Friday, July 17, 2009

FOIA & ROBERT TODD : QUESTIONS

Todd, cont. (see earlier entry):
Todd, along with Klass and Pflock, access military files of such depth (200 pages) they include evaluations, despite this being a clear violation of the US Privacy Act of 1974. This act requires written permission from the living veteran before such records could be obtained.

Nowhere is there any record of Marcel providing this written permission. A lawyer was asked “which would take precedence in a conflict between a FOIA request and the Privacy Act?” Marcel died in 1987 and this Privacy Act is the same law that insures that the US Census Records are not made public until 75 years after the fact.

Therefore, the records of Marcel’s military service should have been sealed for the same period. The National Archives Personnel Division has enough trouble just fulfilling the requests for ordinary servicepersons records (a fire destroyed many, many such records in the early 1970’s). Hundreds of families doing research into their own family find that the records of their veterans service has to be cobbled together from tiny facts gleaned from insurance records or other duplications. They are often merely entry-exit dates, location of service, and grade of service. Interestingly enough, the USAF has a website devoted to the Privacy Act.

I COULD HAVE BEEN A CONTENDER
Somethings really make a person go, huh? Robert Todd discovers the real cause of the largest and most culturally relevant UFO case in the later part of the 20th century and he “discarded most of his files”? He doesn’t publish in “mainstream” media. He doesn’t get a book deal. He had invested a large part of his life, so Klass said, to the search for just such truth and resolution of mystery. Yet…he discards it. This goes against human nature in so many ways and underscores the mystery surrounding this portion of the bizarre history of UFOs.

No comments: