Army Reserve Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer would normally feel honored that the Pentagon was so interested in his memoir “Operation Dark Heart” that it purchased thousands of copies. The problem is that the Pentagon bought the books to burn them. Now that must set a new low for a bad review.
The Department of Defense believes that the book contains secrets and so, in a move that has produced outright scorn from critics, it purchased every available copy. The problem is that it has not bought every copy and seems clueless on the fact that the book can also be purchased in digital form.
Nevertheless, Pentagon spokeswoman Lt. Col. April Cunningham explained that “DoD decided to purchase copies of the first printing because they contained information which could cause damage to national security.” Just short of 10,000 copies.
The second run of the book by St. Martin’s Press incorporates changes demanded by the government, including the redaction of material claimed to be classified. The new book shows blacked out single words, names, and even entire paragraphs– a useful aid for foreign countries with the original book to quickly find the classified portions. Shaffer says that the book was given a pre-publication review and approved for production.
He also says that the material that was removed in the second edition was “ludicrous.”
Notably, at least one copy of the first-edition missed the DoD fireside sale purchase — the author has put up the book for nearly $2000 (a bit higher than the original $25.99 asking price). There are some bibliophiles in D.C. who might be willing to pay that price.
The question is whether the Pentagon will charge such a seller with attempted sale of classified information since the increase in price reflects knowledge of the first edition’s intelligence value. While the seller does not know what specifically is classified in the book, he or she presumably knows that the DoD has found the book contains such information. Here is the language from section 798:
§ 798. Disclosure of classified information
(a) Whoever knowingly and willfully communicates, furnishes, transmits, or otherwise makes available to an unauthorized person, or publishes, or uses in any manner prejudicial to the safety or interest of the United States or for the benefit of any foreign government to the detriment of the United States any classified information—
(1) concerning the nature, preparation, or use of any code, cipher, or cryptographic system of the United States or any foreign government; or
(2) concerning the design, construction, use, maintenance, or repair of any device, apparatus, or appliance used or prepared or planned for use by the United States or any foreign government for cryptographic or communication intelligence purposes; or
(3) concerning the communication intelligence activities of the United States or any foreign government; or
(4) obtained by the processes of communication intelligence from the communications of any foreign government, knowing the same to have been obtained by such processes—
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.
Source: CNN
Jonathan Turley
Kudos: Anonymously Yours
Not for nothing did my parents teach me: “Military Intelligence is to Intelligence as Military Music is to Music.” We certainly do not get these people from the deep end of the nation’s intellectual or moral gene pool.
There is a small blog called Able Danger Blog which has been covering this story for a long time. I don’t work for it so I hope you don’t consider this blog whoring, but I think it’s worth a look.
Well, I never heard of this book, but thanks to the Pentagon’s book burning, I will have to run out and buy it. What fools are running the Pentagon?
I am shocked that there isn’t a bigger uproar over this act of censorship by the Pentagon. The ACLU should defend the owner of the one remaining book because if they can prove that the redacted items are available in the public domain, how can the government be successful?
Well it just goes to show you the government truly knows how to make something worthless and undesired. Just make less of it.
My late economics professor is at about at 320 RPMs I would estimate.
This brings to mind a comment that someone had made when the Koran burning thing was going on,and the person said something to the effect”can’t you still get it on kindle?”
For anyone interested:
This is Banned Books Week (September 25-October 2)
I have a special Banned Books Week post over at the Blue Rose Girls blog with poems by two children’s authors and links to some articles/information about banned/challenged books.
http://bluerosegirls.blogspot.com/2010/09/poems-for-banned-books-week-september.html
My friend Alivina Ling, who is an editor at Little Brown, has an excellent post about books at the same blog. (Even Huffington Post picked up on it last week.)
Speak Loudly by Alvina Ling
http://bluerosegirls.blogspot.com/2010/09/speak-loudly.html
Nothing like using our tax dollars in a vain attempt to keep us ignorant about the government. The price of these books should come out of the paychecks of the DOD officials responsible for this baloney.
The NYT has compared a redacted copy with an unredacted copy and shown that a lot of the “secrets” are actually publicly available:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/18/us/18book.html
Mr. Turley, thanks for covering this news item; I was hoping it would show up on your blog.
Related: http://www.projectcensored.org/
… does the author’s book get to #1 on the Best Seller List?
This a joke, right … the army operates on a different calender so it’s an April Fools prank?
Seriously … are we paying these people to keep us safe? The entire department should be tasked to Afghanistan for all book genres are burned there.
The author has claimed, on recent TV interviews, that everything the DOD claims is classified can be found in public documents. The DOD claims it’s the collection of the dispersed information in one book that causes the problem.
Maybe one or the other or neither slipped up. NEI
Good read from what I understand. Yo Professor I send this link to you yesterday….
Not a torrent yet on 9/27, but it can’t be too long until you can download it. Then the fit will hit the shan…
shameful waste
Yeah, I probably wouldn’t have known about it had it not been for the DoD’s moves. Now I’ll have to find a copy.
Please, can someone who has the unexpergated version, upload the entire text to Wiki Leaks.
When I started reading this article I had no interest in the book, but now I know they don’t want people to read it I need to go and find it to download
Amazon.com has 11 new for $14.05 & 1 used for $25.99. ~Perhaps it should be re-titled “Farenheit 451.2″~