Space Oddity

One gets letters and comments out here in cyberspace, and I've the bad habit of not posting comments I don't consider germane, informed, enlightening, or just plain fun to read.

Sometimes, though, I get one that simply drips with ill-considered disinformation, and sometimes I see their astroturfed spawn all over the internet.

Let's consider this, from a possibly sincere but more likely also paid troll source:

Working for a DoD contractor as I do, I have to point out some of the glaring, baseless and incorrect statements - that contractors hire non-nationals for anything "key" for one. In fact, when it comes to anything classed Secret or above, contractors do not hire non-citizens (as only citizens can hold such clearances), and hiring naturalized citizens of certain backgrounds (Arabs, Russians, etc.) is discouraged, as getting such people clearance is nigh-impossible. Now if you write merely about the use of foreign nationals in lower classifications, then you may be correct. As far as FCS material, everything you see is all promotional, approved for distribution, or regarded as not valuable enough to class higher - unless you're treasonous - for while less important material may be compromised on the internet, anything important is air-gapped from the internet quite stringently. Further, as far as your thoughts are concerned, if the hypothetical American citizen is disturbed by their work, there are plenty of other American engineers who are practical enough to understand war is not merely going away with the actions of diligent peace loving people, merely that such will be slaughtered by those not so inclined. So go thank an imperialist American soldier for protecting your free-speech, or flee to Saudi and avoid the obvious American Third-Reich you believe the US is headed for. Sincerely,

Happily-Working Contractor

That would be fourth reich, as in your branch of government. Saudi Arabia would certainly be the last place anyone concerned about people like you would go to, since Saudi Arabia clearly already owns people like you. In fact, the whole process of private contracting is so corrupt that in Britain government lawyers acknowledge in court that it's helpless to do anything but bow to the wishes Saudi private security contractors like Bandar Bu$h.



As a private contractor, you must be far from a disinterested commentor.

But let me get back to the issue of foreign nationals in sensitive positions.

As a professional scientist with 30 years of experience, let me suggest that the last people to really understand what was sensitive for the good of this country are the people who have stolen the power in this country, be they the administration, the people who suck from the Treasury like yourself, or the shadow government.

You all confuse the issue of your own profit with the commonwealth too frequently, and you have no understanding of what it takes to feed the work force that makes up civilization or the technical expertise to build it.

Dick Cheney has been trying to classify every piece of common knowledge that's floated across his desk for the last 20 years, and if your corporation has been eliminating foreign nationals from what you think are sensitive positions it probably is a good thing for everyone.

Because the kinds of technical innovations that are common knowledge in most scientific and engineering circles are clearly too dangerous to be in your hands.

Fortunately, the people who control Team Xinhua, or the new Brotherhood of the Russias, or the Saudi Royals, are at most as clueless and inept as you are. Generally, their minions I've met are far stupider.

There is something about the drive to power that acts like a frontal lobotomy, and this is a fortunate thing indeed for the human race.

We'll get to the stars, not because of people like you, but in spite of people like you and your neolithic tribal concerns.