often said to me that it it enjoyed protocols similar to The Manhattan Project in terms of secrecy um what I found fascinating at the same time along the lines that many of the programs that I came up against in my
the atomic bomb before them then they perhaps had a different name but they really didn't exist because this idea of secrecy came into being um with the Manhattan Project and the interestingthing about Area 51 is that because everything that happens there uh is top secret when it is going on my book is
will when you actually decided to pull the trigger as you know this is a culture that was built from day one on secrecy preservation of our information we were very open as a counterpoint we were very honest we were verytransparent but there was this documented and undocumented kind of alignment that we all shared as early members of the company that we would not
having me it's great to be here it's really fun it's really fun um today what we're going to talk about is State secrecy and kind of blank spots on the maps and these kinds of things we're going to talk about the secret part ofgovernment the secret part of the state that we all live in and this might seem this is a rather
adversaries to reverse engineer technology of non-human origin. And the secrecy around it in the US since the 40s has created a scenario where the scientific community and academia don't even know it's real. They don't even know it's a valid area of inquiry.
technology race. So, then the idea of can't tell your friend without telling your enemy ruled the day. So, now the Cold War mentality, you know, led to more secrecy and as a security wrapper for this this program that it that it started, uh they created the stigma in the late '40s, early '50s. This cultural stigma, this idea that you're crazy if you look into this topic. You're wacky, you'll have your reputation ruined,
very publicly in it, but clearly with permission of my client and and organized with my client. Same thing as when I testify in a court case, there's no secrecy about it. I'm doing it, but it doesn't mean that I'll then do it everywhere. And and so in that case where you did have Jeff's permission, the the background context was there was a newspaper that was going to publish that
It was an amazing triumph. The secrecy was an amazing triumph. My aunt worked at Bletchley Park.
And I think if I remember correctly, the trial of Slobodan Milosevic-- you can go read the trial transcripts. Some secrecy is a good thing.
You have the Amazon Studios executives. in secrecy and shame.
Because it's just so entrenched in their culture to not want to be open. The secrecy is part of it, and their inability to share even things that they need to. And I think that's something that's so deep in Apple's DNA that I'm not sure-- they may try,
of Steve Jobs which is very much a view from the top, I think that the perspective of a junior person, for example, is very valid in understanding how a company actually operates. And secrecy is so important at Apple that people are afraid to deviate from the secrecy . And the hallmark of this is new employee orientation which is every Monday at Apple, except as I was told with a straight face when Monday comes on a holiday.
And they start training them in total secrecy . And when I mean secrecy , I mean secrecy . I mean, they're not even allowed to tell their wives what they are doing.
Thank you for waiting 70 years to tell me that." And the secrecy was an amazing accomplishment. But nobody has ever thought what were the Germans doing?
And I couldn't have imagined how extraordinary her life was, how she triumphed over adversity, her resilience, her courage, her determination, but also her secrecy . I mean, she wanted to be a secret agent all her life.
And most of us are carrying it around in secret. And just the secrecy part of it can be a lingering pain. And so, yeah, Ellery is a mixture of all of these tales.
It gave them access to more, rather than less, relevant data. Because without the secrecy and the logistics of having to collect all the data, they could look at smaller providers. They could get a richer source of data when they weren't collecting all of it.
And so we have a physicist at UCLA named David Saltzburg, who is incredible, and there's a nuclear historian named Alex Wellerstein, who writes exclusively about issues of secrecy and the atomic bomb, and does it really brilliantly. So he helps keep us honest, too.
with near-absolute secrecy , how does a responsible citizenry stop something like weapons that are in a combat theater that
was the secrecy of my private address for security reasons.
highest level of secrecy in the government, even though not everything called top secret really is.
that level of secrecy .
Not because of secrecy , but because I have to find out." Now, VS Naipaul, for those of you who've read him, is a famously cantankerous man.
because of secrecy and wartime division. Even the three groups in the US were on a need to know basis and were not aware of the others' work, they kept very meticulous records, so
hatched in secrecy we didn't even know about it until it was leaked in 2004 and
about trying to understand something that is being hidden from us how can we go about seeing absences right seeing secrecy in a sense and I would submit to you that
and people are unbelievably self-contradictory things right working in secrecy is it can be very very alienating this imagine having a job where you can't go back to your family in the evening and say what you did that day in some cases you can't
having to plan this in full secrecy like, like a war game.
- So maybe we know that they value secrecy . I mean, when you're afraid of the outside world, part of that is confidentiality. They all sign NDAs.
There's a lot of reasons. I mean, certainly the, you know, the idea that we can't tell our friends without telling our enemies has been a driver. To just to recap the reasons for secrecy , I I I actually believe it it's better to kind of start from the beginning. When this When when in 1947, there was a crash at Roswell of non-human origin
And they select them through an even more rigorous process. And they select them in total secrecy . And they start training them in total secrecy .
And they select them in total secrecy . And they start training them in total secrecy . And when I mean secrecy , I mean secrecy .
They can't tell their families anything at all. So they start training in absolute secrecy . So you have two sets of gladiators, the American hotshot, right-stuff, famous, rock-star, celebrity pilots on the one hand,
And the third condition is secrecy --
Or now it's called the National Secrecy something or other.
And then they're selling secrecy .
So if your business is selling secrecy , and you do see that there have been several leaks in this field, well, you
Amazon is famous for its secrecy levels, really crazy levels of secrecy .
Just a big battle over secrecy and privacy and anonymity online.
government wants by way of secrecy , and what the press wants in the sense of getting information that they can
pike. The rest of the company was not invited to the meeting and would not be exposed. One of the fascinating elements of this secrecy that I've learned, the sales people at Apple are particularly frustrated because they don't find out about what's going on at the company in terms of new products any sooner than the rest of us do.
for this integration through sheer force of brutal will and that that will be far more difficult after he's gone, with him gone. Is it part of the culture of secrecy that intends a white male to become a top of top manager versus --
of the effect of government secrecy . This, of course, is Alan Turing. Now by
factory right it's got to be made out of the same stuff and one of the physical properties of matter is that it reflects light right so right there secrecy is bound to fail right you just you can't make something disappear really so secrecy is the project of trying to make a fundamentally visible World
light right so right there secrecy is bound to fail right you just you can't make something disappear really so secrecy is the project of trying to make a fundamentally visible World disappear and and I think that from that originary contradiction all sorts of other contradictions arise and if you're
and not someone that's a rebel in secrecy .
Yeah And then they had to swear each other to secrecy for about a week while they did more experiments, to really check they knew what was happening.
So they're that paranoid and that protective of their secrets. Yeah. And did this secrecy versus kind of the mass transparency that the US was employing, did that impact how the risk trade-offs were considered by the space programs and the things that they were going through?
And there's a ton of stigma and secrecy and shame that surrounds these visits.
And interestingly enough, the secrecy of the work that they're doing prevents either of them from talking about code breaking or cryptography,