequate independent scrutiny of their scientific claims,” pointing to Pfizer, whose COVID vaccine trial was “funded by the company and designed, run, analyzed, and authored by Pfizer employees.”

New York-headquartered Pfizer still holds that trial data and has indicated that it won’t begin considering requests for such data until May 2025—24 months after the primary study completion date of May 15, 2023, which is listed on ClinicalTrials.gov.

Meanwhile, The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had asked a judge to give it 75 years to produce all the data concerning the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine.

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US National Archives Releases Additional 1,491 Documents on John F. Kennedy Assassination

The US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) said on Wednesday it released an additional 1,491 declassified records related to the assassination of former US President John F. Kennedy.

The US government over the next year will continue to review 14,000 previously withheld records to determine if any additional records should be made available to the public, however, certain records will be withheld if there is a strong reason to do so, according to the release.

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Stop Protecting Presidents from History

The media continues to treat former President Barack Obama as a champion of transparency, but his presidential library is looking like a huge bait-and-switch. Obama raised hundreds of millions for a grandiose library in south Chicago – except that it was revealed two years ago that it wouldn’t actually be a library. At the end of the Obama administration, 30 million pages of documents from his presidency were shipped to a former retail store near Chicago. Come to find out, the Obama Foundation, a private nonprofit organization, will control the official records of his time in office, rather than the National Archives and Records Administration, which administers all other presidential libraries. Rather than opening the files to the public and researchers, the Obama Foundation will eventually digitize the records. This could result in even worse delays than George W. Bush sought to finagle. Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David Garrow warned, “The absence of a true Obama presidential library will have the effect of discouraging serious and potentially critical research into the Obama presidency.”

There are plenty of reasons to expect excessive secrecy from both Trump and from Biden, who kept his Senate records locked up during his presidential run. In 2011, Biden was treated like a civic saint when he donated 1,875 boxes of documents from his U.S. Senate career to the University of Delaware. The National Endowment for Humanities gave a grant to help curate the collection, and the deal between Biden and the library was that the documents would remain sealed until “two years after Biden retires from public office.” Biden retired as Vice President in January 2017. Instead of releasing the information to the public, the library announced just before Biden launched his presidential campaign that secrecy would continue until two years after Biden “retires from public life.” Biden in 2019 justified keeping all his Senate records locked up during the campaign because “the idea that they would all be made public in the fact while I was running for public office, they could be really taken out of context.” It is unknown whether Biden’s Senate records contained any bombshells as explosive as his son Hunter’s laptop (which the media raced to defuse before Election Day).

Prerogatives for perpetual presidential secrecy are more akin to royalty than to a republic. Presidential libraries, which cost taxpayers $100 million a year, become lavish taxpayer-funded mausoleums where public records are mostly buried in perpetuity. As New York University history professor Jonathan Zimmerman wrote in 2015, “Why should each president get his own library? Multiple libraries are wasteful… And they’re undemocratic, because they allow our presidents – not the people who elected them – to define their legacies.” Zimmerman recommended putting all presidential records in a single library.

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Biden Administration Erased Afghan Weapons Reports From Federal Websites

The War in Afghanistan has always been a black box, but the Biden administration just made matters worse.

According to an admission obtained from the State Department, Biden officials recently directed federal agencies to scrub their websites of official reports detailing the $82.9 billion in military equipment and training provided to the Afghan security forces since 2001.

The scrubbed audits and reports included detailed accounting of what the U.S. had provided to Afghan forces, down to the number of night vision devices, hand grenades, Black Hawk helicopters, and armored vehicles.

Reports further quantified 208 aircraft and helicopters; 75,000 war vehicles – including 22 Humvees, 50,000 tactical vehicles and nearly 1,000 mine resistant vehicles; and 600,000 weapons – including 350,000 M4 and M16 rifles, 60,000 machine guns, and 25,000 grenade launchers.

The State Department admitted to removing the reports but justified the move as a way to protect Afghan allies. According to a spokesperson:

“The safety of our Afghan contacts is of utmost importance to us. The State Department advised other federal agencies of to [sic] review their web properties for content that highlights cooperation/participation between an Afghan citizen and the USG or a USG partner and remove from public view if it poses a security risk.”

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So much for ‘restoring transparency and trust’! Joe Biden REFUSES to disclose who’s visited his Delaware homes during his 17 trips back since becoming president despite vowing to be more open about guests than Donald Trump

Joe Biden will not disclose who has visited him at his Delaware residences in the 17 trips he has taken home since becoming president – despite promising to ‘restore transparency and trust’ to the White House.  

President Biden’s Press Secretary Jen Psaki made the announcement at a press conference Wednesday.

She told reporters:  ‘I can confirm we are not going to be providing information about the comings and goings of the president’s grandchildren or people visiting him in Delaware,’ Psaki told the New York Post on Biden’s stance on releasing visitor logs. 

The publication also flagged visitors who could trigger potential conflicts of interests – including Biden’s former drug abuser son Hunter, who is now on the cusp of becoming a successful artist. He plans to sell some of his works to anonymous buyers for up to $500,000, sparking fears people could buy the works to try and lobby the president. But Psaki refused to be drawn.  

She did so despite the administration has recently boasting of its efforts to ‘restore transparency and trust in government,’ a commitment that includes the release of several different White House visitor logs.

However, critics of the administration and transparency advocates are calling on the president to release visitor logs from his residences alongside those from the White House. They say similar rules should apply to all the president’s residences, both official and unofficial, given the power and influence he holds while in office.

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‘Why do you need to have that information?’ White House REFUSES to reveal number of ‘breakthrough cases’ in Covid-infected staff

Psaki revealed earlier this week that there had been positive Covid-19 cases in the White House that have not been disclosed.

During Friday’s press conference, she focused mainly on pushing vaccinations to the unvaccinated, as she has on previous occasions. She claimed unvaccinated Americans posed a threat to those who were vaccinated, despite the latter being protected from the virus.

Regardless of the efforts of Psaki and the rest of Joe Biden’s administration, the number of vaccinations administered continues to fall with each update, and interest in getting vaccinated remains significantly low for those who have avoided inoculation thus far.

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“Fraudits Have No Place in Colorado” – Democrat Colorado Secretary of State Issues Emergency Rules Prohibiting Election Audits

Democrat Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold on Thursday announced her office issued emergency rules prohibiting election audits.

“My office just issued rules prohibiting sham election audits in the State of Colorado. We will not risk the state’s election security nor perpetuate The Big Lie. Fraudits have no place in Colorado,” Griswold announced, taking a swipe at the Arizona audit.

In Thursday’s press release, Griswold boasted that Colorado’s elections are considered the “safest in the nation.”

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