There seems to be a lot of confusion on the sub surrounding this, so I humbly present my interpretation of it to explain how AARO don’t really have Title 50 access and how it would be easy to deny them access to the juicy stuff.
Background
First a brief description as to what the 10/50 debate is about.
Essentially there is an intelligence divide between the military (title 10) and the intelligence services (title 50) and this goes back to the formation of the CIA and later amendments to congressional oversight legislation from the 70’s and 80’s.
Congress has always had the power to direct title 10 organisations such as readying the army and so on but initially there was zero congressional oversight of the intelligence services. Later amendments meant that any action deemed as covert must first be reported to and approved by congress before being actioned.
This is not true for activities deemed as clandestine. As far as I know, there is still effectively zero oversight for clandestine activity in cases where the is no imminent threat.
In the event of military action there is an overlap between Defense and Intelligence services that enables the sharing of certain clandestine information that is relevant to the DoD in the interests of the need for imminent national defense. I believe if the threat is not imminent the DoD has no need to know and will not be informed.
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R45175/5
Because of this large parts of the intelligence service believe that most of the time Congress has no right to oversight and their justification of this is national security and plausible deniability.
https://www.harvardnsj.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2012/01/Vol-3-Wall.pdf
AARO’s Statements regarding access
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFmbMG6nKU4&t=2414s
We are currently operating under title 10 authorities but having additional authorities for collection tasking, counter intelligence authorities, those are all things that would be helpful, yes.
Notice Kirkpatrick’s “oh, shit” face at the end there. This is important.
AARO, as designed by Congress, had unprecedented access to classified programs. Nobody blocked where we could go or the questions we asked. Nobody in the government influenced the findings in the report. As a career Intel officer, I am just amazed at the access we had to some of our nation’s most sensitive programs. Nobody said no.
Greenstreet’s Kirkrpatrick Interview
Were you ever denied access to anything while preparing this report?
Kirkpatrick: No.
Did you have Title 10 and Title 50 authorities
Kirkpatrick: Y-… Yes.
https://documents2.theblackvault.com/documents/osd/24-F-0266.pdf
The title 50 authorities we [don’t] have are for Cl purposes, not taking in information.
DOJ has to release it since it’s part of a criminal investigation.
All-I did speak with the DoDIG. They went on my behalf to the ICIG to request the classified transcript. The ICIG declined to acquiesce to my request.
On the face of it many of those claims seem to be at odds with one another. But we’ll now dig in to the law and straighten this out, showing that they actually aren’t.
The Law
https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/7900/text
SEC. 1663. UNIDENTIFIED AERIAL PHENOMENA REPORTING PROCEDURES.
(a) Authorization for Reporting.–Notwithstanding the terms of any
written or oral nondisclosure agreement, order, or other
instrumentality or means, that could be interpreted as a legal
constraint on reporting by a witness of an unidentified aerial
phenomena, reporting in accordance with the system established under
subsection (b) is hereby authorized and shall be deemed to comply with
any regulation or order issued under the authority of Executive Order
13526 (50 U.S.C. 3161 note; relating to classified national security
information) or chapter 18 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 (42 U.S.C.
2271 et seq.).
An authorised person is described as someone who witnesses a UAP. Should someone witness a UAP they are then able to testify to AARO regarding their experience without fear of reprisal. The following sections go on to detail how the AARO system should work, that they should be able to act upon and store or share any UAP-related information including details of crash retrieval programs. The law is clear that AARO are very well protected regarding information that they receive which is why I haven’t quoted the rest of it.
This piece of legislation offers no protection to those who have not personally witnessed a UAP and would offer no protection to someone who has knowledge of retrieved craft and the program that retrieved them but hasn’t actually seen them.
It is likely testable in court, but I wouldn’t like to be the one testing it.
Title 50 tie-in
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/3373
The above details AARO’s level of access in much the same way as the first piece of legislation in that whatever they receive is legal and also details the day-to-day running of the office. There are some interesting things in there however such as this:
(d) Response to and field investigations of unidentified anomalous phenomena(1) Designation
The Secretary of Defense and the Director of National Intelligence shall jointly designate from within their respective organizations an official, to be under the direction of the Director of the Office, responsible for ensuring the appropriate expertise, authorities, accesses, data, systems, platforms, and capabilities are available for the rapid response to, and support for, the conduct of field investigations of incidents involving unidentified anomalous phenomena.
They are supposed to have someone with the ability to answer Grusch’s questions regarding authorities. So why was that not done at the level expected?
(1) Availability of data and reporting on unidentified anomalous phenomena(A) Availability of data
The Director of National Intelligence, in coordination with the Secretary of Defense, shall ensure that each element of the intelligence community with data relating to unidentified anomalous phenomena makes such data available immediately to the Office.
(i) Detailees from elements of the intelligence community
The heads of the Central Intelligence Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the Department of Energy, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, the intelligence elements of the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Marine Corps, and the Coast Guard, the Department of Homeland Security, and such other elements of the intelligence community as the Director of the Office considers appropriate may provide to the Office a detailee of the element to be physically located at the Office.
Other offices are supposed to send relevant information to them along with a person to help process the information.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/3373b
(a) Mechanism for authorized reporting
(1) EstablishmentThe Secretary of Defense, acting through the head of the Office and in consultation with the Director of National Intelligence, shall establish a secure mechanism for authorized reporting of—(A)any event relating to unidentified anomalous phenomena; and
(B)any activity or program by a department or agency of the Federal Government or a contractor of such a department or agency relating to unidentified anomalous phenomena, including with respect to material retrieval, material analysis, reverse engineering, research and development, detection and tracking, developmental or operational testing, and security protections and enforcement.
Sounds good. It looks like they legally have access to everything they need.
(a) Mechanism for authorized reporting (1) Establishment
The Secretary of Defense, acting through the head of the Office and in consultation with the Director of National Intelligence, shall establish a secure mechanism for authorized reporting of—
(A)any event relating to unidentified anomalous phenomena; and
(B)any activity or program by a department or agency of the Federal Government or a contractor of such a department or agency relating to unidentified anomalous phenomena, including with respect to material retrieval, material analysis, reverse engineering, research and development, detection and tracking, developmental or operational testing, and security protections and enforcement.
It is important to note authorised reporting and an authorised person is not defined under Title 50 legislation, the definition is circular.
Hopping back to 3373 we find this:
(4) Instances in which data was not shared
For each briefing period, the Director of the Office shall jointly provide to the chairman or chair and the ranking member or vice chairman of the congressional committees specified in subparagraphs (A) and (D) of subsection (n)(1) an enumeration of any instances in which data relating to unidentified anomalous phenomena was not provided to the Office because of classification restrictions on that data or for any other reason.
This is proof AARO does not have full title 50 access. This is because, as Kirkpatrick quite rightly said AARO is not accessed to CI information, which is the proceeding section of law in code 50. Lets take a look.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/3381
(c) Membership
The membership of the National Counterintelligence Policy Board shall consist of the following:
(1)The Director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center.(
2) Senior personnel of departments and elements of the United States Government, appointed by the head of the department or element concerned, as follows:
(A)The Department of Justice, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
(B)The Department of Defense, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
(C)The Department of State.
(D)The Department of Energy.
(E)The Central Intelligence Agency.
(F)Any other department, agency, or element of the United States Government specified by the President.
There we have it. AARO is not entitled to any information deemed relating to Counter Intelligence from any of the above agencies or departments regardless of access or classification level where the information relates to threats from a foreign power which would naturally include NHI and all it’s related facets should they be deemed a threat.
This is why Kirkpatrick was denied Grusch’s testimony and likely why they won’t be given the video from Eglin AFB. If it doesn’t look like a national threat from a foreign entity it can be provided. If it does, it will not. AARO will only investigate balloons and other “boring” cases. They aren’t entitled to anything else.
submitted by /u/Strange-Owl-2097
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