Ex-SEAL's Authentic Account Causes Security Breach

"No Easy day, the first hand account of the mission that killed Osama Bin Laden" has classified information, says Pentagon

By Francis Adams

Mark Bissonette. Picture courtesy CBS News

The Pentagon's spokesman George Little, on Tuesday said that "Sensitive and classified information is contained in the book,” by former Navy SEAL Matt Bissonette, who authored the book using the pseudonym Mark Owen.  

   This is the first time the Pentagon has officially reacted on the revelations in the book that, on Tuesday, w

+as No. 1 on Amazon's best seller list. According to CBS News, the book published by Dutton, a unit of Penguin Group (USA) had an initial print run of 575,000 copies and "publication of the book was moved up from Sept. 11 to Sept. 4 amid a flurry of reports about the book last week."

  The Business Week reported that the "Pentagon General Counsel Jeh Johnson sent a letter to the author dated Aug. 30 warning that he was “in material breach and violation of the non-disclosure agreements you signed” in 2007. “Further public dissemination of your book will aggravate your breach and violation of your agreements.”

  Little told reporters that the Pentagon was still reviewing legal options available against the author before saying, “It is the height of irresponsibility not to have this kind of material checked” for classified information. The author's attorney, Robert Luskin, however, told Business Week that the 2007 agreement “invites but by no means requires” pre-publication review.

  Bissonnette has claimed in the book that he ensured that the content in the book was safe for publication after he hired the former special operations attorney to review his manuscript. 

  Leaks of classified information are not new. In a book titled "A Critical Review of The Classified Information Procedures Act" published as way back as 1985, the author Brian Z Tamanaha writes that "The Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA) was enacted by Congress in 1980 to deal with the growing graymail problem." Graymail, according to the author, refers to a situation in which "a criminal defendant threatens to disclose classified information during the course of trial in the hope that the government would rather forego prosecution than suffer disclosure of information. So long as the threat of disclosure is real one, the defendant may enjoy immunity from prosecution."

  During those days, the author writes, sensitive concern for national security resulted in foregoing prosecution for serious crimes.

  CIPA, according to the author, while trying to combat graymail, ensured that it reconciles "two often conflicting interests: the defendant's right to fair trial and the government's need to protect national security information involved in the trial."

   The current situation, in 2012, though is different and much stringent. According to "Free Speech Aboard the Leaky Ship of State: Calibrating First Amendment Protection for Leakers of Classified Information" written by Heidi Kitrosser from the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities - School of Law and published by the Journal of National Security Law & Policy, the "The Obama Administration has initiated six prosecutions of government employees for leaking classified information. This is double the number of prosecutions brought by all previous administrations combined. The rise in prosecutions, coupled with other developments – most notably a series of disclosures from the website wikileaks – has brought a renewed focus to the first amendment status of classified information and those who disseminate it."

   Bissonette will be thrilled to read The New York Times review and analysis of his book. The paper says that "The emphasis of his “No Easy Day,” written with Kevin Maurer, is not on spilling secrets. It is on explaining a SEAL’s rigorous mind-set and showing how that toughness is created."