UFOs: the lost battle
UFOs: a lost battle
April 14, 2005
Since yesterday, there are two new things on my website. I have removed several pages from my site, which will now only display the message:
Page deleted on April 13, 2005
Last year, the LEN law or "Digital Economy Law" was passed, in almost total indifference, especially in the written or spoken press. Why? Because the information spread on the Internet represents a competition for them, which is also very dependent on financial powers and political authority. This law silences or tries to silence a web press, and it would not be surprising if this press is not defended by people who are already silenced.
This LEN law leads webmasters of sites to self-censor, and they do so. I did the same. There is no other way to face a new legal arsenal that allows a judge to order the closure of a site on the pretext that this publication "disturbs public order" or "is likely to cause disorders". Yes, France is the only country in the world to have imposed such a law, apart from the People's Republic of China.
People who want to continue to speak, to warn, to "play the role of the Capitol's geese" must therefore maneuver in such a way as not to risk the sudden closure of their site without prior notice. There are already examples.
The traps are also numerous. A few months ago, I received from a "mysterious correspondent", under a pseudonym: + + + + ,+ + + @wanadoo.fr (not bad, in that style), two attachments. They were two photographs, unpublished, showing the spread of the radioactive cloud during the failed nuclear explosion at In Ecker, in the Sahara, at the beginning of the sixties. These documents completed a file I had already installed, referring to this fantastic mistake by the French military, who wanted to imitate their "colleagues" across the Atlantic. In a few words, the French learned that the Americans were now conducting their nuclear tests underground. They did the same by digging a spiral tunnel in a "strongest possible" mountain: granite. The fantastic pressure resulting from the nuclear explosion overcame the "calculated confinement" by the "French military engineers": the metal and concrete plug exploded and an immense cloud covered the mountain, affecting many witnesses, including two ministers. Mesmer revealed this incident in an interview twenty years ago. But another minister present, Gaston Palewski, also affected by radioactive products, contracted cancer shortly after and died (and how many others, as shown in the photographs, standing uncovered, watching the cloud coming towards them). The mistake was to want to confine these gases "by force, in hard material". The Americans had understood from the beginning that the place was to operate in "almost soft" terrain, but at a sufficient depth. By detonating the charge at a depth increasing with the importance of the charge to be tested (in their Nevada test site), a cavity was created, the size of which also depended on the power. The energy was absorbed in an "inelastic" way by the limestone layer covering the explosion. It's a bit like if you wanted to test a grenade and, to keep the explosion debris in place, you placed the explosive on a large number of superimposed sandbags, which would dampen the shock wave produced by the charge's ignition. Indeed, when conducting underground nuclear explosions, the ground rises (sometimes spectacularly for very powerful charges. There were Russian tests in New Zealand, where this rise reached one hundred meters). It is this rising movement that absorbs the energy. In hard rock, there would be cracking and ejection of highly radioactive gases.
The failed In Ecker test belongs to history, like the torture during the Algerian War. Forty years later, it is still being talked about. The corpses are coming to the surface. However, suppose these two photographs of the failed explosion had been lying around in a file of the concerned ministry with the "defense secret" stamp. Who sent me these photos? How did he have access to them?
Of course, forty years later, it no longer matters much. All these facts are known and the production of these two photos would not have changed anything. But suppose it was a maneuver. Then the Ministry of Defense could just bring the case to court by showing these two documents "classified as secret defense since 1961". The court would immediately close the site under the clause "... in the interest of public order, in the needs of national defense" (I have quoted the exact terms). Impeccable.
Therefore, I had to think quickly and remove these photos. You will find the htm page referring to the In Ecker test at the following address:
http://www.jp-petit.com/Divers/Nucleaire_souterrain/in_ecker.htm
You will see that the photos have disappeared.
But it is not easy to "clean" a site that now exceeds 500 megabytes in size. It would be necessary to reread everything, or have it reread by a lawyer, very carefully. And even if these texts had been reread, there could still be a point, forgotten, that could lead to the closure of the site. It is not enough to break the links, as was done in the example above. If the documents remain accessible to the public, and this can be verified by a bailiff, then the offense remains. This was the case until yesterday. Fortunately, it was reported to me by a reader. By dialing
http://www.jp-petit.com/Divers/Nucleaire_souterrain/dessins/in-ecker1.jpg
and
http://www.jp-petit.com/Divers/Nucleaire_souterrain/dessins/in-ecker1.jpg
one could access these photos. I promptly deleted them, not only remotely, but also "locally", on my own hard drive. The law allows for raids and the mere fact of possessing such photos "related to national defense" represents an offense that could lead to the closure of the site and the confiscation of the equipment.
The fact that these two drawings had remained in a forgotten file was reported to me by a reader. I have... some "guardian angels", fortunately for me.
But why remove so many contents from the htm pages from the site? In such cases, it is better to do too much than too little. Anyway, it is not really important, because the battle is definitively lost, at least on this terrain.
What would be the risk? The LEN law offers all possibilities, by playing on the defamatory aspect of certain texts. A formal legal action, or filing a complaint, is even not necessary. It is enough for a person mentioned to send a simple letter saying "in this passage, I consider myself defamed". The closure of the site is then ordered immediately, as a precautionary measure, without the court needing to be involved, and those who know the intricacies of this law know that it has been arranged so that the publication of texts on the web does not benefit from the three months of prescription in force in the written and spoken press (a person defamed has three months to "declare themselves", otherwise their complaint is...