The bookburning begins...

[John Young]

The LA Times report makes fair points but much of the
information being removed from selected repositories is
available elsewhere, as previously discussed here. 

An example is the removal of info on dams and reservoirs. 
That is widely available elsewhere, as shown on Google. 
In particular the Web site of the US Bureau of Reclamation 
(www.usbr.gov) still provides extensive, detailed info on 
dams and reservoirs west of the Mississippi: regional 
and local locational maps, type of dam and construction, 
capacity of reservoir, photos and so on.

Information on nuclear plants, pipelines, infrastructure
is still available at government and industry sites. Some of
this is better than government resources.

The peculiar decision of the Federation of American Scientists
to withdraw files in the national interest has been widely
cited. And perhaps the info was indeed potentially lethal.
But it is also possible that withdrawals are being made for
disinformational and propaganda reasons as always done
in times of national emergencies.

There is a frenzy of release of disinformation by western
governments to reputable media outlets, nearly always without
supporting documentation for readers to independently decide
on its truthfulness. Instead, reputations of the media are being
used to burnish the disinfo, and, wow, are these media egos
delighted at playing the wargame with the Serious and Important 
People. Woodward and Hersh in the US, and a bevy of natsec
luminaries in the UK, are falling all over themselves at putting
out unsupported disinfo fed to them by their governments
and agents of governments.

The charade of the abandoned Al Qaeda documents, the bin
Laden video leaked to The Telegraph, the panic-inducing
disclosures to Woodward, Hersh, Loeb, Gertz, the DoD
calls for terrorism-fighting technologies, Ashforth's
repeated claims of imminent domestic attack, what more
could be done to alarm the populace of the leading nations
needing a big boost for their corrupt intelligence and military
industries? Who better to drive that panic than the complicit
media industries -- news, television, movies, religion, the
stock market.

Declaring information too valuable to be allowed public access
is a continuation of the secrecy industry by other means.
Reporters need not document their reports, just proclaim
the planted documents are bona fide, believe or die, as the
preachers of all faiths scare their flocks.

Thank Minerva none of the cpunk preachers spew that 
reputation capital shit.