Manuscript of his experience of the cia. They came back to him and said to him and his publish of their 339 passages we have to delete they are revealing a National Security information for they went to court, they fought over, the cia cut that from three to 39 down to 168 and at the end of the day 30. The publisher put out the book with white spaces for the 30, boldface for the 160 they did in the tally for the other so as an object lesson in how subjective so much of this Government Data that was the formal start of the review process inside the process. So they dicker through the review process he did submit it before publishing the book . The case of monopoly to the Supreme Court was about a guy named frank who did not submit his book. That is what the judge is referring to the bolton case when he said bolton is risking losing his royalties. In 1980 he upheld the seizures of his book advance, all of his Royalty Income because he did not give the book to the cia for review. Now the government argued and the government admitted his book did not contain any classified information. Is about the abandonment of the South Vietnamese when he got out of South Vietnam and real hurry in 1975. The government admitted it did not have classified information but they went after him because he violated his contract. The Supreme Court, without holding oral arguments without fully briefing, took away all of his royalties in this case. The irony is that turns out and book tv would love this, heres later when researchers got into the justices papers, they saw Justice Powell drove that opinion because he was so angry with this former clerks first book the number one best seller and he was so mad at those guys who took it out on frank. That is our precedents against bolton today that the government could take away his royalties. Is there a formal system in place now for prepublication . Yes it differs from agency to agency it is so decentralized becomes really capricious and pretty arbitrary. Heres what happened to bolton and i am quoting from the judges opinion that just came out this past saturday. Bolton went through four months of facetoface online and phone review with the senior person at the National Security council a woman named ellen knight decades of government experience all of the secrecy clearances all with prepublic experience shes done it for other people and by april 27, ellen knight had cleared the book bolton had made all the changes she had asked for and on the 27th of april and the government admits this she told bolton your book is cleared it is not have classified information. It is at that point the white house brought in a new guy. This is where it gets kind of fishy. This is what john boltons lawyers are arguing in court for they bring in a guy with no prepublication withdrew experience pretty sick formal congressional aid in working in the White House Counsel Office he sent over there effectively to secondguess the senior person who cleared the manuscript. And he come according to his affidavit to the judge found six examples of classified information that were still in there. There were still the bolton manuscript. And think government went to the judge and said you cant let this out. The judge holds a secret hearing this is the strangest part of this whole prepublication review. The government gets to talk to the judge in private without the other counsel without the plaintiff, without any other party and they say wait a second this is classified and im pretty dubious about that we publish on our website thousands of examples of what we called dubious secrets where the government has released one version of a document with one set of deletions. And then a nether version of the document with a different set of deletions. It is so subjective these calls, my gut tells me you trust the senior person with the most experience who is doing it in regular order and you look with suspicion on the political insertion in the process. Lets go back to what you originally said when he lost his royalties john bolton submitted his book to the process, and ellen knight approved it, where is the danger and losing your royalty . What the judge said in the opinion was bolton never got that approval from ellen knight in writing. And the judge said its pretty reasonable for someone so senior with intelligence material that the government might once a second review. The Justice Department had to admit in the hearing last week the first time the senior justice lawyer could ever remember the government requiring the whole second review. Really unusual circumstances. But from that secret hearing the judge held, the judge said he was convinced there is classified information in the manuscript. Its hard to tell ive read about two thirds of the book no now. And i cant see where that classified information would be. I think it is a subjective claim unfortunately by this fellow, michael ellis. That shows you how messed up the publication review process is. Host as an expert in the National Security world and freedom of information have you been surprised at some of the things over the years that have been kept out of the book . Guest yes very much so. And i mentioned this other book and you can see the layers of censorship boldface italic white space, you see how subjective it is. The problem i think this is where now the bolton case go to, is the line between the most highly protected political speech that is the First Amendment rights probably the most important dynamic or democratic selfgoverning we can all express ourselves that the line between vat and National Security claim can get pretty blurred. Spring port took away franks right to comment on the disaster that happened in South Vietnam. Here with john bolton the intervention of this second layer review really looks to be pressure on him not to say such embarrassing things about president trump. And so its a judgment call and the government does not have any kind of adjudication mechanism like there is no tribunal inside the government that can look at the government claims a secret in what Sayed John Bolton says should not be secret. That is the great irony until john bolton left office last september, he was an original declassification authority. If last september he is still in office and had a 500 page manuscript, he couldve stamped his name on it and said this is declassified. He had the authority to do it. This is they serve real reality of National Security secrecy that he is going to because it in for some months given this court case. Has this happened and other administrations as well . Very much so. We posted on her website a really eloquent set of complaints from a former cia director and he is trying to get his memoir through the prepublication review process. He is complaining, wait a second i gave a speech, a public speech should have been cleared by the Security Officers but now the review board says no that is classified but wait its in the public gentlemen, what are you guys thinking, right . He talked about how the review added two years to his publication process. I think that is what john bolton was most worried about the white house would keep bringing in people like michael ellis, full forcing a nether review and hold up the book until it would not be a bestseller anymore. See mix so you talk about the fact that different agencies treat this prepublication review system differently. Where is the most stringent reviews and where are the least stringent ones . The most stringent is in the intelligence communities. Nowadays i would say 30 years ago the department of defense for example only required about one tenth of its employees, soldiers, activeduty et cetera to sign these nondisclosure agreements. Now theyve expanded to cover everybody. From agency to agency you get completely different results from these reviews. A great case study is the Hillary Clinton email. The state department did a review of all of her email and said there is no classified items in here. It was sent over in an unclassified system its not National Security secret the cia got involved and said wait a second, we are finding mentions of drone strikes. Drone is a hugely secret program you cant have that in unclassified emails. We dont have all those emails released yet. But according to what members of congress have said about them, the drone strike mentions were u. S. Times stories in her aides are sending her New York Times stories the eighth and the herself the thinking its on the front page of the New York Times it cant be classified. But within the cia rules any mention of those programs has to be classified. They are see the incredible difference between agencies. But i will tell you we have a document on our website were two different versions, ten days apart, one is in the top third bottom third blend out National Security secret ten days later only the middle part blacked ou out, the punchline is its the same reviewer ten days apart looking at the same document in coming to a diametrically different opinion on what will be damaging to National Security. That is the part of this that raises questions for all citizens there is no independent arbitration of these times of claims. There are real secrets i am not a fan thinking everything should go up on the wall there are real secrets he can get People Killed they can give bad guys a capability be dont want them to have. But most of what the government holds is a subjective call. Judges are not prepared to do it when they get these representations in the Government Back in their chambers like judge lambert, what is that say . I can to create open . Its a very hard for a judge to go against the government on this. And so weve got a real im hoping the bolton case brings enough attention to this that congress, maybe the next congress will take a look at setting up a more consistent, standard, process of review. The get rid of some of these anomalies will have same standard and pentagon papers a liability is on the publisher, all the government has a right to do now is to continue to go after john bolton and maybe try to get that solution of taking away his royalty. They dont succeed. See mecca people are interested in seeing your work, work and they go . Just search National Security archive and once youre on that website, type in the phrase dubious secrets and you will see thousands. [laughter] thousands of what im talking about here different blacked out portions. Its an object lesson for all of us as citizens, when the government says it secret, we should ask questions. Tom thank you for joining us on book tv. Binge watch a book tv this summer. Saturday evening at 8 00 p. M. Eastern much several hours of your favorite authors tonight we are featuring commentator author and founder of national are you William F Buckley author of over 50 books including up from liberalism, flying high and the reaganite new and watch next saturday as we feet journalist and author gladwell. Binge watch book tv all summer on cspan2. Hello everyone thank you so much for tuning in. I am Audrey Stewart on behalf of the books over and went to welcome each of the Virtual Event tonight with michael presenting his new book. He is joining conversation with Mickey Edwards and