The Foreign Service Journal, June 2014

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JUNE 2014 19 provided extensive lists of my sourcing to prove that all information was acquired from publicly available sources. To their credit, the CIA ran a clear and transparent process and withdrew practically all objections in response to my appeal. In contrast, the Defense Department’s process was opaque and problematic. DOD redacted a map that is in a pub- lished, official departmental history and was provided to me by the Special Opera- tions Command history office for republi- cation. Other redacted materials included common unit names and the title of one SOCOM component command listed on the www.socom.mil website. DOD denied my appeal even when confronted with clear and convincing evidence that none of the material was classified. My only recourse was to sue the U.S. government, which I declined to do. DOD refused to provide explanations for their redactions. And, unfortunately, State never pushed back or advocated on my behalf within the interagency to challenge some of the more absurd redactions. It was a failure to protect my rights as an American citizen and a gov- ernment employee. Luckily for me, the material that was redacted was not vital to my book, but that is not necessarily going to be the case with other reviews. The good news is that most clearance requests take just a few weeks and do not entail interagency review. In fact, for straightforward materials like op-eds, or time-sensitive situations like interview requests, State can often act in days or DOD redacted a map that is in a published, official departmental history and was provided tome by the Special Operations Command history office for republication.