Ex-CIA Analyst Fights Her Agency Over Censorship: It Won't End Well
State Department redactions of my book, "The Foreign Circus"
Every few years, there's a story of a former "CIA agent," "Special Forces operative," "U.S. diplomat," {fill in the space} challenging his or her erstwhile employer over official censorship of their book - article - tell-all - {fill in the space}. A few, at wit's end over their agency's foot-dragging in providing clearance, or that agency's many redactions of text, defy Uncle Sam and proceed with publication anyway. Others seek to fight the system by going public or to the courts in an effort to apply pressure on the green eye-shaders to back off. Neither ends well. In the case of the former, the ex-employees get saddled with huge legal bills, potential jail time and the government's garnishing of their royalties and/or court-ordered halt to publishing and sales of their work. My past articles on this are worth a read, if, for nothing else, but for a laugh: Why I'm Censored, More on Censorship: "They Pull Me Back In", Bin Laden Raid ex-SEAL Forfeits Millions For Defying Uncle Sam.
The latest case is that of Nada Bakos, a retired CIA analyst noted for her stellar work in the hunt for Osama bin-Laden. Bakos is engaged in a fight with the CIA's Publications Review Board (PRB) over redactions in her memoire, The Targeter: My Life in the CIA on the Hunt for the Godfather of ISIS. The Daily Beast reports that Ms. Bakos is suing the CIA over its denying "her First Amendment right to free speech by redacting sections of her manuscript." Her lawyer says that she "seeks declaratory and injunctive relief as well as unspecified compensatory damages."
Good luck Nada.
The Beltway bureaucratic landscape is littered with the professional corpses of numerous veterans of America's national security apparatus who have defied Uncle Sam in this area. Bin-Laden raid member Matt Bissonette was forced to forfeit all of the $6.7 million in royalties he earned on his book, No Easy Day, as well as $100,000 in speaking fees. To add insult to injury, he was required to issue a confession and an apology. Former State Department diplomat Peter Van Buren was fired for a similar act. An ex-CIA case officer who goes by the pseudonym, Ishmael Jones, was forced by court order to relinquish all royalties from his un-cleared book critiquing the agency's way of doing business. There are other such cases going back to CIA officer Frank Snepp and his book on his service during the Vietnam War (he had to forfeit all royalties). To my knowledge, none of the former feds won their case against the government.
Outed CIA deep cover officer Valerie Plame cooperated with her agency's censors. They redacted 34 out of 302 pages of her excellent book, Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House. It went on to become a best seller. And she got to keep her royalties.
The CIA's PRB mandates employees with a “lifelong obligation” to protect "national security secrets for as long as the U.S. Government deems the information to be classified.” Similarly, the State Department requires employees and ex-employees to submit for review all "speaking, teaching, writing, and press/media engagement, including that prepared for electronic dissemination in an employee’s official capacity, or in an employee’s personal capacity if on a topic 'of Departmental concern.'" In other words, they have us over a barrel.
I won't repeat my own adventures in censorship (again, see the referenced blog posts). Publication of my books has been delayed. The censors have redacted text - most egregiously in The Foreign Circus (see photo above). Loving my retirement pension almost as much as my kids, I've opted to work with my agency's censors to mitigate the damage. Frankly, they've been very reasonable and these days go out of their way to expedite clearance of my articles. As I've recounted previously, my first amendment rights exclude public pronouncements on anything relating to national security. Unto my grave. Sad but true.
I hope Nada gets her book published and I very much look forward to reading it if it does. But I'm afraid precedent will show her resorting to fighting her fight with the CIA in the press and enlisting politicians to apply pressure will get her nowhere. Hope I'm wrong. But there it is.