Gag Order

[BenBurch]

I signed one as well. Still valid to this day, even though I no longer work with the system I signed it for. I actually am more subject to it now, as I work in the intelligence community, than I was when I was a launcher platoon leader for PATRIOT. More sensitive stuff in this arena, you know.

I suppose that means you cannot tell me if that system really does work well enough to justify the cost?

 

[hellaeon]

Im getting really confused trying to follow conspiracy theories these days
I cant figure out which MSM outlets are ok and which aren't. For a while earlier this year I thought they were all part of the conspiracy?

Ahhh the ever changing boundaries of a conspiracy theorist.

 

[SDC]

Early on in this thread, there were postings with Greg Szymanski's (he is the "journalist," or one of them, who claimed there was an actual gag order) writings about Slats Grobnik. Slats was supposedly building a replica of the Roman Coliseum and complaining about the Pope.

"Slats Grobnik" seemed like too good a name to pass up, so I just checked. Evidently this is a fictional character created by Mike Royko of Chicago fame -- or at least, this is the name of a fictional character, meant to embody Chicago's Polish community. Yet in a very quick search I also found Grobnik turning up in conspiratorial sites referring to "Bush's gulag" and the like (David Icke?? Szymanski? Rense?).

I don't have time right now for more searching but ... Do these guys have a sense of humor? Seems impossible. I mean, I can't imagine Mike Royko, who died in 1995 or so, being a model for any of these "journalists" or someone like Icke ... Maybe they just purloined him for purposes of their own. Well, more tomorrow if I can manage.

Crikey... Szymanski calls Royko "truth seeking"... This is not the Royko I remember.

 

[Jonnyclueless]

I could possibly understand Edmonds being under a "gag order" (read: standard non-disclosure agreement all federal employees (to my knowledge at any rate) sign and agree to and get in deep doo-doo for violating), but the guy who answered the 911 call? That I call BS on, I think.

Since there have been trails involving 9/11, I don't se why it would be unheard of for there to be a gag order. It's still an ongoing investigation. Plus, are 911 employees allowed to just openly discuss calls taken? I would think some kind of permission would be needed and there are privacy issues involved, but I don't know for sure.

Maybe someone less lazy than me ca research this and find out what the rules are for 911 employees discussing phone calls to the public.

 

[BigAl]

CT: "I've been gagged by the FBI but I can't talk about it"

With the help of the ACLU, some librarians have gone public about their national security letters:
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/nationalsecurityletters/25680res20060526.html

And

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15271083

Security Letters' Aimed at Pentagon Workers

Listen Now [3 min 38 sec]

All Things Considered, October 14, 2007 · According to the ACLU, since 2002, the Pentagon and FBI have issued 455 "national security letters" aimed at people who were employed by the Defense Department, but suspected of links to terrorism. The letters allow the data to be collected without a court order.
​

 

[Loss Leader]

The issue here isn't so much there being a gag order. It's plausible and reasonable.

I don't think it is. There is no ongoing 9/11 investigation. There is no trial pending in any court. There is no information that these people have that would fit under the umbrella of the National Security Letters.

However, the whole concept of a "gag order" fits very well with the troother mindset. It reinforces their beliefs that: 1) the government is all powerful and can stop civilians from talking; 2) the government is monolithic and local and federal employees are all the same; 3) the government is inscutable and no amount of inquiry will get to the truth; and 4) the lack of evidence is excusable and is, in fact, evidence of the conspiracy.

Plus, are 911 employees allowed to just openly discuss calls taken? I would think some kind of permission would be needed and there are privacy issues involved, but I don't know for sure.

Maybe, maybe revealing information on 911 calls would be grounds for dismissal of an employee, but that's about all it would be. The government can't stop the person from ever revealing the information. Once somebody leaves the job, there's almost nothing that can be done to force them to keep quiet about anything.

Are these people still at their jobs six years later?

I suppose that means you cannot tell me if that system really does work well enough to justify the cost?

If by "works," you mean "utterly miss their targets, explode and rain deadly shrapnel on the civilians below, then yes, the Patriot missiles work.

 

[Sabrina]

I suppose that means you cannot tell me if that system really does work well enough to justify the cost?

If by work you mean "does what it's designed to do", then I can tell you it works. PATRIOT was originally designed for aircraft; the missile thing was a fluke really that just got exploited. And the later designs of the missiles HAVE vastly improved on the original design. But as to justifying the cost; you'd have to talk to a financial analyst on that. I'm just a lowly officer. *G*

And the non-disclosure agreement applies more to the specifics of the weapon; range, explosive capability, and so forth. That I can't get into. Although I'm not sure I remember it anyway; it's been four years, approximately, since I sat in the ECS.

 

[Alareth]

The Patriot missle system is utter crap. Give me an SM2 if I want something knocked out of the sky.

 

[Jonnyclueless]

I don't think it is. There is no ongoing 9/11 investigation. There is no trial pending in any court. There is no information that these people have that would fit under the umbrella of the National Security Letters.

Yes there is an ongoing investigation and yes there are some upcoming trials and there have been several trials already. At the very least there was a big trial at one point, which could be the source of a gag order even if there isn't one now. So the possibility is well WELL within reason. Whether the information they have falls under national security is not at issue. That would be determined by the trial. And that is also your opinion (a valid one). Just because you think there is nothing secure about it, does not mean that's the case. And it doesn't even have to be just about security, it's also about privacy. For the same reason the voice recorder was kept private during one of the trials, so would the calls from the victims, who they would ONLY want to share with the family members of the victims. So again, it's way more than reasonable for there to be some kind of gag order.

And can anyone call up 9/11 and get a rundown of all the conversations? That sounds like quite a breech o privacy.

 

[Jonnyclueless]

Maybe, maybe revealing information on 911 calls would be grounds for dismissal of an employee, but that's about all it would be. The government can't stop the person from ever revealing the information. Once somebody leaves the job, there's almost nothing that can be done to force them to keep quiet about anything.

Are these people still at their jobs six years later?

While I have never worked as a 911 operator, I imagine they must all waive their right to discuss any calls. And this can be indefinite. I have worked for companies where for the rest of my life I cannot discuss many things no matter how long I have no longer been working for them. This is to protect their intellectual property and to insure I don't go start my own company using their ideas. Although in the case of 911 it would be to protect people's privacy. I would imagine someone in here must know someone that is involved with a 911 call center than can maybe clear things up. unfortunately I am not one of those people.

 

[LashL]

Yes there is an ongoing investigation and yes there are some upcoming trials and there have been several trials already. At the very least there was a big trial at one point, which could be the source of a gag order even if there isn't one now. So the possibility is well WELL within reason.

Not really. If court imposed gag orders had been ordered, the existence of them would be a matter of public record. I have seen nothing to suggest that the people being discussed in this thread are involved in any of the remaining few civil lawsuits, and nothing to suggest that they are subject to any such orders.

Whether the information they have falls under national security is not at issue. That would be determined by the trial.

No, that is incorrect. If national security is at issue in a pending court proceeding, it is raised long before trial by way of pretrial motions. It's not as though governmental agencies who want to invoke national security as a bar to disclosure of certain information just sit around and wait while pretrial discovery is provided and while pretrial depositions are conducted in which the very material that they seek to protect is thereby made part of a court record. Governmental agencies seeking to invoke national security as a bar to disclosure of such matters act upon such matters very early in the process.

In fact, a successful motion by a governmental agency on the issue of national security can bar a lawsuit in its entirety if the facts and evidence support the governmental agency's submissions at the pretrial motion stage, and lawsuits can be stopped dead in their tracks as a result.

 

[leftysergeant]

That any of them said anything about the calls without going through channels is an infraction on their part. Now they may be keeping quiet not to interfere with the court procedings in other matters. They are not required to answer questions without some official need to do so, and some dweeb out of nowhere with no credentials is hardly seeking information for an official purpose.

Even were the caller just asking how he felt that day, no one is obligated to talk to everyone who asks.

Why do these twoofer crank callers feel so privileged that people HAVE TO give them their time?

Maybe, in some cases, the people who tell Jeff and his sort that they are not allowed to talk about it are just trying to avoid the loss of face that they would feel if they just came out and screamed, "Sod off, you barmey wanker."
or something more comprehensible to an American.

 

[Jonnyclueless]

Just because we haven't seen any evidence of a gag order doesn't prove there isn't one though. It just means we haven't seen any and therefore cannot assume there is one. But again, it doesn't prove there isn't one.

The main point being that there are plausible circumstances such as a gag order or simply privileges that prevent them from speaking. And this does not in any way prove any kind of conspiracy. It simply means that there could have been some legitimate merit to the original source before it was spun into a conspiracy.

And again (while I disagree since there are several key trials coming up, one involving the very mastermind of 9/11) even if there is no trial that could warrant an order, there likely could have been at some point in time when the author who wrote the claim was doing research. Many such claims are actually pretty old, and it's likely that this one originated many years ago before the Mussaoui Trial.

 

[SpaceMonkeyZero]

The Patriot missle system is utter crap. Give me an SM2 if I want something knocked out of the sky.

Wasn't the key point to the Patriot missile system that it could knock down the slow unguided SCUDS that were usually fired without caring what their target was (such as civilian areas)?

 

[JimBenArm]

I think they got the idea that he was under a gag order because every time he talked to them, he gagged...

 

[funk de fino]

Wasn't the key point to the Patriot missile system that it could knock down the slow unguided SCUDS that were usually fired without caring what their target was (such as civilian areas)?

I thought originally it was for aircraft defence but then they used it for SCUDS and it worked better.

I dont care how crap it was it probably saved a lot of lives where I was stationed during the first gulf war. We took some amount of scud missiles and the patriots pretty much did a good job of actually deflecting the scuds away from the airfield.

Much better than was thought prior to the war.

Unfortunately just near the end of the war a patriot knocked a scud into a warehouse that was occupied by reservist nurses near Dahran and it killed 28 of them, they had only been in theater for a few days. We had to go up there cause it was only 400 yds from our barracks. It was a pretty hellish scene and one I would never want to witness again.

 

[BigAl]

Wasn't the key point to the Patriot missile system that it could knock down the slow unguided SCUDS that were usually fired without caring what their target was (such as civilian areas)?

Patriot was first an anti-aircraft system. Circa 1990, a anti-missile capability was in a late state of testing and it was rushed to Israel and the war. Nothing wrong with that.

Patriot made Saddam change his plans and, IMO, it gave Israel a fig leaf of an excuse to not attack Iraq which would have resulted in the collapse of the coalition. Weapons can "work" even if they fail, when used.

Patriot has gone through at least one more generation of upgrade since GW1. and seems to be hitting it's targets in realistic testing for what it is, a point-defense weapon. (The Navy's Standard Missile is doing a good job, too.)

 

[Swing Dangler]

A journalist? Here are Szymanski's last three archived articles:

Slats Learned True Anti-Christ System Is The Papacy From Reading Bible While Building Replica NWO Coliseum In Kansas Corn Field

Does Bush, the Black Pope, Larry King and Alex Jones Have the Guts to take this Vatican Quiz?


Confession to the Jesuits No.34: Is the Society of Jesus Planning Another Staged Hollywood Fantasy Mother Mary Siting?
My sources are actual journalists, Cheers. Please learn the difference.

You mean mainstream media journalists reports like this...

The UFO Phenomenon -- Seeing Is Believing
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Primetime/story?id=468496

Fox News: Al Qaeda is causing the CA wildfires.

Wedding Picture Appears Paranormal
An Aurora couple has a photo that appears to have a demon in it.
Again from Fox News.

Does your house have ghosts?-CNN

So you are judging media by the stories and the topics they write on, not the quality, accuracy, and honesty. It is far better to prove Szymanski wrong by the quality, accuracy, and honesty of his reports rather than the title of his articles.

 

[Swing Dangler]

My good friend Annie Sprinkle likely ought to have that honor instead of Linda Lovelace (who was her inspiration.)

Couldn't they share the same title? I would have to submit Ginger Lynn into the competition.

 

[Sabrina]

Patriot was first an anti-aircraft system. Circa 1990, a anti-missile capability was in a late state of testing and it was rushed to Israel and the war. Nothing wrong with that.

Patriot made Saddam change his plans and, IMO, it gave Israel a fig leaf of an excuse to not attack Iraq which would have resulted in the collapse of the coalition. Weapons can "work" even if they fail, when used.

Patriot has gone through at least one more generation of upgrade since GW1. and seems to be hitting it's targets in realistic testing for what it is, a point-defense weapon. (The Navy's Standard Missile is doing a good job, too.)

PATRIOT's on the PAC-3 incarnation last I checked, which is a vast improvement over the PAC-2 and other missile designations that I cannot recall at the moment. However, I had also heard a while back that PATRIOT was beginning to be phased out in favor of MEADS; when I left active duty, my brigade was just beginning to undergo the transition to PAC-3, and they were talking about it then as being in the works to transition to MEADS shortly thereafter; this was approximately two years ago. Of course, in the military, shortly can mean anywhere from five months to five years, so as far as I'm aware, PATRIOT is still alive and kicking.