“Question: Can the chief executive of a country declassify a classified document?’ “In the US a President, as head of state, has the power to classify or declassify any document, but he needs to follow procedure so that government agencies know for a fact what is classified and what has been declassified.”
“Do you reckon the Man Who Must Remain Nameless followed procedure by letting the public know? And after going public, no government agency can claim that they were unaware of the, shall we say, declassification…”
“Are you being facetious?”
“A, tad.”
“Not a matter for facetiousness – what with his disqualification hanging in the balance and…”
“The gap between declassification and disqualification is as wide as….as the tax net that no administration has been able to expand even a tad.”
“Right but surely the procedure in any country is not to declassify information directly to the public, but then again we have different laws though I am not sure what they are.”
“And you said the US president can declassify information in his capacity as the head of state, and The Man Who Must Remain Nameless was never the head of state.”
“He was chief of ATA?’
“Anti-Terrorist Agency?”
“No, Arif Timid Alvi.”
“Be fair – it is a constitutional requirement of our president to be timid notwithstanding his constitutional position as head of state.”
“I guess he is head of his clinic.”
“Right but going back to the US President, declassification can also be initiated by the issuing department, so the Ministry of Foreign Affairs let’s say can issue a notification declassifying any cypher is it?”
“Maybe the Pir, spiritual guide, with a following in hundreds of thousands against the less than 20 that The Third Wife boasts of, didn’t know that!”
“Let me give you an example, English newspapers sell much less than the Urdu papers and but those who read the English papers are the decision makers in all fields and so their influence mostly is reportedly a hundred times more than an Urdu paper.”
“Ironic isn’t it – the followers of The Shah are Urdu newspaper readers, a man who is educated and fluent in English, while the Third Wife…”
“Hush that’s enough.”
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024