I like Jeffers take on this."I think that several issues need to be raised here.
1. Terrorists know that they cannot directly affect millions of their enemies. For this reason, their attacks focus on producing indirect affects, and are designed wholly with the mass media in mind. It's no accident that Osama and company tried and tried to wake up the video-ographer who was supposed to tape the Cole attack. It's not an accident that the two aircraft which hit the World Trade Center were spaced far enough apart for the news crews to set up and record the second strike on the south tower.
2. The FBI was such a poor choice of Clinton's to combat terrorism, the whole "criminal investigation versus national security issue/debate included, because they are, by law, and by charter prevented from disclosing information obtained during an ongoing investigation.
I'm not saying that these issues outweigh the general public's right to know, but I am saying that both of these issues need to be weighed when making charges of a preplanned cover-up.
I am also saying that in my opinion, you do not see any "news blackout" going on here. No news agency has come forward saying that they were penalized or sanctioned for reporting on this story.
Instead, we see news leaking out around the edges of what appears to be a simple government consensus to limit the amount of free publicity the terrorists gain from un-considered press conferences.
In a perfect world, each individual here would have a top secret security clearance and a special link to click on to gain full disclosure on any subject that interested them, while at the same time, the mass media would never be in a position to knowingly or unknowingly glorify terrorist operations, blow terrorist investigations, or help the terrorists meet their recruitment goals.
If anyone here thinks that these two goals are anything other than mutually incompatible, I have a bridge to sell you. Reality will fall somewhere in the middle, you won't know as much as you want to, and the world won't either. You will, however, know more than the FBI and the terrorists want you too, and to some degree you have a measure of control in the degree to which this prophecy comes true.
There are basically only two kinds of secrets, science and politics. How things work, and what other people do. The military would love to control science, but the very filtering process that generates career officers precludes a large degree of the independent thought necessary for inovation. Many in government would love to control all public information flow.
To some degree, these attempts are successful. To a large degree they are not. Scientists have great difficulty proceeding and progressing without the peer review process. There is a lever here for the interested. Political secrets expand exponentially as more and more people become aware of them. There is a lever here for the interested.
Security classifications do not address these issues, nor do they prevent an individual from obtaiing enough information to construct the big picture view necessary for his own survival.
Access to political secrets is a measure of political influence and success, but the problem is that no-one knows you have access unless you tell them.
The result is that this official lets this tiny factoid slip out, while that official makes a veiled allusion to a totally different data byte, which is then "loose" and available for comment by yet a third official outside the loop entirely, but who's commentary begins shedding light on that piece's respective place in the larger picture, etc. etc. etc.
The first secret then, to "knowing" what you need to know is to cast the widest net possible. FR comes to mind, as one part of a well tuned "wide net".
The second secret is to properly classify and store incoming data bytes until you have enough corroborated bytes to start forming a flowchart or overall assessment.
I've probably said too much on this subject already, that little gray van with the antennas and blacked out windows is parked at the end of my driveway again, but those who already understand the process need no further advice, and those capable of understanding can figure out and implement the rest for themselves.
Finally, I want to close by noting that there is an inevitable process of natural selection at work here, as there is in all respects applying to daily life on planet earth.
Some people recognized before 9/11 that large congregations of Americans represent a political or military target to certain other sects.
Some people have figured that out since 9/11.
Some people are just starting to realize this fact now.
Some people will never realize this.
As always, the fit are more likely to survive and reproduce than the unfit. This is a simple and well understood natural law.What may not be so well understood is that natural laws cannot be unwritten by religious or legislative efforts. The spring can be stretched, but the total quantity of energy in the system is a product of the spring's molecular energy (heat), its chemical energy, and its kinetic energy.
Kinetic energy includes potential kinetic energy, and kinetic energy does work. Work can counteract the second law of thermodynamics or it can apply the second law of thermodynamics, but it cannot be legislated out of existence.
Short and sweet, if you like order, don't stretch the spring, instead, live in accordance with natural law. If you like chaos, stretch the spring without due advance deliberative process and hope that the laws of man override the laws of nature.
Good luck with that last...
;-) "
I think that gives the terrorists a bit too much credit. They were after all dependent on the vageries of the Air Traffic Control system and the normal airline schedule problems.
The military would love to control science, but the very filtering process that generates career officers precludes a large degree of the independent thought necessary for inovation
What in the heck does that mean. By "science", I assume you mean technical information and such things as "troop movements", "Logistics preparations" and so forth. Those are properly controlled, and I don't know what independent thought has to do with it. They can't be completely controlled because so much technology is "dual use", with much modern military technology built on stuff designed for the civilian marketplace, and with an open society, or even a closed one, disguising the movement of large numbers of troops and equipment is pretty impossible.
BTW, you don't know many career officers, do you? They exhibit just as wide a variance in independence of thought as any other group of professionals, at least in my experience. The selection process does tend to favor "Organization Man", but the same can be said of those in upper ranks of corporate management.
Kinetic energy includes potential kinetic energy, and kinetic energy does work. Work can counteract the second law of thermodynamics or it can apply the second law of thermodynamics, but it cannot be legislated out of existence.
As an engineer, I have to say that the attempt at circumlocution via analogy has failed to communicate anything. It also has displayed a remarkable ignorate of terminology. Words mean things, and the two terms kinetic energy and potential energy describe different concepts. Kinetic energy does not include potential energy. One can be converted into the other, but they are not the same. KE is the energy contained in a moving body by virtue of its motion. PE is energy of position in a field of some kind. Water above a dam, a projectile or aircraft at some altitude, both in a gravitational field. Shoot straight up, the bullet has no (relative) PE, but lots of KE as it exits the barrel, at the highest point it has no KE, since for an instant it's not moving, but now has lots of PE because it's higher than it started. The process reverses as it falls.