Navy Seals Disciplined For Revealing Secrets As Consultants On Video Game

Hugh Pickens writes "CBS reports that seven active duty members of SEAL Team Six, best known for killing Osama bin Laden, have been disciplined for revealing secrets working as paid consultants on a video game, Medal of Honor: Warfighter. The game does not recreate the bin Laden raid, but it does portray realistic missions, such as an attack on a pirates' den in Somalia. Electronic Arts boasts that real commandos, both active duty and retired, help make its games as realistic as possible. EA says Medal of Honor Warfighter was 'written by actual U.S. Tier 1 Operators while deployed overseas,' and that it 'features a dotted line to real world events and provides players a view into globally recognized threats and situations letting them experience the action as it might have unfolded.' It is unclear what secrets members of SEAL Team Six gave away, but while serving as consultants for the game, they used classified material which had been given to them by the Navy and also violated the unwritten code that SEALs are silent warriors who shun the spotlight. 'We do not tolerate deviations from the policies that govern who we are and what we do as Sailors in the United States Navy,' says Deputy Commander of Naval Special Warfare, Rear Admiral Garry Bonelli. 'The non-judicial punishment decisions made today send a clear message throughout our Force that we are and will be held to a high standard of accountability.'"

Comments

Good!

[Tim12s]

How on earth can the military staff haemorage their IP for the sake of an ef'fing book deal. There is too much public information on public deals that put military operations and lives at risk. The whole point of military superiority is based on an advantage of forces as a result of numbers, skill, training, tactics, operations, etc. I know that, as a geek, I love reading aircraft, lazer, and weapons development trials and developments but c'mon. All the US people are doing is destroying its own capability.

Now I understand how freedom of information protects against poor weapons systems, faulty weapons systems, bad quality, abuse of authority, etc. I don't have all the answers but what I do know is stupid - leaking you current tactics manuals and giving away all of your secrets. Might as well open-source the military.

FFS

Re:Good!

[Xest]

Does it really matter? Half the stuff that seems to come out as tactics eventually is just plain old common sense.

Most of the militaries secrets are in intel and technology, and it doesn't seem that they've really leaked anything much there as the issuse seems to be about tactics.

Having played the game, I don't think that matters anyway as the AI usually just runs in like a headless chicken and takes a thousand bullets because it's invulnerable. There was one mission based in the Philippines that said it was based on actual events, but again I don't know what of value could really have been given away. That US special forces may have been involved in something in the Philippines once? No shit. That's groundbreaking information.

I recall when the "tactics" for the SAS raid on the Iranian embassy were eventually released and everyone made a big fuss, the tactic in question was sticking a flashlight on the gun, firing from the hip and using the centre of the torch as your aiming point whilst doing so. Hardly something top secret that no one else was ever going to think of.

As I say it's our intel, our training, our combat experience, and our technology that makes special forces what they are. That's something you either can replicate or you can't, no amount of computer games or books are going to make up for it.

Honestly, I think the punishments are more about maintaining military style discipline than because they released anything of any value yet one of the things that makes special forces special is because they recruit people smart enough to think for themselves and who don't need the baby style treatment of run of the mill grunts to ensure they do what needs to be done.

Re:Good!

[dywolf]

it may seem like common sense, but that's after years of work creating it, during which some men probably died before it was figured out. Hell we make revisions to tactics after nearly every big engagement. It's called an After Action Report, and everything, every little stinking thing, is written about and analyzed.

And while it may seem common sense to us, it frequently isnt to many combatants around the world. the majority of the taliban and iraqi insurgents have no training whatsoever, and those that do have very little discipline. many many of them emply spray and pray tactics, full of bravado and give em hell, but little thought, little planning, no tactical sensibilities, etc.

Re:Good!

[X0563511]

Funny to think how much money we throw at defense and almost none of it gets spent on you guys. That's the real travesty there.

Can't buy PR like that!

[Anonymous Coward]

And the EA PR team just shared a collective orgasm. They must already be trying different font settings to display "So real, Navy Seals were disciplined for it!" on the game cover.

I've never really understood

[IceNinjaNine]

this whole "rock star" mentality with the SEALS. If I were that good.. fucking "Jedi" good.. I'd want to remain invisible. Due to compromised identitities, I view it as a matter of time before the bad guys start putting things together and whacking the families of operators as retribution. If I were those guys I'd develop a major case of STFU and teach everybody in my family how to handle a weapon. Of course, for every Mark Owen there are probably five guys wishing he'd shut up.

A quote:

Retired Army Col. Ken Allard, a career intelligence officer, described Delta Force members as "quiet professionals. Silence is security."

Read more about it here.

Re:Could be worse

[IndustrialComplex]

There is a serious problem of believing in our own hype. It's one thing when the enemy believes that you CAN do something (which you can't, but want them to believe you can), it's a much more dangerous situation where YOU believe you can do something (but cannot reliably do it).

The deification of special forces in popular culture is very dangerous. These people are human beings, physically fit and specially trained to be sure, but regular human beings with an immense logistical system to support them.

I worry tremendously because the general population (and government leaders) will permit actions which while technically possible, are tremendously risky from the perspective of national interests. We blind ourselves with our successes and can easily slip into a might makes right belief system. I feel that we hear far too often the phrase 'teach em a lesson'.

Believing that we can or should 'teach lessons' through the use of our special forces is incredibly dangerous and actions like the raid to kill Osama should only be undertaken sparingly because not only is the risk high, but without maintaining the moral highground it will become an incredibly dangerous world when OTHER actors being to reach out and 'teach' their own 'lessons' on a similar scale.

Re:slap on the wrist

[kelemvor4]

The fact that this meme gets consistently modded to oblivion when there's more than enough evidence to suggest that it's at least a fucking possibility does nothing but increase the probability of it in fact actually being the case, at least in the minds of those not necessarily hooked on the Fox News/CNN tit...

Never say never, I suppose - but the idea does seem a little crazy. He's been dead for quite some time and there's been no problem justifying the foreign wars without him. There was also no problem doing it before any of us ever heard of him. Seems like a long and risky road for the government to take to get a justification that they didn't even need.

Re:slap on the wrist

[Dishevel]

What they want to keep secret are the ways in which they do things.
Surprise, they like it. Confusion, they encourage it. These are things that help keep them alive.
In football you of course do not want the opposing team to know what play you are panning on doing next.
But it is also damaging to have the opposing team have your play book.
The seals were giving out pages of the Seal playbook for a fucking video game. I play games. I like em.
Really though. Giving out pages of the Seal playbook so that a fucking video game can be a little better should be punished. Heavily.