According to Shaffer, the process was handled in bad faith. He claimed the Pentagon used the review process to censor legitimate criticisms of military operations, rather than protecting genuine national security secrets.
Beyond the battlefields of Afghanistan, Operation Dark Heart also brought renewed focus to , a controversial data-mining operation from the late 1990s. Shaffer asserted that Able Danger had successfully identified future 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta and three other conspirators a full year before the attacks occurred. He alleged that military lawyers blocked the operation from sharing this vital intelligence with the FBI, a claim later downplayed by a U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee investigation .
The DIA, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the National Security Agency (NSA) intervened. They claimed the book contained significant amounts of classified information that could jeopardize national security and compromise ongoing operations. operation dark heart unredacted pdf top
He pulled it down. He opened it to page 112.
Massive blocks of text detailing bureaucratic infighting between the CIA, DIA, and traditional military commanders were entirely censored, leading critics to argue the redactions were meant to protect political reputations rather than national security. The Digital Leak and the Streisand Effect According to Shaffer, the process was handled in bad faith
The censorship backfired through the "Streisand Effect." Because the government tried so hard to hide the content, physical advance copies leaked, and internet users quickly digitized the unredacted text. By comparing the blacked-out public release with the leaked original pages, researchers found exactly what the DIA censored.
It was a sea of black ink. A censor’s Rorschach test. The DIA, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and
Many critics, including those quoted in the Army Times and Booklist, noted that the book often read like an adventure novel, making its suppression feel even more dramatic. Conclusion: The Lasting Impact of the Unredacted Story
: The Pentagon paid approximately $47,300 to purchase and destroy the initial print run from St. Martin's Press .
Following the destruction of the first edition, St. Martin's Press released a heavily altered second printing featuring over 400 blacked-out passages spanning 250 of the book's 320 pages. When legal analysts and journalists compared the widely circulated unredacted advance copies against the censored version, they discovered a bizarre pattern of over-classification: How Not to Censor a Book: Pentagon Makes a Best Seller
The redactions attempted to hide the extent of the National Security Agency’s electronic surveillance and data-collection methods in Central Asia.