Ryan Singel
Security

The Army, Hollywood and the Death of Sunshine

It’s still Sunshine Week, and Danger Room’s Sharon Weinberger adds to 27b’s tale of woe by sharing her tale of a fruitless attempt to get the government to share information on a brainstorming session with Hollywood creative types on possible threat scenarios. Seems the Army thinks doomsday scenarios dreamed up by folks who brought you […]

pentagontint

It's still Sunshine Week, and Danger Room's Sharon Weinberger adds to 27b's tale of woe by sharing her tale of a fruitless attempt to get the government to share information on a brainstorming session with Hollywood creative types on possible threat scenarios. Seems the Army thinks doomsday scenarios dreamed up by folks who brought you Them andMen in Black 12 are too sensitive to be shared.

The Army basically told me to get lost. In fact, it was one of the lengthiest and most detailed FOIA rejections I've ever gotten, thus explaining the large envelope. In four single-spaced typed pages, the Army listed three reasons for not releasing the records, each more ludicrous than the next:

  1. The Hollywood gathering was part a "vulnerability assessment." (...raising the distinctly disturbing possibility that the Army is preparing for an invasion of Mutant Ninja Turtles, which perhaps could explain why we were unprepared for Iraq)

  2. The findings were deliberative, meaning the Army hadn't acted yet on the findings (...begging the question of whether, after four years, they were still waiting for aliens to invade)

  3. Privacy of the participants (...which shouldn't impact releasing the scenarios -- just the the names of participants. But did I mention these were famous Tinseltown writers/directors, and several had even spoken to the press to confirm their attendance at the meeting?)

Full story here. All hails Sunshine Week.