The Y2K Newswire Fact Sheet on the Leaked Navy Documents

Folks, the Washington spin machine is about to go into "full spin cycle" on these Navy documents. You're going to see the whole thing relentlessly attacked. To get ready for this spin job, prepare yourself with the following facts:

FACT #1: Our government sat on this information and made no effort to make it available to the American people. That's what we mean when we say the information was "kept hidden from the public." It doesn't mean the document had to be stamped "top secret." It just means they HAD the information and they SAT on it. This inaction in inexcusable. In fact, it is negligent.

FACT #2: Just because the documents were buried somewhere on a Navy web site doesn't mean they were easily reachable by the public. For example, Y2K Newswire has many, many documents filed under the main web site but not linked from the main page. Unless you know the FILE NAME of the document, you can't get to it (even though we could still claim they are "publicly available"). That's why these Navy documents stayed secret for so long: nobody knew they were there and the U.S. government sure didn't go out of its way to tell anybody about them!

FACT #3: The Y2K deniers first called this a hoax. But when John Koskinen verified the authenticity of the documents, suddenly the Y2K deniers switched arguments. "Okay, they're real now, but they don't mean anything."

FACT #4: Y2K Deniers are now attacking the report by suggesting -- with no evidence to back this up, by the way -- a worst-case rating was the "default" and that ratings were only eased as information became available. Apparently, they think all utilities should be marked as "compliant" unless they tell you they're not. In this way, Y2K Deniers are assuming, once again, that you should wholeheartedly trust every utility company that issues some kind of rosy-sounding press release (but refuses to document their Y2K compliance status). To Y2K "pollys," no news is good news. NO INFORMATION = FULL COMPLIANCE, apparently.

FACT #5: The U.S. Navy is now engaged in wholesale damage control. Watch for more news announcements denying everything. They'll say things like, "We expect everything to be fine." This is the REACTION to the news, not the news. Of course they have to control the spin on this. All of a sudden, with this story breaking, people are learning the truth about Y2K.

FACT #6: Y2K Newswire does not know the identity of the Navy person who leaked these documents (thank God), but we do know that "heads will roll!" in the search to find the courageous person who leaked it.

FACT #7: The AP did their homework on this story. Two thumbs up to the Associated Press' Ted Bridis who actually did the research and ran with a story that every other news organization would have called "kooky."

Y2K Newswire's coverage of this important breaking news continues through the weekend and into next week. Stay tuned...

View each day's Y2K headlines at the site: http://www.y2knewswire.com (Updated at various times throughout each day.)

-- Jean Wasp (jean@sonic.net), August 21, 1999