And doesn’t want you to know.
An Asteroids of mass destruction
Imagine a situation where an asteroid of similar dimensions to the one that ended the dinosaurs is on a collision path with the Earth. Someone in the government decides it best not to tell the public. Their reasoning is it would create undue panic among the population and the electorate should be allowed to enjoy their last moments on Earth in peace. The information becomes a classified secret.
Contrary to this, if governments openly admitted their agencies were tracking an impending catastrophe, the world’s financial markets would plunge in free-fall: real estate, gold bullion, and currencies would instantly be worthless. Criminals would create havoc. Law and order abandoned. People would cower in fear of attending their place of worship due to violence in the streets. Having officials withhold information was best for all.
While it could be said keeping news about impending disasters from the populace has its merits, many would argue governments have no right to keep the public ignorant of the facts. In the face of a global disaster, individuals would not have the chance to say goodbye to loved ones. Life-long friends who recently fell out would not have the opportunity to make amends. Those with a wayward life could not make peace with their God.
While such a scenario sounds like a script for a Hollywood movie, could it really happen? The answer is, probably not.
The advent of whistle-blowers and widespread access to social media would spread the news of a deadly asteroid long before legislators could classify it.
Such a fictitious story line begs the question, why do governments keep some information secret?
Some examples of classified information are UFO sightings or plots to kill political leaders. The following are just a few examples of intelligence released to public knowledge.
Grand Central Terminal
A door to an elevator at the station is welded shut. It is now known that under the terminal deep underground is a network of rail tracks along with storage areas. President Franklin D. Roosevelt used the underground platform as a way to get into New York City and avoid the press. An elevator took the President up to the Waldorf Astoria hotel.
John Lennon spied upon
Historian Jon Wiener won a Supreme Court case against the FBI to release information they had about the singer. The Nixon administration in 1971 did not like Lennon’s anti-war protests. The popularity of songs such as “Give Peace a Chance” put him under the FBI radar.
Churchill and Eisenhower deny UFO’s
In 2005 the Freedom of Information Act was invoked in Britain. Files were released by the Ministry of Defense, claiming prime minister Winston Churchill ordered UFO sightings to be kept from the public to avoid mass panic. UFO sightings were so dangerous in the 1950s, UK intelligence chiefs held an urgent meeting to deal with the issue. UFO investigator Nick Pope said, “The interesting thing is that most of the UFO files from that period have been destroyed.”
CIA Mind Control
The US Central Intelligence Agency experimented with people from colleges, hospitals, and prisons to control their minds. With code names such as Project Bluebird and Project Artichoke, the experiments used mind-altering drugs such as LSD to weaken an individual’s will power and extract confessions. The CIA Director Richard Helms ordered the MKUltra files be destroyed in 1973.
Kill Castro
The CIA wanted Cuban President Fidel Castro gone. In 2007 documents that were declassified show the agency hired American mobsters Johnny Roselli, Salvatore Giancana, and Santo Trafficante to assassinate the Cuban President. The gangsters along with Al Capone were on the FBI’s ten most wanted list. The plan was to poison Castro’s food, but after several unsuccessful attempts, the plan was abandoned due to the disastrous Bay of Pigs Invasion.
Potemkin Village
During Catherine II’s journey to Crimea in 1787, her ex-lover Grigory Potemkin set up portable buildings along the banks of the Dnieper River to impress the Empress. Such deceptions have been used by various governments since. Nazi Germany set up the “Paradise Ghetto” to convince the International Red Cross that concentration camps were following the rules. Theresienstadt Camp became the way-station to Auschwitz-Birkenau. In Northern Ireland ahead of the 2013 G8 summit, photographs were placed inside the windows of vacant shops to trick passing visitors that the town of Enniskillen was thriving. President Donald Trump ordered his construction manager to hire dozens of earth-moving machines to push the dirt around at his proposed casino site in Atlantic City. He wanted to impress Holiday Inn executives to invest in the project by showing work was well underway.
Intelligence Agencies: Every country has one
Governments keep classified information for things such as Military plans and weapons, details about foreign governments, scientific technology relating to national security, safeguards for nuclear material, and weapons of mass destruction. Most countries have some kind of ‘burn bag’ to destroy classified documents that are regarded as Top Secret and too sensitive for public knowledge.
Smart Phone, Smart Home
Technology has introduced a range of options for the government to gather information about those who voted them into power. A growing number of people are suspicious of the governments’ use of technology and whether it is ethical. For example, if they use artificial intelligence programs that determine who qualifies for social security benefits. The law is increasingly concerned about private data used by companies without the citizens’ knowledge. Multinational companies are selling all-seeing, all-listening devices to consumers — televisions that hear what you say, software that tracks car owners’ driving habits. Toys are no exception. A series of well-known dolls listens-in on a child’s conversation and sends it back to the parent company. A site called Shodan searches for unsecured webcams and allows users to spy on households without the owner’s knowledge. Kiddie perverts eavesdrop into baby monitors while Nest thermostats leaked zip codes of the users’ location.
Silicon Valley critic Evgeny Morozov summed up smart technology in a tweet. “In case you are wondering what ‘smart’ means: Surveillance Marketed As Revolutionary Technology.”
With so many organizations spying on a population, should governments be more open about the secrets they keep and the amount of intelligence collected?
What do you think? Join the discussion in the comments below.
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