Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman
The United States has
plenty of big, dark secrets, but we don't usually think of the
individual states as having them. Nevertheless, many of them do and,
in their own ways, theirs are as mysterious or as macabre as those of
the country itself. From secret agents to animal abuse, from a
sterilization program to environmental contamination, from the
suppression of reports of disease to the disparagement of state
police, these 10 dirty secrets of US states are, by turns, bizarre,
shocking, deplorable, and alarming, but always intriguing.
10 Alaska's Secret Agents
In a secret memorandum dated September 6, 1951, the US Air Force notified FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover about Project Washtub, an operation in which the federal government would train ordinary Alaskan citizens to become secret agents. Comprised of fishermen, “bush pilots,” trappers, and other individuals, the cadre of “citizen-agents” would subsist on supplies hidden at various locations around the state.
“In hiding,” the agents would relay intelligence concerning the movement of Russian troops who might drop bombs and paratroopers into Alaska during the Cold War Era. Recruiters offered “retainer fees of up to $3,000 a year” (over $30,393 in today's dollars), and the amount would double after the invasion began.
In October 1954, a coded message arrived in Anchorage, sent by an anonymous person in Fairbanks. FBI code breakers were unable to crack the code, but they determined the mysterious communication was a “practice message” from one of Alaska's Washtub agents. (LINK 1)-
9 California's Secret Sterilization Program
Between 2006 and 2010, 150
women in the state's correctional facilities were sterilized without
informed consent, and more had been subjected to tubal ligation
procedures from 1997 onward. Although it cost the state almost
$150,000 to sterilize female inmates between 1997 and 2010, a Bay
Area physician contended the cost was cheap compared to the amount
the state would “save in welfare paying for . . . unwanted
children” as the women “procreated more.”
On September 27, 2014, California's Governor Jerry Brown signed into law a bill forbidding the involuntary sterilization of prison inmates. The bill's author, Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson, said “pressuring” female inmates to agree to sterilization “without informed consent” constituted a “human rights” violation. (LINK 2)
On September 27, 2014, California's Governor Jerry Brown signed into law a bill forbidding the involuntary sterilization of prison inmates. The bill's author, Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson, said “pressuring” female inmates to agree to sterilization “without informed consent” constituted a “human rights” violation. (LINK 2)
8 Florida's Suppression of
Tuberculosis Epidemic
In 2012, Florida health officials suppressed news about the worst outbreak of tuberculosis it had investigated in two decades. The disease spread from Jacksonville to Miami. Not only was the public kept in the dark about the epidemic, but state legislators also were not notified. Victims were mostly “poor black men.” Three thousand people may have been infected by the disease by having made contact with individuals in “homeless shelters, a mental health clinic, and Jacksonville area jails.”
Worse yet, in 2008, health officials also suppressed information about an outbreak of the same strain of tuberculosis among residents of an “assisted-living home.” The fact that “only two-thirds of the active cases were directly linked to Jacksonville's homeless and mentally ill” indicated the disease had entered the “general population,” and the strain of tuberculosis could become resistant to antibiotics. (LINK 3)
7 Maryland's Secret
Highway Statistic
As Buarque de Macedo, 52, made a left turn at an intersection of the four-lane state road he and his family were traveling on their way to watch a school play, a BMW traveling 115 miles per hour in a 45-mile-per-hour zone broadsided their Chevy Volt. The BMW's driver, Ogulcan Atakoglu, 20, killed de Macedo, his 53-year-old wife, and their 18-year-old son. Only the de Macedo's 15-year-old daughter survived, although she suffered “substantial injuries.”
The horrific crash underscored the need for the type of statistics Richard Boltuck had sought from Maryland for eight years. He believed a left-turn traffic light was warranted at the intersection near his residence in Bethesda, Maryland, but the state disagreed. To challenge its determination, Boltuck and some neighbors requested statistics about the intersection. Maryland officials stonewalled them, citing “a little-known provision of federal law” allowing the state to deny such requests.
A Maryland administrative law judge backed the state, afraid someone might use the statistics Boltuck and his neighbors requested to “sue the state for failing to fix the intersection.” Despite the eight years of legal wrangling and the judge's decision, Maryland officials finally did release some of the statistics, although they were incomplete. In addition, bowing to public pressure, Maryland officials ultimately agreed to install a flashing light at the intersection, although, to date, they have failed to do so. (LINK 4)
6 Texas' Secret Explosive
Storage Sites
No one knew of the policy change until a television news affiliate requested information from the state about an ammonia nitrate fire at an Athens, Texas, storage site and were told they couldn't have it. In refusing the request, officials cited Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott's ruling that such information is “confidential” because its release could jeopardize security.
Critics said the public would benefit if such information were released, rather than suppressed. Sean Moulton, of the Center for Effective Government, argued, “Deciding where they might live, where they send their kids to school, where they work” is important to Texans, and “this kind of information needs to be in the public hands so they can make the most informed decisions.” (LINK 5)
5 New York's Secret Police
Misconduct
Although
Jo'Anna Bird had a protective order against her ex-boyfriend,
Leonardo Valdez-Cruz, police failed to enforce it properly. As a
result, Valdez-Cruz first tortured and then killed Bird. The night
before a news conference at which Bird's attorney planned to discuss
a report on the misconduct of the police, Nassau County Attorney John
Ciampoli “demanded the report be sealed at the behest of the Police
Benevolent Association,” leaving no way for Bird's attorney to
challenge the officers' conduct. According to Ciampoli, he'd had no
choice in ordering the document to be sealed. A 1976 law required
police personnel records be kept secret, even in investigations of
alleged misconduct.
The same law has protected New York police from investigations of many other incidents of alleged serious misconduct, including police brandishing a gun in a Farmington bar, the shooting of a cab driver in Huntington by intoxicated off-duty officers, the shooting of a Selden man in his home, and a Nassau police officer's spending his shifts at his mistress' home, sleeping there between sessions of sex. In effect, the law allows New York police to engage in serious misconduct without fear of discipline or punishment, either by their own departments or by local or state courts. (LINK 6)
4 Pennsylvania's Secret Plants
Restaurants and foreign governments are among the black market customers seeking to buy Pennsylvania's rare plants. To frustrate would-be thieves, Bedford County lists the sought-after species only as “unnamed due to special protection.” Hidden in eight secret locations throughout the state, the plants are very valuable, and a few are nearly extinct. Among them are rare orchids and ginseng.
The same law has protected New York police from investigations of many other incidents of alleged serious misconduct, including police brandishing a gun in a Farmington bar, the shooting of a cab driver in Huntington by intoxicated off-duty officers, the shooting of a Selden man in his home, and a Nassau police officer's spending his shifts at his mistress' home, sleeping there between sessions of sex. In effect, the law allows New York police to engage in serious misconduct without fear of discipline or punishment, either by their own departments or by local or state courts. (LINK 6)
4 Pennsylvania's Secret Plants
Restaurants and foreign governments are among the black market customers seeking to buy Pennsylvania's rare plants. To frustrate would-be thieves, Bedford County lists the sought-after species only as “unnamed due to special protection.” Hidden in eight secret locations throughout the state, the plants are very valuable, and a few are nearly extinct. Among them are rare orchids and ginseng.
Ginseng is most wanted. It grows in the state's Appalachian Mountains and is cultivated in “forested farmlands.” Although state law prohibits ginseng's removal from the forested farmlands, thieves harvest it, nevertheless, often trespassing on private property to steal it from farmlands. Part of the problem is that theft is not punished severely or even adequately. Poachers are usually fined $25, despite having stolen thousands of dollars' worth of ginseng. (LINK 7)
3 Vermont's Secret Police
Disparagement
Vermont's disparagement of
its own state police isn't intentional. It's the result of the
state's naive trust in its prison inmates, or, as officials prefer to
put it, a failure of “quality control at the Vermont Correctional
Industries Print Shop in St. Alban.” As a result, among the
standard images of cow, evergreen tree, snowy mountains, river, and
“three unidentifiable creatures” somewhat resembling a cross
between bear cubs and chipmunks, the state seal, used as an emblem on
police cars, features the image of a pig. The term “pig” has long
been used as a derogatory reference to police. In the inmates'
version of the seal, the pig is a pink silhouette appearing as one of
the cow's spots.
In 2008, an inmate at the
Northwest State Correctional Facility accessed the file containing
the image of the state seal and changed one of the spots on the cow
to resemble a porcine shape. Unaware of the prank, the state police
ordered 16 decals bearing the seal, each at a cost of $780. Sixty of
the modified seals are thought to have been made. Although the state
had an unintentional role in the prank, the altered seals were a
state secret for the simple reason that Vermont officials didn't know
about it until it was too late. (LINK 8)
2 Wyoming's Secret Bovine Fecal Contamination
2 Wyoming's Secret Bovine Fecal Contamination
Fed up with cows defecating in Wyoming's streams and rivers, a group of non-profit volunteers, members of the Western Watershed Project, began to measure and report cattle contamination in the form of “manure pathogens” to the state, which can limit cows from roaming particular areas of public lands. The volunteers' work displeased ranchers, because, to reach federal land on which cows sometimes graze, the volunteers have to trespass on the ranchers' property.
As a result of the ranchers' complaints, Wyoming passed an anti-trespassing law, making non-government organizations' collection of “environmental data on behalf of the government” illegal. Now, neither the members of the Western Watershed Project nor any other non-government group can photograph, sample, measure, or even take notes on bovine fecal contaminants or any other form of environmental pollution. Critics contend the law is really intended to suppress evidence about the cows' contamination of the state's waterways and say it's so vague that showing someone a picture taken in Yellowstone National Park might constitute a crime. (LINK 9)
1 Idaho's Secret Animal Abuse
An Idaho law against interference with agricultural production imposes a possible sentence of a year in jail and a $5,000 fine for the surreptitious filming of farm animal abuse. Critics believe the law is designed to suppress recordings of mistreatment such as that which vegetarian and animal-rights groups videotaped in 2012, when they caught Bettencourt Dairy employees “beating, stomping and sexually abusing cows.” (10)
LINK 1: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/08/31/us-trained-alaskans-as-secret-stay-behind-agents.html
LINK 4:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/01/24/how-states-keep-accident-prone-roads-secret/96888330/
LINK 6:
http://www.newsday.com/opinion/new-york-secrecy-law-that-protects-police-is-contemptible-1.3748995
LINK
10:
http://www.ktoo.org/2014/03/03/bill-that-bans-undercover-filming-at-farms-enacted-in-idaho/
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