Pentagon destroys thousands of copies of Army officer's memoir | Hacker News Reader

Pentagon destroys thousands of copies of Army officer's memoir

edition.cnn.com

38 pointssp33230 comments

I'm really wondering whether this controversy was manufactured to bring attention to the book. The situation is a perfect storm of Streisand-effect-inducing terms: Army, Pentagon, DoD, Afghanistan, 9/11 Commission, redacted, book-burning, censorship, DIA, CIA, NSA, SOC, bronze-star medal recipient, black-ops team, Bush administration.

Oy, again... They bought all the -current- copies because there was sensitive information in them. The author, publisher and government came to an agreement that the government would buy all the existing copies and the publisher can print a new, modified version.

They were not forced into this. They agreed to it because the safety of our nation, and it's people, are at risk if the information gets out.

It's a compromise that does the best it can with a bad situation.

If the safety of our nation, and it's people, are at risk if the truth gets out, then we have a lot more to worry about than some guys's book.

Plus, there must be existing copies out there. How long before one (and it only takes one) is on the net? It will spread like wildfire, especially since the Pentagon has basically given it a giant, public stamp of authenticity.

If I was the author I'd probably wait a year for the initial sales rush to ebb, then mail wikileaks a copy.

If the safety of our nation, and it's people, are at risk if the truth gets out, then we have a lot more to worry about than some guys's book.

Spoken like someone who has never worked in intelligence or the military. Don't get me wrong, I'm very critical of the US military-intelligence machine, but your comment implies that no secrets are worth keeping if they're true, which is just patently false. There's a huge body of strategic, operational, and tactical information that should definitely be classified. I'm not saying the handling of this particular incident made sense (as I don't know all the facts; do you?) just that the world is more complex than you imagine.

No, punting out that the author is not someone trying to spread secret info, but someone who wrote things that are embarrassing. If he'd had really classified Info in the book, he'd be facing charges.

This is all about embarrassment.

Are you sure that he's not going to be facing charges? Do you know what info was in the book and what impact it would have or not have on national security issues? It sounds like what happened was that he put information in the book that could be considered classified or at least sensitive, the Army Reserve Command approved it, but then after publication, other branches of the government saw things they would not have approved. My guess is that pressing charges would be difficult, since he got approval prior to publication, but that doesn't mean that no classified info slipped through.

Again, my point is not at all that this situation was handled well, just that the point that withholding the truth from the public isn't necessarily the terrible injustice that it sounds like.

And by announcing the destruction of the current print of books, now those that care can diff the new and old to see who the operatives are.

If they had said nothing, it would have just been a "3rd printing" with no fanfare.

And the book is still in the LoC.

This is a common misunderstanding. Yes, if someone purposely tries to release classified information they will face charges. That isn't what happened in this case.

In the defense industry, an author can write a book (or a scientific paper, or really anything else) and s/he gets it the content reviewed for release. The release reviewers are responsible for ensuring there is no classified content in the written work. It is not within the capabilities of any single person to vett a manuscript completely. Inadvertently including information that is classified is understandable. Hell, in some cases individual pieces of information are not classified but the aggregate is. Hence the need for the release review process. This is standard practice in the defense industry.

In this case, the release review was done incorrectly. The people on the hook here are the ones who reviewed his manuscript, not the author himself. Your claim that the author would be facing charges if there was classified information in the book is incorrect.

Oh shit, I upvoted you by mistake.

> The author, publisher and government came to an agreement

They released that book knowing the full implications in the first place. Either the Pentagon promised them a sum of (taxpayers) money they couldn't refuse or they forced them into it.

> They agreed to it because the safety of our nation

Oh yeah, terrorism and all that ... good thing George Washington isn't still alive.

I didn't see anything about terrorism in the article. And having a knee-jerk reaction about anything that mentions security is as bad as the mindset you're railing against. There has to be a balance.

I upvoted you by mistake in return.

Actually, I disagree with the downvotes. Many people have said that they must have been forced into it, and I just don't agree. They aren't prevented from publishing the book (slightly modified) and they got a LOT of publicity from this. It makes sense for them to cooperate voluntarily.

The book did not have sensitive information according to the Army who vetted the book ahead of time. This isn't a legal action prohibiting anyone from selling or buying the book. It's still on file with the Library of Congress, and I'm sure the author, editor, reviewers, publisher etc. all have a bunch of copies still.

Previous articles said that the book contained names of intelligence operatives whose lives would be in danger if their names were revealed.

Also, he submitted it to his unit, which may not have known the actual names of intelligence operatives or had previous experience dealing with highly classified information.

The whole reason why this situation happened is that the vetting was not properly done.

There were several websites where the book was available--Amazon had a few copies which sold out and doing a quick Google search showed a few other websites with it available. Edit: apparently Amazon has some in stock: http://www.amazon.com/Operation-Dark-Heart-Frontlines-Afghan...

And here's another: http://www.booksamillion.com/product/9780312603694

Apparently, there was a copy of the book on eBay:

"At least one seller on the online auction site eBay claiming to have a first-edition printing is selling it for an asking price of nearly $2,000. The listed retail price for the second printing is $25.99."

I searched on eBay a few minutes ago, there were multiple copies for sale, possibly 2nd editions pre-orders by opportunists, none at the mentioned $2000 price.

to be fair it probably cost less than having the guy assassinated and staging a "suicide"

Shaffer's publisher, St. Martin's Press, released a second printing of the book that it said had incorporated some changes the government had sought "while redacting other text he (Shaffer) was told was classified."

From single words and names to entire paragraphs, blacked out lines appear throughout the book's 299 pages.

It's adorable that in this day and age, the DoD still thinks that information can just be gotten rid of. On the other hand, kudos to them for taking a rather civil approach.

Wikileaks claims they have a copy: http://twitter.com/wikileaks/statuses/25607235096

I see one flaw with their plan, eBooks...

We shall see the censored text pretty soon on Wikileak - c'mon Pentagon, it's the age of internet!

Whose money are they supposed to use? Whose money do they use to torture people or to conduct domestic propaganda campaigns?

If there was any legal basis for this, you'd think one of the CIA, NSA, DIA, DoD, or SOC could have found a way to ban or properly confiscate the books. Or, if people at the Pentagon who were embarrassed had pooled their own money and bought the books like this, I would have been OK with that. But using public funds to ineffectively remove the books from circulation seems like an abuse of power.

So you wonder why they didn't flat out ban or confiscate the book and then you say that paying for it was an abuse of power?

That's a curious position...

The point isn't that their actions are too extreme, only that not only is the method ineffective, but they're using our money to buy and burn these books. If they HAD used a ban, it would not be a total waste of money as this is. Because they are just making people pay attention to this book. Had they not burned these, it most likely would have been passed off as yet another one of dozens of books about 9/11. Now that there has been this reaction, people know that the government is taking it seriously. Therefore, you should take it seriously too.

Exactly, nothing in the government happens sans tax-payer money.

"The government uses tax-payer money to clean up after President's dog!"

The titles practically write themselves!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451

In all fairness, this doesn't have more than most superficial relationship to the ideas in Fahrenheit 451 (which is an awesome book).

Superficial? We've seen with the stuff leaked by Wikileaks that much of what was classified contained information that would cause the public to question the war effort and perhaps become quite upset/involved in stopping the war.

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