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Pentagon Aims To Buy Up Book
jamie writes "Operation Dark Heart, a book about the adventures and frustrations of an Army officer who served in Afghanistan, has ruffled some feathers at the Pentagon. From the article: 'The Defense Department is attempting to buy the entire first printing — 10,000 copies — of a memoir by a controversial former Defense Intelligence Agency officer so that the book can be destroyed, according to military and other sources."
They're buying the damned book themselves, paying cash for it. It's not really censorship if they, instead of banning it, go through entirely legal channels to simply purchase every copy of it, is it?
Grey area?
I think our government should just abolish the first amendment. They clearly don't believe in it. This just makes me so sick. Where is wikileaks when you need them?
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Didn't the Church of Scientology do something similar to this once?
Maybe he should also publish a Kindle version. The author could really clean up then.
He should have a copy transcribed, and release it in a torrent.
Living With a Nerd
or the world is going to run out of trees. The publisher can just keep doing new print runs forever. If I were the author I would love this. Besides you can't really get better PR then this.
Some things are more important than an animated rat
...he'll release the book in digital form. Good luck buying up all the copies of that.
The blurb is intentionally misleading here. The govt gave the OK for the book but then upon a later review they were worried about some names released and a 2nd printing has already been agreed upon by both parties. They are just deciding what to do with 10k books that were already printed. Obviously the publisher spent money to already print them so they aren't going to just destroy them.
Why not just kill him. It's vastly cheaper. Hasn't stopped the govt in the past - why stop now?
This is going to make the author's sales look incredible. First printing sells out instantly... second printing? presumably the same. Until he's suddenly the best selling author of the year. I wish the military had this kind of interest in MY writing...
but if God created circular logic...
Sold 10000 copies in it's first hour of publication! Just keep those presses running, if every copy sells he's got a nice little money maker there.
I realize you're just posting to spam your link, however if you look at the article it answers your question.
It was initially cleared for printing by the military. A different military organization later took a look at the book and had some objections. The author appears to have edited newer editions of his book to comply with what the military wanted (changing names I think) however the first 10,000 books were already printed.
The military now wants to buy the first edition out so that people will only be able to buy the newer, revised editions.
Or, he'll change the names like the military wants, and release a second edition, like he already has.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
If you just read the summary it sounds like its just a PR issue, when the issue is security. He put in a lot of sensitive information that needs to redacted in future versions. He has agreed to the changes. However, since the army mistakenly approved it originally, they are footing the bill for the first printing which still contains the sensitive information. Everything worked the way it should.
1. write a book about a subject
2. the subject must be something that someone or some organization wants to cover up
3. the said someone or organization buys all your copies in order to cover up the subject
4. profit!
Actually the idea of some entity trying to buy every single copy of a book to keep it secret, strikes me of more like a PR stunt than something feasible.
If you want to actually bury something, you buy the _rights_ to it. Then you get copyright extended until kingdom come like Disney. Copyright is just as misused for preventing something from being seen as it is used as originally intended.
Trying to just buy the copies off the market is purely pointless if someone else has the copyright, as basically nothing can prevent him from just printing more. I mean, it's not like buying something that costs millions and rare resources to produce. Printing another 10,000 copies or even a million is cheap and trivial. If anything, some entity trying to buy 10,000 copies just added demand worth 10,000 copies, and you'd be stupid not to cash in on it.
On the other hand, the delusion that something is going to be rare because someone else wants to buy all copies, is a pretty much guaranteed way to make idiots think this is a literally once in a lifetime opportunity to grab a copy before the government. It's making it sound like it's more rare than it is, and about to run out.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
There's no need, 10 000 copies is already over 9000!
Okay, suppress all of these -- take 'em, shred 'em, burn 'em -- but don't you dare touch the Quran.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Exactly what I was thinking, and what they appear to be doing. According to the article, the second print run has been edited enough that the DoD is okay with it being public. The DoD is buying the 10,000 copies that are already printed, and allegedly didn't go through the proper DoD security review prior to publication.
I bet his spam link is full of virus-infected crap, too. "Hey, it's 50 CODECs into a single installation package, what can go wrong?"
So the government is going to buy all prints straight from the press?
How about a second print?
Surely this will become the most popular book of all times, as measured in sales.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
I mean, they sold out the first printing, which means there is plenty of demand :D
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
AND it's paying for your enormous deficit, which is likely to bankrupt US pretty soon..
Ok, you've got two unwinnable wars, then what?
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
Instant best seller! Start the second run.
coffee | nose > keyboard
Correction: ...they will do with _your_ money.
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
Yea!!! Modern day book burning!!!!
We American's have finally come full circle now. Next week, burning a witch at the stake (Sponsored by Kingford)
sigh...
The real Sig captains the Northwestern. This one captains
Also, there's already a perfectly working package that does that.
http://www.cccp-project.net/
Yeah, I just saw that. What a shame.
presumably you'd have to do a denial of service? This is an argument for eBooks that I hadn't considered before....
So, where's the torrent?
Pentagon, meet the Streisand effect.
Proud member of the Ferengi Socialist Party.
Yes, how dare the author choose to defer to the military, and how dare the military attempt to use the long arm of the dollar in order to protect other resources.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
The government cannot censor material before it is printed by regular people. But if you worked for the government and write about intelligence you learned while there, then the government can review it and "suggest" redactions before it is printed.
That's what happened here, it's just they printed 10,000 copies that were insufficiently redacted, so those will be destroyed, the company compensated and then more copies with the proper redactions printed. As to the jokers making comments about digital copies, those would be destroyed and no one compensated, because the "buying up books" here isn't to get them off the market, they won't be going to market anyway. It's just to compensate for expenses of printing books they cannot now put on shelves as-is.
This is censorship, because it is the government restricting speech. But is is a special case of info from a government employee, and that is allowed under the law, whether you agree with it or not. It has been this way for some time, I used to have a paperback from the early 70s that advertised the government went to court to stop its publication because the author worked for the CIA before. That book was eventually published with some redactions as this one will too.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
The publisher will just laugh and print more. I'm disgusted that the Pentagon would trade real taxpayer money for fake property.
Is this perhaps a job for Wikileaks? There are copies "in the wild" after all...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
That was Assange's palm smacking his rather large forehead!
Read the full article?? Cmon does anyone really do that???
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This way, once both editions are OCR'd, a simple DIFF will tell us what the government considers to be critical data. The bad guys (if there are any who care about this and don't already know it) don't even have to read the whole thing now.
The Slashdot summary is a gross misrepresentation. The govt had problems with use of real names in a number of places. The publisher is already running a second printing that does not use the names. The ONLY issue here is what to do with the 10000 or so copies printed before the changes were made. To argue that this is about censorship is gross hyperbole.
...and by doing so, they are making the book popular. Te publisher will just print more, and everyone's gonna want to read it because it's the book the Pentagon tried to hide. It'll also be on best sellers lists because they are buying 10,000 of them.
For all the people say "LOL they'll just print more" or "OMG censorship is bad!" here are the relevant parts of the story:
"[T]he Defense Intelligence Agency objected to the use of the names of American intelligence officers, among other issues." and "A new print run, without the disputed passages, is being prepared by the publisher."
This compromise is reasonable and legal. We still get the story but the intelligence officers names won't be published.
So now I'll write a book explaining about how the Pentagon bought up the other book and they'll have to buy my book too = Profit.
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
It'll never end...
The real destruction of the constitution started in 1798 with the Alien and Sedition Acts. Some might even say the Whiskey tax of 1791 was a breach.. Either way the path is well worn..
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Shaffer, who is now a senior fellow at the Center for Advanced Defense Studies in Washington, describes a number of planned covert operations, including an aborted cross-border surveillance operation using sophisticated eavesdropping technology that targeted high-level al-Qaeda operatives based in the tribal areas of Pakistan.
The operation was shut down by military officials concerned about offending Pakistan, according to Shaffer's account.
So, we shouldn't be able to know that high level terrorists are still running about planning and participating in violent bloodshed against their own people and others?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
They bought up his entire run of Bibles. He willingly sold them to the government knowing that they would be destroyed. Then Tyndale used the profits to finance an even larger print run.
Maybe Terry Jones ought to buy up all copies of the Koran instead of burning them!
The Luddites were ahead of their time.
Hopefully, it'll pop up at Wikileaks or Cryptome
I'm sorry, before I can take your post seriously, I require full disclosure, in the form of all of your personal information, Anonymous Coward.
Please submit it for open discussion, and then we can continue talking about how the only way to discuss anything is with all information being freely available to the public.
I mean, fair is fair, right?
Let's pretend you think there's a conspiracy at work to make you miserable. Let's pretend that "conspiracy" was only one person. Was there a conspiracy? Yes. Why? Because your paranoia created one. Feel free to provide a more suitable word.
"Common sense will be the death of us all"
Looks like someone that got a review copy has listed it up on ebay
Sitting at almost $1200 as I write this.
"Freedom in the USA is not the ability to do what you want. It is the ability to stop others from doing what THEY want"
"Thank you for giving us a green light to print money, Pentagon." --The Publishers
The first printing was so popular, we're going to crank out another 100K pronto!
Have gnu, will travel.
16365 James Madison Highway Gordonsville, VA 22942-8501 It would be a shame if that warehouse accidentally got burglarized and the book published online.
If the summary is correct, and the book is actually published (nevermind if the Pentagon magically buys all copies) it will be deposited at the Library of Congress (the US's only Copyright Library, unless I'm mistaken - we have 5 UK Copyright Libraries, including one outside the UK). Go read it there and post the contents (in your own words, other than where fair dealing/use allow).
Copyright Libraries: Use Them or Lose Them!
[yes, I do work for a Copyright Library]
1. Write book the military doesn't want seen in public
2. Publish
3. Let Pentagon buy up entire printing
4. Keep making more printings for them to buy
5. PROFIT!!!
-- QED
I'll bet he just said something uncomplimentary about the poorly trained unaccountable spooks getting in the way of military operations and subverting the chain of command. That would get past military censorship but be objected to by a spook finding out about the book afterwards.
The other more mundane alternative is that another copy of the manuscript lay gathering dust on a spooks desk until the books were printed.
Dutch auction, everyone pays the 2nd highest bid price. You could even limit one bidder from buying them all.
Regards.
Did the DoD get a volume discount?
We need a "+1 -- nice sig" moderation.
that the military is attempting to suppress information that the public has a right to see is frightening in it's implications.
Where have you been? Living under a rock? What implications are there that weren't already implied many many decades ago. In fact most military organisations would like to suppress all information until they were the only ones left who knew anything.
In case there are more people living under that rock I should add that the main implication of military especially military intelligence secrecy is that the organisations are not really there to serve the public good but to serve other goals against the public good
No, because your mind created the image of a person who is out to get you, is a shitty asshole, a fucktard, or a douchebag. I personally think a douchebag is the best way to describe one person doing things to fuck with you.. The entire point of a conspiracy requires the involvement of 2 or more people.
Very true. I think I'm going to just have to default to the "it's in quotes" defense. I'd edit it to be "a small group of people", but... yeah. Slashdot edits, proofreading ftl >.>
"Common sense will be the death of us all"
The issue is, of course, that the publisher paid to have a first run done. Would rather suck if they couldn't sell any of those. It would be a big sunk cost. Never mind if the government would even have the authority to tell them not to sell it, it would be a really dick move, one that would hurt the publisher. So the government instead said "We'll just buy up the entire production run. You agree to sell them to nobody else, we take all of them and destroy them, you go ahead with the 2nd edition with our blessing." Government is happy, they got the names redacted. Publisher is happy, they didn't lose money. Life is good.
...if the entire first printing sells out almost immediately (Regardless of the reason), doesn't that pretty much ensure it will get another printing?
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
"...2 a : an agreement among conspirators b : a group of conspirators
synonyms see PLOT"
'Group' is a synonym of 'set' - " 21 : a collection of elements and especially mathematical ones..."- and sets can have a single element.
Perhaps it's stretching it a bit too much, but I think that you can "conspire with yourself" the same way you can "plot by yourself".
Of course, the legal meaning of 'conspiracy' is a different matter.
It's perfectly obvious the Pentagon has too much money to spend. We spent $3 TRILLION for the Pentagon to lose the Iraq War, and will spend $TRILLIONS more losing the Afghanistan War. Over $1T a year for the past decade to make the Terror War permanent, and its threat to America's security an intractable problem. After spending about a half trillion a year on military and "intelligence" for the decade before that which failed to protect us from the attacks exactly 9 years ago today.
The Pentagon shouldn't have enough money to spend censoring books that say how the Pentagon is a waste of money. The Pentagon should have $300B a year or less to spend on actual defense. Give $200-400B a year to NASA, and $300B a year to send everyone to college for free. Then watch the country's security stabilize and grow as we think up and execute actual solutions to our problems, rather than shooting everything in sight - and at our own shadow.
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make install -not war
In my opinion, a big part of problem with the war on drugs (and abstinence only education as well) is that the people who support the lies become invested in them... Financially to be sure, but intellectually and emotionally more so.
For some, it's cognitive dissonance and for other's it's reputation.For the emotional, there's such a belief in the lies told about drug use, and they are so heavily invested in those beliefs that it's impossible for them to truly consider alternatives. For the more rational supporters of prohibition, they've put so much of their reputation on the line, that it's nearly impossible for them to back off and admit that they spread misinformation, and wasted billions upon billions of dollars, ruined lives, and manipulated everyone over this issue.
I personally suspect that drug prohibition will end in two stages... The first will be for a vocal group to really put the message out there, and to educate the public that legalization, while not perfect, would be a significant improvement over prohibition. This group needs to convince people that lies are not education, and that truth and reality are far more effective messages against drugs than scare tactics and misinformation.
The second stage will be the rotation of those invested in prohibition out of power, which IMO will happen naturally - no one's going to be forced out of government due to an anti drug position, but they are going to eventually retire. It may take many years, but as those who grew up with a drug education take positions in government.
Gay rights is a similar issue... It's been pointed out that gay marriage has overwhelming support from my generation (people younger than their mid 30s) and that it's really only a question of who will legalize gay marriage... Do those in power want to go down in history for supporting gay rights? Or do they want to wait another 30 years until my generation is in power to do it?
End rant...
Because, as we all know, if BUSH!!!!111!!1 was involved, the administration would be offering to help promote the book.
No, because a conspiracy - imaginary or not - needs two people. It's in the definition of the word. If you thought you were being followed by a unicorn with silver antlers then you're wrong, because unicorns don't have antlers.
Just because words are used in a fictional context doesn't change their meaning.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Say I believed there was an incredibly sexy pornographic performer beckoning to me at the end of my bed and requesting that we engage in certain activities that might be considered lewd everywhere but the darkest reaches of the Internet. I wake up to find it is just a sibling telling me to get out of bed because it is time for breakfast. But, you know, in my mind, it was a porn star. Therefore, my subconscious inner mind created a porn star and placed it at the end of my bed.
The figment of your subconscious mind if not a real thing. It cannot beckon you on and offer to perform sexual acts, nor can it can conspire with another. Another person may exploit your suggestibility or paranoia, but we have perfectly good phrases for that: "exploiting your paranoia" or "exploiting your suggestibility".
catch (HumourFailureException e) { e.user.send("You, sir, are a humourless idiot."); }
Oh crap wait there is no army and I have no conspirators. But wait theres MORE! I'll just go convince him that there is a conspiracy and it will BECOME ONE.
Oh shit yeah it don't work that way lol.
Liberty.
I heard that the founding fathers RTFA
Python coder | PyQt Applications | Writer
I really hate throwing around words like 'truth' and 'lies' given how strongly they've become associated with religious viewpoints and conspiracy theorists, but it seemed appropriate given the misinformation being intentionally spread.
'Condoms don't work'
'Marijuana is more dangerous than cigarettes and alcohol.'
As an aside, it's really disappointed that we've given up the word 'truth...'
That's a plot. A conspiracy is when two or more people conspire together. And in some legalities, it actually requires three or more.
but "conspirators" is plural.
You sound like an outsider so I will pose this response in as clear and of modern of times as possible.
The obsession with the constitution is because it's a document that gives the federal government it's power. The federal government was originally designed to simple be a common head of state and to settle matters between the states. The constitution is divided into 3 sections, 2 of which are basically the same. The first section described the only power the federal government has, the rest is left to the states and to the people where it respectfully belongs.
The second part is called the bill of rights, this is the original 10 amendment (there was 12 originally but 2 of them took several decades after the constitution was ratified by all the states to be passed). These bill of rights do not give anyone any rights, they expressly forbid the government of the US or it's states from taking inherent rights away from us. Then there are the amendments. These are all the amendments after the first 10 which has been made for whatever reason as society deemed necessary. It requires a good deal of support in order to get an amendment passed and there was actually two amendments that would/could be unconstitutional (depending on the date passed).
Now, how this all sorts together in modern times, support the EU became some massive monolithic organization that was imposing it's will on all the member countries. Some say it already is, but suppose that over the next couple of years, the EU government took control of all the military forces of it's member states, started declaring what kind of health care they could have, what kind of elections they could have, who could become citizens of the member states and so on. Also suppose they started taxing individuals within each member state. Now suppose a bunch of radicals decided it would be easier to change policy in England or France by simply passing laws in the EU which England and France were bound by.
So you might say, but that will never happen, their charter doesn't permit it. Then someone comes along and says "the EU charter was drafted decades ago, by people who lived decades ago, it means nothing today because thigns have changed and aren't the same. I don't care that there is an amendment process to change the charter- it's simply too hard to get 3/4 of the people to agree on what I see needs changed". Now do you see where this is going? If the document that limits the power of government over the people is ignored for your convenience, it can be ignored for anyone else'. So why is there a document that limits the power of a governing body in the first place? Well, because people thought it would be good to limit that governing body's power to avoid certain things. Now we have to get into the founding fathers to find out what those things were and if it's a good idea or not. And no, this isn't limited to just the US, any country that has a constitution or charter or even the EU has founding fathers who directed the organization of that country or governing body certain ways for certain reasons. If those r
Nothing keeps a book from broader publication as effectively as the first printing selling out completely in a matter of days.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
I'm guessing it'd be some might consider it inappropriate (or really sexy) to point out that it is possible for both of your statements to be true...
"Common sense will be the death of us all"
Dear god... you were going to have me beat up by a lieutenant with a clue? Anybody in the military knows that they wouldn't know what to do with one of those.
"Common sense will be the death of us all"
Thanks :) Funny how my one misuse of the word "conspiracy" is a bigger issue than TFA. Must be a secret plot by allies of the grammer nazis.
"Common sense will be the death of us all"
Well then, I'd say it looks like a Mexican Standoff, but you're unarmed.
Here's the funny thing: even if you had all that info, you'd never be able to go through it all in any sort of timely fashion, meaning that your information age would experience ever-increasing lag ("HE BROKE THE LAW 10 years ago - we just got around to reviewing that information!"), or you'd simply give up on trying to parse the fire-hose of information you've directed at yourself, and instead start believing whichever news source confirms your biases for you and allows you, in the words of JFK, "the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought."
One of these scenarios has already happened. I'll let you guess which.