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by pseudohadamard 134 days ago
Was this really that secret? I've known about JUMPSEAT for at least 20 years and I'm not a US citizen, nor do I have any kind of security clearance. Not sure where the information was published, maybe one of James Bamford's books, but there's nothing terribly new there apart from the USG finally acknowledging what we already knew.
2 comments
sizzzzlerz 133 days ago
Knowing that some classified program exists is one thing. Knowing technical details, capabilities, missions, targeting, is a whole nother. One can read about such black programs from a number of sources, Bamford's Puzzle Palace is one. Sontag's Blind Man's Bluff is another. You can also learn about such things from books and newspaper articles about people who revealed secret information to the Soviet Union, Chris Boyce, Aldrich Ames, Robert Hanssen, and the Walker Family. In other words, nothing is truly secret if you know where to look and have a ability to piece together disparate facts to build up a more complete picture.
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pseudohadamard 133 days ago
"Blind Man's Bluff" was a really impressive piece of work, I once talked about it with someone who was involved with the program and he was astounded at how much Sontag had managed to find out. There were things in the book that he didn't even know about, because they were compartmentalised and Sontag wasn't.
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Biggbboattttt 134 days ago
Interesting point! I think a lot of the secrecy around programs like JUMPSEAT is more about official acknowledgment than actual hidden knowledge so what’s been publicly available for years suddenly becomes ‘news’ once the government confirms it. James Bamford’s work definitely made a lot of this info accessible to the public, so it makes sense that someone could know about it without clearance.
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pseudohadamard 133 days ago
I've had a quick look and it's mentioned in a number of places, Matthew Aid's "The Secret Sentry" mentions it briefly, Bamford has a page or two in "Body of Secrets", and for honorable mention Jeffrey Richelson's "Wizards of Langley" doesn't have it but does cover the entire KH series across a span of around 250 pages. It may be in a few more books but it'd be a pile to go through.
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