Last week, Post Apocalyptic Media reported on a Congressman pushing to declassify UAPs after seeing compelling UFO evidence. The House has just approved Rep. Tim Burchett’s amendment, but only after some major changes were made — changes that might limit just how far-reaching the declassification ends up being.
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The House Approved a Proposal to Declassify UAPs
Rep. Tim Burchett filed a proposed amendment to H.R. 2670 (the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024) that would declassify a large number of public UAP sightings. The House of Representatives listed all the filed amendments on its webpage here, but only chose 290 out of the thousands proposed to even consider.
Burchett’s amendment was one of the ones that ultimately passed and is now a part of the NDAA.
As you can see from the listing, the amendment was “Made in Order,” but it was the revised Version 2 that was accepted, not the original version.
Burchett tweeted that he proposed five amendments to the NDAA and two were included, one of them being the UAP declassification amendment.
He added in another tweet, “🚨My UAP amendment will be included in the NDAA. My amendment requires the Department of Defense to declassify any documents and records relating to publicly-known sightings of UAPs that do not compromise the national security of the United States.”
The amended version was approved without debate.
But the Proposal Was Only Approved After These Revisions Were Made
While Burchett’s amendment and efforts at declassification are definitely worthy of appreciation, it’s important to point out that some significant changes (and limitations) were made from the original amendment to the one that ultimately passed.
Here’s the original amendment:
And here’s a look at the revised version that is being included:
And page 2:
Let’s breakdown the changes that were made.
The original version simply began:
“IN GENERAL.—Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Defense shall declassify any documents and other records in the possession of the Department of Defense relating to publicly known sightings of unidentified aerial phenomena.”
The new version changes things up a bit. The first change is that instead of records and documents “in possession of the Department of Defense,” we’re now focusing on “Department of Defense documents” and “Department of Defense records.” It’s not clear what this change might affect. Could the DoD have possession of documents that aren’t technically DoD documents?
“IN GENERAL.—Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Defense shall declassify any Department of Defense documents and other Department of Defense records relating to publicly known sightings of unidentified aerial phenomena…”
But the revision adds this caveat. The declassification only applies to documents:
“that do not reveal sources, methods, or otherwise compromise the national security of the United States.”
Next, there were changes made to the definition of “publicly known sighting of unidentified aerial phenomena.” In the original version, the definition reads:
“a sighting of an of an unidentified aerial phenomenon about which there is information available in the public domain prior to the declassification of documents and records required under subsection (a).”
The new definition is more stringent:
“a sighting of an of an unidentified aerial phenomenon about which there is information available in the public domain prior to the declassification of documents and records required under subsection (a), but does not include United States Government information that was an unauthorized public disclosure.”
So… If there is a public UAP phenomenon, but it was disclosed without authorization from the U.S. government, then it’s exempt from declassification. This exemption feels like it could be very far-reaching.
And finally, one additional change was made. An entirely new section called “Rule of Construction” was added. It reads:
“RULE OF CONSTRUCTION.—Nothing in this section shall require the Secretary of Defense to declassify any information that the Secretary does not already have the authority to declassify under Executive Order 13526, or any successor order.”
That’s an interesting addendum. The Secretary must already have authority to declassify a document, or this amendment won’t apply. Does this mean that the Department of Defense has some documents in its possession that the Secretary does not have the authority to declassify? And if so, why not?
The Changes Might Affect Our Ability to Get Information About the February UFOs
This change definitely adds a limitation to what could be declassified. For example, while the original version seemed like it would definitely declassify everything related to the February UFOs that were shot down, the new version might not apply to them.
We know there is footage of the UFOs that were shot down in February after the Chinese spy balloon was shot down. To this day, the objects are still not identified. But when the Daily Mail requested footage or photos of the three UFOs that were shot down, the Pentagon refused.
“I can tell you that there is not currently any images or video footage that we can release,” a Pentagon press officer reportedly told Daily Mail. “The imagery remains classified, and I have not received any information as to the potential timeline on a change in classification.”
The Daily Mail noted that releasing the footage might pose a “security risk.”
If that’s the case, and the footage reveals some surveillance methods the U.S. has that aren’t publicly disclosed, then the details about those three UFOs might skirt through an exemption and not be declassified. It’s possible that quite a few other incidents could fall under the same exemptions, but only time will tell.
This work by Stephanie Dwilson is licensed under CC BY-ND 4.0
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