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State’s actions against Peter Van Buren offer a few lessons on use of classified info, power
(This article originally appeared in the Washington Post’s “Federal Diary” column, and was written by Joe Davidson)
(NOTE: There is no classified material in my book, We Meant Well. The book for sale today is an unredacted version. –Peter)
The best way for the federal government to publicize a book? Attempt to muzzle the author.
You probably wouldn’t be reading about Peter Van Buren right now had the State Department not stripped him of his security clearance and suspended him after publication of his book, “We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People.”
Van Buren’s case provides lessons that go beyond the number of books the censors at State will help him sell. The lessons concern what the government chooses to classify, the way it handles situations involving books with classified information and how the government can use its power to suspend employees.
Ironically, Van Buren now has free time to promote his book, complete with the classified information, because he was suspended until Nov. 10, with pay, earlier this week. He can’t appeal the suspension, the purpose of which, according to a letter from the department, “is to continue review your situation.”
The situation is the publication of his book without State’s stamp of approval. State Department officials would not comment on Van Buren’s case.
In a Sept. 20 letter faxed to publisher Macmillan, State said the book’s “circulation and publicizing have been done without authorization from the Department. The Department has recently concluded that two pages of the book manuscript we have seen contain unauthorized disclosures of classified information.”
To its credit, the publisher did not fold. “Their specific requests concerned passages in the book that on their face clearly did not contain classified information,” Macmillan said a statement. “In any event, these belated requests were received after the initial shipments of the book had already been sent to booksellers.”
What State’s letter does not say is that it had plenty of time to review the book. Van Buren said that he submitted his book in September of last year but that State had no comment on it until the September fax of this year.
According to State’s Foreign Affairs Manual: “All public speaking, writing, or teaching materials on matters of official concern prepared in an employee’s private capacity must be submitted for a reasonable period of review, not to exceed thirty days.”
Since the 30-day period had long expired with no word from State, Van Buren understandably concluded that the department had no problem with his book.
“I followed the rules,” Van Buren said at a National Press Club briefing Thursday. “I submitted my book for clearance.”
But the book wasn’t the only problem. In an Oct. 12 memo to Van Buren, State said his top-secret security clearance was suspended, pending an ongoing investigation, because the Big Brother- sounding “Office of Personnel Security and Suitability . . . has determined that your continued access to classified information is not clearly consistent with the national security interests of the United States.”
The memo said that by publishing articles and blog posts “on matters of official concern . . . without submitting them to the Department for review . . . your judgement in the handling of protected information is questionable.”
State’s memo did not identify the objectionable blog item, but Van Buren said it was “a link, not a leak, a link from my blog to a WikiLeaks document that was already on the Internet.”
The fact that the document was available to everyone in the world did not matter.
“I did write blog postings and online articles without permission,” Van Buren admits. But he understandably questions whether his punishment is in line with the little or no harm done by linking to a document that was readily available anyway.
Stay tuned.
Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved. The views expressed here are solely those of the author(s) in their private capacity.
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MattieB said...
1This is the part where the conscientious objector thinks; “if I explain this, lay out all the facts, directly invoke the frightening implications for our beloved Republic, THEN people will understand.”
Have a look at the comments section of the WaPo editorial below. Imagine the intellectual will it must take to fail to see the forest for the trees like that.
Somehow, it was not possible for us as a people, after the 9/11 attacks, to emulate the Brits during the blitz, to toughen up and carry on, refusing to sacrifice our values.
This national security state, very expensive, a waste of time, in addition to being antithetical to the deepest American values, acts and grows with the tacit compliance of its citizens.
Given our apparent cowardice, it is amazing that we do not fear the inevitable blowback that will result from the wars of choice, the drone strikes with multiple civilan casualties, all carried out in and against traditional revenge obligation societies.
The public will connect the dots on that one, the incubation of future terrorism through our own actions, much farther down the road.
I would call George Orwell to the white courtesy phone for a quick consult, but he already explained what’s happening very clearly, in books no longer read.
You have a duty to explain it, and a right to be heard. Please don’t be surprised by the reactions of the dim and dutiful. In fact, “keep calm and carry on,” just as we should have done when we traded away our rights and values because the fraudulent “terrorism threat indicator” was orange.
10/28/11 5:33 PM | Comment Link