Executive Order 10501 – The Devil is in the details!

I always talk about the U.S. Government overstepping its bounds in withholding information from the citizenry.  It is one of my main themes of non-representation in government and the role of a government within a government in our country.  With that in mind I thought that I would post the legal cover for all of this on this website. 

Here is the actual source document that allows this incredibly inclusive information blackout concerning damned near anything with government enforcement legally allowed.

President Eisenhower signed Executive Order 10501 on 5 November 1953 which allows many high ranking employees of the U.S. Government who have original classification authority to classify virtually anything in the interests of the government if it involves national defense issues concerning military, geo-political or geo-economic issues.

And we want to know why we never know anything?  We want to know how the government can do this?

Here is how. 

Read the document when you have time…you know, when the kids get to bed, when you are drinking a cup of coffee or tea after dinner….whenever you have twenty minutes to read it slowly and digest it.

You will find that your government, by Presidential Order in 1953, has taken upon itself the ability, the legal right and the duty to keep whatever information it wishes to keep from you for whatever reason. It answers to no one.  It simply provides an information blackout whenever it desires to do so.

And guess what?  YOU pay the bills. 

You should know that President Kennedy ammended Executive Order 10501 with Executive Order 11097 in which he added sections one and two.  They read as follows:

"SECTION 1. Section 2 of Executive Order No. 10501 of November 5,
1953, as amended by Executive Order No. 10901 of January 9, 1961, and by
Executive Order No. 10985 of January 12, 1962, is hereby further amended
(A) by adding at the end of Subsection (a) thereof "Export-Import Bank of
Washington", "Office of Science and Technology", and "The Special
Representative for Trade Negotiations"; and (B) by deleting from
Subsection (b) thereof "Subversive Activities Control Board."

    SEC. 2. The Export-Import Bank of Washington, the Office of Science
and Technology, and The Special Representative for Trade Negotiations shall
be deemed to have had authority for the original classification of
information and material from the respective dates on which such agencies
were established."

So what is my point?  My point is that your government has the legal right across virtually every significant Executive Branch agency to withhold information from you whenever and however it wishes. It has had that legal right since November 5, 1953.

The upshot of this is that you can never make informed decisions about anything if the data you are using originates with your government.  Your government decides what it is you will know across a broad spectrum of military, political and economic issues.

Welcome to the Real Amerika.  Welcome to reality.

And you want to know why I am so radical?

CWO3 Thomas M. Barnes, USCG (Ret.)