Read: Not-so-Secret ‘Secrets’ the Pentagon Paid Thousands to Destroy

[unhappycamper]

Read: Not-so-Secret ‘Secrets’ the Pentagon Paid Thousands to Destroy
by Marian Wang
ProPublica, Yesterday, 3:41 p.m.

The Defense Department paid $47,000 to destroy 9,500 unredacted copies of a former Army intelligence officer’s new memoir, The Associated Press reported this week. The Pentagon contended that the book, “Operation Dark Heart,” by Anthony Shaffer, contained intelligence secrets and has therefore sought to destroy copies that were published before the book was redacted.

~snip~

Steven Aftergood of Secrecy News pulled together a side-by-side of redacted and unredacted versions of the book. It’s just a few pages, but it gives you a taste. Aftergood writes:

Perhaps 10% of the redacted passages do have some conceivable security sensitivity, including the identity of the CIA chief of station in Kabul, who has been renamed “Jacob Walker” in the new version, and a physical description of the location and appearance of the CIA station itself, which has been censored. Many other redactions are extremely tenuous.

… In short, the book embodies the practice of national security classification as it exists in the United States today. It does not exactly command respect.

A recent secrecy report card, as we noted, found that government agencies spent nearly $9 billion in 2009 to maintain secrets on the books, while spending $45 million on declassifying documents. That works out to almost $200 spent on keeping secrets for every $1 spent declassifying them.

[RandomThoughts]

1. I wonder how many movies and songs are not in circulation.

Because the pentagon does not want people knowing what is going on.

And what would be the consequences of that, maybe the last 10 years? Maybe the next 10?

But they would pound their chest and say it is for security, but for what and for who.

Sure hasn't secured what is due to me, and the Pentagon as a unit could easily be held partially to blame for many of those items.

Texas 5 point star is also a pentagon, as are the ones on the flag, as is the very name of their HQ the Pentagon.

So really what are they saying again?

[RandomThoughts]

2. Actually blaming the pentagon is not accurate.

It is more cabal that includes private sector corporations and a few other groups.

It is why some movies are never played on TV.

[kristopher]

3. I recieved Top Secret intel reports in the Air Force during the Iran Hostage Crisis..

There were a lot of them - 20-100 or more per day.

98% of the content was being simultaneously broadcast on CNN.