Why Trump & GOP Can't Assume Information Can Be Declassified Without Knowing Why It Was Classified

[Towlie]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by DonViejo (a host of the The DU Lounge forum).

One of Rachel Maddow's guests recently explained this with a rather strange and frivolous-sounding example involving eating Nutella with a red spoon, but I've dreamed up a more serious and hopefully improved explanation. This involves The Battle of Midway.

Admiral Nimitz had one priceless advantage: US cryptanalysts had partially broken the Japanese Navy's JN-25b code. Since early 1942, the US had been decoding messages stating that there would soon be an operation at objective "AF". It was initially not known where "AF" was, but Commander Joseph Rochefort and his team at Station HYPO were able to confirm that it was Midway: Captain Wilfred Holmes devised a ruse of telling the base at Midway (by secure undersea cable) to broadcast an uncoded radio message stating that Midway's water purification system had broken down. Within 24 hours, the code breakers picked up a Japanese message that "AF was short on water." No Japanese radio operators who intercepted the message seemed concerned that the Americans were broadcasting uncoded that a major naval installation close to the Japanese threat ring was having a water shortage, which could have tipped off Japanese intelligence officers that it was a deliberate attempt at deception.

This was depicted in the 1976 movie, Midway. An order was given to the radio operator to send a message that Midway's water system was broken. Here's the quote from the movie:

Officer on Midway: Send this right away.

Pvt. Dombrowski: Hey chief what's this?

[a message saying that Midway's pure water condenser is malfunctioning]

Pvt. Dombrowski: There ain't nothing wrong with our pure water condenser. I was just over there.

Officer on Midway: [annoyed] Dombrowski, *send it*!

Pvt. Dombrowski: [baffled] I think the goddamn *heat's* gettin' to *everybody* here!

[sends the message]

And now for the point:

Imagine that Pvt. Dombrowski was told that the fact that Midway's water system was functioning properly was classified.

Imagine that, like Trump and the Republicans, Pvt. Dombrowski figured that "the goddamn *heat's* gettin' to *everybody* here" and that it was stupid and unnecessary for that information to be classified, and he therefore decided to send a radio message to the folks back home that everything was fine on Midway Island.

And imagine that Pvt. Dombrowski's message had been intercepted by the Japanese, who then realized that the water system failure was a deliberate attempt at deception.

This is why it was totally irresponsible for the Republican Congress to release classified information without knowing why it was classified, just because it didn't appear to them to be worthy of classification. There could easily have been reasons that weren't immediately obvious.

[DonViejo]

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