Operation 'Try (and fail) to Keep in the Dark'

So the Department of Defense decided to spend almost 50,000 dollars to destroy 9,500 books that may be a threat to national security.  Actually, they incinerated them.  Why?  These 9,500 printed books are already in the hands of many in uncensored, electronic format.

Operation Dark Heart:  Spycraft and special ops on the frontlines of Afghanistan- and the path to victory is a book written by former Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Shaffer, an ex-intelligence officer and Afghanistan war veteran.  In the book, Lt. Col. Shaffer tells his story as an intelligence officer forced to deal with Washington's hand-tying policies.

The reason the DoD wanted to destroy the uncensored versions and edit a significant portion of Operation Dark Heart is because a particular chapter may lead to questions about an operation coined 'Able Danger' and the 9/11 Commission's 2006 report on the 9/11 attacks.  For context, Able Danger was a military intelligence project designed to gather data about possible terrorist attacks.  The program was abandoned and the data was destroyed in 2000 by the Department of Defense.  A potential DoD cover-up is the basis for the book Operation Dark Heart to come into the limelight.

The DoD did not object to the outright publishing of the book, just the 'threat's' which are apparently tied to national security items.  However, as fas.org points out, only about 10 percent of the governmentally redacted information could even be considered a threat to national security.  As I said previously, however, much of that information could be found with a bit of research on the web.

*Fun governmental redaction, paid for by you and me*:  Ned Beatty must be one profound government secret.  For some reason, the DoD felt his name should be redacted from the text of Operation Dark Heart.  Yes, the actor, Ned Beatty.  Funnier thing is, in the version of the book that the DoD approves of, the actor's name (and page number of its appearance) is listed in the index!  Heck, 20 percent of Americans probably didn't know many books even have indexes - apparently non of the redactors did, either =P

So when I stumbled upon this news story I thought to myself "Great, some hard news" ... until I looked at the three accompanying attention-grabbing headlines - soft news x3.  Just soft news stories slapped up there to get more clicks where advertisements may be shoved in consumer's faces.  Fox News may just want this story as a fall-back piece if details get juicier and the mud starts slinging - hello ratings!  CNN.com was just as guilty.  ONE, yes O-N-E hard news story adorned their front page at the time of this blog publishing (out of eight large attention-grabbers).

I'm not sure if the mass media cares if anyone notices this story.  "Government spends money to destroy information you can get anyhow" might be a more appropriate, attention-grabbing title.  Sure, it may have implications to the possibility of the federal government's 9/11 report cover-up, but the mass media isn't making a large percentage of money on these types of hard news stories.  Foxnews.com is the website where I first heard of the Able Danger project's re-emergence into the news cycle.  Operation Dark Heart's government buyout/burnout was just a major side note I decided to speculate on.

CNN.com returned no relevance results for "Dark Heart" or, more surprisingly, "Able Danger".  Why do you think that is?

Sources:

For a run-down of the most common objections the Department of Defense has with Operation Dark Heart's content, visit http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2010/09/behind_the_censor.html

For a few side-by-side comparison of each version, visit http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2010/09/dark-contrast.pdf

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/10/04/exclusive-witnesses-defense-department-report-suggest-cover-findings/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/29/operation-dark-heart-comp_n_744123.html

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Operation-Dark-Heart/Anthony-Shaffer/e/9780312603694#TABS

http://www.cnn.com/