Just read the several NY Times articles on him and his doings. Of Otis Airforce Base at the root of Cape Cod. Of his home town, Dighton. All close to home. I grew up 40 miles north of Dighton off the same road that runs from Boston to Fall River; an early industrial city. I spent a college summer living in Pocasset, the Cape side of Buzzards Bay and working directly across the bay. 5 miles by boat which I sailed once and 25 by road. In typical college oblivion to the huge, hidden air base a hop and a skip form Pocasset other than uniformed men and camouflage vehicles being common. I find this whole affair pretty sick. Question after question. Why is "Top Secret" so common that just about anyone can achieve it? How does one move up in the military and never get the word on the importance of keeping secrets? How can anyone with any level of patriotism violate their orders and the trust put in them so blatantly? (He was IT tasked with keeping secrets safe from hackers and foreign agents. He took the info he didn't even have to hack to get and put it on a near public server where this info was quickly disseminated to the world at large.) I see these issues as running through the entire chain of command. Any general allowing this level of crap to happen simply isn't doing his job. Perhaps I am skewed in my expectations. My dad kept the secrets he was entrusted with. I didn't learn until his service 13 years ago that he was in on the very early development of the starlight scope that revolutionized night combat in Vietnam. He brought those drawing home to check. And we were never allowed to go into his study. (He had degrees in electronics and physics, specializing in optics from MIT and worked for a couple of post WW2 defense companies in the '50s and '60 so really, not a great surprise.) The idea that you kept what was given to you in confidence secret? Well, that's just what we did. |