Black Holes

Do you really want to know what's in there?

Well, don't bother looking, even if you do.

"There are certain dark secrets we have to protect," Harold Rogers, R-Ky., told a homeland security conference sponsored by Equity International. The Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC) established earlier this year by presidential order "is designed to do ... what I am saying."

TTIC, a coordinated effort of intelligence agencies and the Homeland Security Department, was placed under the CIA's secret "black" budget. That makes access to operation of the center "very, very limited," Rogers said, and gives oversight to the House Intelligence Committee. "It should be that way for reasons I cannot discuss with you," he said.

Damn! It's so secret he can't even tell us why it needs to be funded that way? Or why access to it needs to be so limited? Is this a joke? I wonder if he followed that up with...."Well, I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you."

So, pretty much all we know is that there is this new secret government organization, secretly funded, designed to protect certain dark secrets. Am I getting this right?

"But use of that information and the routes it travels out of the TTIC is fair game, so we will continue to oversee it."

What does that mean?

Rogers does not expect any additional emergency funding to be approved for Homeland Security this fall, nor does he see a need for it. "We've got a lot of money in the pipeline," especially for "first responders" to emergencies, he said. Congress has approved $21 billion in first-responder funding since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and Rogers' recommendation to states and localities is to apply for the grants. "Ask for it," he said.

Well, hmmm...why are the states complaining about a lack of funding?

Rogers says that much of our security rests on new technology (which has yet to be invented). So, if you're inventing something, keep this in mind as well: that's also a secret.

The Invention Secrecy Act and the Atomic Energy Act are the only statutes that assert a government right to prevent the publication of privately-generated information, a provision that appears to be at odds with the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Secrecy orders imposed on such private inventors are termed "John Doe" orders. Last year, an unusually large 75 of the 133 new secrecy orders were John Doe orders. The nature of these secret inventions could not, of course, be ascertained. Here...read it yourself.

Please, go read this article, and explain it to me better.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.