Re: Pentagon purchasing all 10,000 copies of Operation Dark Heart and destroying them:

[Poll_Blind]

Some breadcrumbs in the form of a reviewer's crib-sheet was sent out in June of this year and the Federation of American Scientists was nice enough to pop it on their site for your perusal. The FAS also has an interesting note about the matter in their "Secrecy News" snippets from earlier this month, including the fact that they have acquired several review copies, and those are the ones which were going for a few grand a pop on E-Bay last week when all of this hit the papers.

But if you don't have access to one of these review copies if you take a look at the second, third, and fourth pages of that PDF I link to, as sheds quite a bit of light on the revelations the book contained.

I have seen a single page from the book published by the New York Times side-by-side with the Department of Defense-abridged version and about 70+ percent of at least that page is blacked out. I don't have a link to that pic but it shouldn't be difficult to dig up.

There are a couple of different stories floating around at the moment about what exactly caused the Pentagon to push the panic button. Remember this book was vetted by a military censor (the author followed absolutely all guidelines for publishing a memoir of this type) and that the DoD has paid somewhere around $250,000 to keep these books out of the hands of Americans by buying them up with...our tax dollars. Based on some things I have read, I do not believe this is over his descriptions of specific persons or the nicknames or locations of well-known U.S. bases in Afghanistan as some dismissive articles have implies.

Between the reviewer's sheet linked above and this interview with the author from yesterday, I think we can get a little closer to the truth.

PB

[hlthe2b]

1. I am under a major deadline for Monday... Could you summarize

Could you summarize in a few sentences, what you think the crux of the issue might be? Much appreciated...

[boppers]

3. 4 pages of bullet points here:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2010/09/dark-promo.pdf

A summary in a few sentences: A clandestine operative wrote a memior, which details specific actions, capabilities, and failures of US clandestine operations in AfPak. Those currently in power do not want this information made publicly available, as it not only exposes general strengths and weaknesses, but it also exposes specific techniques, and legally questionable actions.

[hlthe2b]

5. thank YOU!

I'm easily distracted, so your summary might well keep me on track. ;)

[Gman]

2. Then they should do a second printing

and keep printing it. They guy could be filthy rich within a few weeks!

[Poll_Blind]

4. The version which came out today/yesterday IS the second printing but it (and all future versions)..

...are DoD approved, which have (at least in places, it appears) heavily redacted.

:(

PB

[boppers]

6. The original is already on rapidshare and usenet.

Haven't seen it on piratebay yet, but it's just a matter of time... you know how Anonymous is.

http://www.linxdown.com/0b2/lc/operation+dark+heart+first+print+torrent

[Poll_Blind]

7. Those are all...fakes. Those places and that place aren't real...places. n/t

PB

[boppers]

8. That thought (if we're thinking the same thing) occurred to me, as well.

Imagine an operation where you wanted to downgrade the capability of an enemy, by making them fearful of using computers of any kind.

1. Release a "Vanity Run" detailing operations where we infect/surveil computers as part of an operation.
2. Publicly "censor" the run, ensuring lots of international press coverage about the book.

I wouldn't be surprised if the "censorship" was part of the game.

As far as finding the original text, I have no doubt that pages are being scanned as we speak. Streisand effect and all that.

[hendo]

10. Anonymous will scan and upload them.

Nothing can be buried for long, especially since redacted review copies exist.

[hyphenate]

11. The links are hinky

Several of them are to pay sites, at least one to a corrupt file. I suspect that if the real first printing had been out there, that perhaps the alphabets are trying to make them go away.

[boppers]

13. My apologies.

The first few months of recovering censored works often are a difficult dig through spam-and-scam, while trying to find valid works.

[hendo]

9. Heres an original with the redacted versio next to it

http://warincontext.org/2010/09/19/the-new-york-times-reveals-a-few-open-secrets/

[hyphenate]

12. Maybe this is a call for Wikileaks

to have a go at it.