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From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Re: Paranoia
Message-ID: <6430@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 25-Feb-86 12:22:46 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.6430
Posted: Tue Feb 25 12:22:46 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 25-Feb-86 12:22:46 EST
References: <860222000126.1.BATALI@RICKY.AI.MIT.EDU>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 31

> I'm sure that there are people working for NASA on this mailing list.
> Are there people at the Marshall Space Flight Center?  What about Morton
> Thiokol?  If so, why haven't we heard from them?  ...
> 
> I'll tell you why we haven't heard from them -- because they have been
> told not to say anything.  The paper movers are covering their asses.
> NASA would prefer that the accident be an engineering mistake rather
> than a management one.

Don't be silly.  You'll find the same behavior after, say, a major air
crash, even when there is no possibility of a "coverup".  The reason that
everyone is keeping quiet is because everyone is scared to death of the
US's litigation-crazy lawyers.  Nobody wants to get sued.  Or fired for
exposing their employer to a possibility of being sued.  I believe there
has already been at least one incident of somebody getting fired for talking
out of turn to the press.  (Incidentally, he was *not* exposing a "coverup";
he was simply shooting off his mouth to the effect that it couldn't possibly
have been his company's fault, and pointing the finger at somebody else,
at a time when he couldn't possibly have had the evidence to justify such
an accusation.)

This is quite apart from the obvious fact that most of the people who
might comment clearly realize that they do not have complete information,
and hence could not present a complete story without making a lot of
possibly-incorrect assumptions.

Protecting the innocent generally takes priority over finding the guilty.
(This is not to say that there aren't some guilty parties to be found.)
-- 
				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry