I know you will think im lying, but I grew up with someone who is now a member of the US Senate. I recently made contact with him after about a decade, and we entered a conversation about are lives. I asked him/her how they liked they liked being a senator, they told me that they might resign, because of wide spread corruption. Him/her told me that the government is not working together, and that it seems like it will all fall apart soon. He/she then told me an interesting story that him/her said was going around in the upper levels of the government. About how recently appointed U.S secretary of state condoleezza rice was denied some 'top secret' info. He/she told me that the day she was sworn into office she had a talk with Donald Rumsfeld (secretary of defense). Condy then asked to be briefed about current US defense projects (namely top secret ones pertaining to operations in Area 51). As the story goes Rumsfeld supposedly laughed and said something like (you dont need to know that now and you probably never will). Condy was outraged and demanded to be briefed stating that she had a right to knowas a member of the presidents cabinent. Rumsfeld responded that she would never know and to drop it. Condy fired back yelling that she would release what little she did know as a national security advisor to the media. Rumsfeld said for her to be quiet if she wanted to keep her position and said that if she did tell she would be quitely assassinated and all the american public would know is something like "she had a sudden heart attack" or that "she died in a car accident". Him/her also said that even the presidents knowledge is limited on certain government affairs and that he is not exempt from the "need to know" policy. my question is who knows what and who doesn't know what.

Interesting.........uhm.....
Anybody care to wade in here?

Wonder why Rumsfield didn't just brief her on what he wanted her to know, leaving out certain aspects. Apperently, she knew enough to ask the right questions.

Of course, this could all be BS. Not trying to dis.
I'd like to hear more.

Being the National Security Advisor I am sure she had quite a clearance.

Originally posted by ignorance is a plenty
Being the National Security Advisor I am sure she had quite a clearance.

Assuming this post is real - which is probably a stretch - It's all about need to know. For example, there are tons of people with Top Secret clearances - but only a few ever get access to SIOP (nuclear war plan) info because they have no need to know.

I'm sure there are places even the Pres. doesnt have access. Like the above poster said, The government is all about need to know and if your job is not directly affected by such things then you will not be privy to them.

[edit on 17-2-2005 by LunaBug]

Has anyone ever heard the story between George H.W. Bush and a senior aid asking him about ufo's.

It went something like:

Senior Aid: Are UFO's present here on earth/ Do they exist?
Bush: You dont even know the half of it

Does this sound familiar at all? I could have sworn I heard it somewhere like the history channel.

[edit on 17-2-2005 by Event Horizon]

Strange Story, but possible! As it been stated before, need to know is the fondation of the whole system. Even Rumsfeld doesn't know everything that goes on in the Department of Defense. The people with the most access are the people in Counterintelligence, and even they are limited in there access to things.

Bottom Line is this: NO Individual or Small Group knows everything! This limitation is there so loss of one person, or a single Traitor can never comprmise everything we have. The only way to get the whole story, is to get every individual in the world with a US issued Security Clearance, and that's impossible! The president is one of the people with the least access of all. The only President who had higher level access was George H.W. Bush, and he knew a lot because he is a retired Director of Central Intelligence, but even he was limited in his access!

Tim
ATS Director of Counter-Ignorance