What is the point of supressing images of the WTC falling?

[Hatshepsut]

From a story now on CNN about newly released photos of 9/11:

The aerial photos were obtained by ABC News after it filed a Freedom of Information Act request last year with the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which had collected the images for its investigation into the towers' collapse.

What possible national interest is served by classifying these photos? Seems to me that all it does is support conspiracy theorists - "they are hiding something!"

I feel like I'm missing something here. Can anyone give me a reasonable explanation for this?

[ivan astikov]

Is this related to the still shots taken from police helicopters that I've seen on the news? If so, I was wondering myself why they didn't just release the entire footage, after all, I'm sure they didn't just take a few photos.

[CatInASuit]

I would like to think the answer for holding the images back was in the name of good taste rather than a ghoulish delight in watching all the footage of the towers falling.

However, I doubt it, and it is more likely they were used to try and work out what happened after the event and what they could do in the future.

Of course, we will now get several news stations replaying this over and over as important footage, when all it is likely to do is reopen old wounds.

[Zuul]

I don't know anything about this, but you're right that it's just going to excite conspiracy theorists even more.

[hatesfreedom]

If the photos were classified a Freedom of Information Request wouldn't have returned them, they were likely unclassified and just being kept somewhere for some reason and nobody really thought about it until the request came in. Maybe not, but I can see that being a likely sequence of events at any office I've ever worked at.

[OtakuLoki]

Similar to the point hates brings up: It takes man-hours to release data that is no longer being sequestered for an active investigation. All bureaucracies prefer to spend their available man-hours first in things that they view as being important, or more active. In general this sort of release is going to be the absolute lowest priority for time and money from the administrators, because it's not going to solve any problems the bureaucracy has, it's not (until the FOIA request came in) politically important, and in general there's no benefit to the bureaucracy to releasing these images in a timely manner. As such any tirage list of 'where do I spent my available salary money this quarter' is going to have releasing previously sequestered imagery or documents at the bottom below repainting the peon's bathrooms.

[Orual]

Yeah. Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see how photos being released through the FOIA is evidence of their suppression.

[Tinker]

I think there is probably some boring bureaucratic explanation.

[The Original An Gadaí]

WAKE UP SHEEPLE, IT'S THE SMOKING GUN IN THE MIRROR, IT'S THE MAGICK BULLET! AMERIKKA IS A CHIMERA!

[Zuul]

If the photos were classified a Freedom of Information Request wouldn't have returned them, they were likely unclassified and just being kept somewhere for some reason and nobody really thought about it until the request came in. Maybe not, but I can see that being a likely sequence of events at any office I've ever worked at.

Yeah, this sounds most likely. They hadn't been requested recently, so had been archived somewhere and that was that.

[Hatshepsut]

Okay, that all makes sense: the photos may not have been widely disseminated to begin with simply out of respect, and now it is a bureaucratic effort to dig them out and release them; it isn't that they are really "classified."

Question asked and answered. And another unexciting thread by Hatshepsut dwindles away.....

[Zuul]

Sorry. We need some crazy conspiracy nuts.

[Glazer]

Yeah even the ferret was reasonable. What's up wit dat?

[Revs]

Look, the aerial photos would have clearly shown the missiles(fired from a submarine hiding in the Hudson River) striking the explosives that were planted in the WTC by the Trilateral World Government( the Jews,The Freemasons and the Illuminati), who were under orders from CIA agents that are under the influence of alien mind control.

[Zuul]

Thank you, Revs. You're a good poster.

[Hatshepsut]

Look, the aerial photos would have clearly shown the missiles(fired from a submarine hiding in the Hudson River) striking the explosives that were planted in the WTC by the Trilateral World Government( the Jews,The Freemasons and the Illuminati), who were under orders from CIA agents that are under the influence of alien mind control.

Don't be ridiculous! It was a right-wing conspiracy led by Pat Roberts, because all those New Yorkers are so sinful. Can't you SEE that? It's very obvious to me. (And those recently released pictures just PROVE that I am right, I know they do.)

(You got the alien mind control part right, however - I'll give you points for that.)

[Revs]

That's exactly what they want you to think.

[Tinker]

Look, the aerial photos would have clearly shown the missiles(fired from a submarine hiding in the Hudson River) striking the explosives that were planted in the WTC by the Trilateral World Government( the Jews,The Freemasons and the Illuminati), who were under orders from CIA agents that are under the influence of alien mind control.

It doesn't make sense to hit a target where so many Jews and Freemasons work then.

[ivan astikov]

They were all given coded signs not to go into work that morning. Problem solved.

[beebs]

The tenth anniversary is quickly approaching. Maybe ABC just wanted something so they could advertise that their 9/11 Special Remembrance piece contained new never been seen before photos of the attack.

The government just asked for them to be released early for them so they could be collected and filed under their own collection. In doing so they were also released to the public.

No real devious secretive acts to see here.



ETA: I know "quickly approaching" is still a little under two years, but you get what I mean.

[F-X]

What possible national interest is served by classifying these photos?

That is classified information.

Seems to me that all it does is support conspiracy theorists - "they are hiding something!"

We are hiding a lot of things. Don't ask questions.

I feel like I'm missing something here.

You are.

Can anyone give me a reasonable explanation for this?

Yes, but they would be violating an oath they took.