http://defensetech.org/2007/09/07/dont-tarnish-the-blues/ The Future of the Military, Law Enforcement and National Security Mon, 22 Mar 2010 12:55:55 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 http://defensetech.org/2007/09/07/dont-tarnish-the-blues/comment-page-1/#comment-166617 Christian Lowe Fri, 07 Sep 2007 18:29:02 +0000 http://deftech.usmilblog.com/?p=3721#comment-166617 ohwilleke, I've actually done a fair amount of stories on JAGMAN reports in my day. Basically what they tend to redact is names, SSNs and medical information from the reports. But since it's up to the staff judge advocate of the command, there's a lot of leeway in the redaction as well. For example, I've had some JAGMANs come to me with the "recommendation" section intact. Others, it was cut out. Sometimes I've had ones with the names of the crew in the report, others without - but it's not so hard to figure out who is who in that situation. It's not so much an issue of endangering the named, insofar as the rules governing FOIA law protect privacy. SJAs are given some leeway to determine how far to go on that...but since the commander often has to sign off on the final report - and sometimes the redacted version - I'm sure PR comes into play as well. In this case, if the cause of the crash is pilot error, think what that would do - in some people's eyes - to the reputation of the Blue Angels. They're not supposed to make mistakes like this and I doubt the command wants that kind of PR problem on their hands. Of course, as a reporter, I believe there's a public good to knowing exactly what happened so we can try and avoid its happening again. ohwilleke,
I’ve actually done a fair amount of stories on JAGMAN reports in my day. Basically what they tend to redact is names, SSNs and medical information from the reports. But since it’s up to the staff judge advocate of the command, there’s a lot of leeway in the redaction as well. For example, I’ve had some JAGMANs come to me with the “recommendation” section intact. Others, it was cut out. Sometimes I’ve had ones with the names of the crew in the report, others without — but it’s not so hard to figure out who is who in that situation. It’s not so much an issue of endangering the named, insofar as the rules governing FOIA law protect privacy. SJAs are given some leeway to determine how far to go on that…but since the commander often has to sign off on the final report — and sometimes the redacted version — I’m sure PR comes into play as well.
In this case, if the cause of the crash is pilot error, think what that would do — in some people’s eyes — to the reputation of the Blue Angels. They’re not supposed to make mistakes like this and I doubt the command wants that kind of PR problem on their hands. Of course, as a reporter, I believe there’s a public good to knowing exactly what happened so we can try and avoid its happening again.

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