Stargazer2006 said:
I can understand the logic when a company requires such permanent silence on their projects to protect against competition... (and even then, protection of patents can only go so far). But when the funding is public, has involved millions of dollars from the taxpayer and the project is permanently shelved, speaking ought to be a civil and moral obligation, if only because the state must be accountable and liable. If money has been misused/mismanaged, it has to be known while the people involved are still around. If anyone thinks different, it means that they gladly accept for their government to conduct research with their money, perhaps make a mess of it, and never get into trouble for it. When 50-year-old programs are still under locks, it's not healthy.
The initial rationale made sense. Imagine if you were to invent the equivalent of nuclear weapons and had a monopoly on that tech, saving it as a silver bullet. Unfortunately that mechanism became too convenient on the Pentagon side, for creating programs with very little oversight or interference. (the two could be construed as one in the same)
On the contractor side, that mechanism is anything but convenient. Ben Rich constantly lamented the baggage of special access programs as did his predecessor Kelly Johnson.
The de-classification problem has gotten so bad that
not even a presidential directive can break up the log jam of classified documents stuck in limbo for decades....