Does free speech cover classified info, though? I mean, when you join a position that involves classified info, isn't it kind of assumed the normal rules about free speech don't apply?

As someone who worked in Military Intelligence, and husband still does, anyone who works in that environment and holds a top secret security clearance cannot legally publish anything without a security review and approval. This isn't to limit our right to free speech, but protect classified sources, military operations and technological secrets the author may know of. I have to submit my resume for review every time I update it for this very reason.
The government has the right to prevent the books release, so I find it very kind of them to pay for the inconvenience to the author and publisher while the correct the security violations.

If you read the article, you'll see that he did submit the book for review, and it passed. Then the publisher printed it. And only then did some other part of DoD hear of it and decide that they also wanted to review it. Two hundred passages are classified? BS - the author is unlikely to have made that many errors.

This sounds more like self-important bureaucrats exerting their authority. It will be a wonder if there is anything left worth reading when they're done.

Perhaps the Army and the DIA should get together and decide how they are going to handle future reviews. Bradley notes that the government is overzealous in protecting classified information.

That's true, but WWII in the Pacific would have lasted longer had the Japanese known we had broken their naval codes. A Chicago newspaper actually published this, but by amazing luck the information never made it back to Japan. There is some level of secrecy necessary for our survival. Or do you print your Social Security Number on your business card?

This isn't to limit our right to free speech, but protect classified sources, military operations and technological secrets the author may know of. I have to submit my resume for review every time I update it for this very reason.

There is the letter of the law and spirit of the law. I would not and will not submit my resume to the local SSO -- but at the same time I don't even look to the military-industrial complex for my employment. It's too precarious.

Agree with Bradley13 above.

I served in MI for 20 years and this is strictly my take:

The Army screwed up because they did not disseminate the book widely to other agencies for sign off.

The author potentially has a fuck up because he signed a lifetime non disclosure agreement concerning classified so if he continues on with the book he could be prosocuted for unauthorized disclosure of classified.

The intelligence community as a whole gets a fuck up because the system for review is so damn Byzantine that an author could publish something and think that he/she had done the right thing but still get dinged after the fact. Right now it sounds like it is up to the author to make sure that every Intel agency gets a look before publication.

You DO NOT have free speech concerning disclosure. IF you want to excersize free speech do not sign the non disclosure form and leave the MI community. Free spech does not include sources and methods once you are a part of the community from E-1 to O-10 ranks.

My FIL had to run his memoirs past the CIA, as he's worked for them (no big secret.) Philip Agee published and people died thanks to his book.

Does free speech cover classified info, though? I mean, when you join a position that involves classified info, isn't it kind of assumed the normal rules about free speech don't apply?

The NYTimes is on line one. No, no, and hell no. Pentagon papers (back in the 70s), the SWIFT program and a few others.

Bradley13

It is highly likely that that many errors were made. Since only the Army signed off any intelligence derived or originated with other agencies that were included in the book is a ding against the author. He should have known better than to trust one agency to vet a product (the book) that contained intelligence from agencies other than the Army. This one is kinda on him.

ShannonB

It is beyond belief that DoD is actually paying for the author's inconvenience.

Or do you print your Social Security Number on your business card?

Posted by: MarkD

If you were ever in the military you may as well, its your Id number, its put on every sherd of paper with your name on it, and I'm sure we all remeber a few years back how the Dept of Veterans Affairs lost a few million social security numbers along with the medical and discharge history associated with those numbers.

"But, what's with all this after-the-fact protecting? And if you're truly revealing classified information, aren't there serious punishments for that?"

The line between class and unclass isn't always as clear-cut as people think (or as it should be). For instance, on frequent source of trouble is that unclassified facts can become classified when aggregated. I ran into an issue like that at work a few months ago; something got sent in a widely disseminated e-mail, and weeks later someone else decided that a combination of things in the email was classified. Lots of computers had to be scrubbed.

This sounds like a similar case. The author probably believed in good faith that he was not revealing classified information, but something about the way it was compiled or aggregated made it classified. And, as reported, the book passed a pre-pub review, but the DIA decided post-pub that it needed to be pulled back, based on some derivative criteria. So the author probably isn't in any trouble, and that's why the Army is offering to cover the loss by buying all the printed copies. Otherwise, they would just confiscate them and throw the author in the brig.

Dave,

That would be the stockade for the Army. ;-)

Most people don't know how to aggregate facts to make a whole. An example of the exception is Tom Clancy -- he was contacted over one of his books.