{"id":67547,"date":"2016-08-20T12:00:19","date_gmt":"2016-08-20T16:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=67547"},"modified":"2016-08-20T10:08:44","modified_gmt":"2016-08-20T14:08:44","slug":"bissonnette-loses-royalties-speaking-fees-from-no-easy-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=67547","title":{"rendered":"Bissonnette Loses Royalties, Speaking Fees from \u201cNo Easy Day\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

As longtime TAH readers know, Matt Bissonnette wrote a book about the takedown of bin Laden called No Easy Day<\/u> under the pseudonym \u201cMark Owen\u201d.\u00a0 It\u2019s been the subject of numerous articles here at TAH (see here<\/a><\/em> and here<\/a><\/em> and here<\/a><\/em>) and has been mentioned in several other related articles.<\/p>\n

Bissonnette ended up in a bit of legal trouble over the book.\u00a0 While he wasn\u2019t criminally prosecuted, the government took him to court to enforce his nondisclosure agreement.\u00a0 One of the terms of that nondisclosure agreement is that all profits from any work revealing classified information that is published without appropriate prior review are to be turned over to the government.<\/p>\n

The court suit has now been settled.\u00a0 Bissonnette will forfeit to the US government all royalties and profits from his book;<\/a><\/em> that amount is already believed to be over $6.6 million.\u00a0 Within 30 days he will also pony up $100k in speaking fees he received for using slides (apparently based on the same information) that were also not submitted for review prior to public use.<\/p>\n

In short, he\u2019ll do exactly what he agreed he would do<\/em> when he signed his SF312, Classified Information Nondisclosure Agreement<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

IMO, Bissonnette and his original lawyers were idiots – Bissonnette for not complying originally, and his lawyers for letting this drag on for years.\u00a0 The SF312 is quite clear and unambiguous regarding both post-employment disclosures and the procedures for publishing works that may contain classified information – and it has been for decades.<\/p>\n

Signing a SF312 is required for access to classified information.\u00a0 Bissonnette signed a SF312 – and probably multiple copies – during his Navy career.<\/p>\n

But I guess the prospect for a 7-figure payday sometimes brings out \u201cteh stoopid\u201d in people.<\/p>\n

And please, spare me the \u201cthe government is singling him out to screw him for political reasons\u201d or \u201che didn\u2019t know\u201d garbage \u2013 because that\u2019s bullsh!t.\u00a0 Bissonnette signed on the dotted line; if he was too stupid to read the document and understand it, that\u2019s on him.<\/p>\n

Besides: \u00a0Bissonnette has written a follow-up book entitled No Hero: the Evolution of a Navy SEAL<\/u>, also under the pseudonym \u201cMark Owen\u201d.\u00a0 He submitted that book for the appropriate pre-publication review.\u00a0 It was approved by DoD with minor redactions.<\/p>\n

Count your blessings, Mattie-boi<\/em>.\u00a0 For what you did, it’s entirely possible you could be in jail today vice simply out considerable coin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As longtime TAH readers know, Matt Bissonnette wrote a book about the takedown of bin Laden … Bissonnette Loses Royalties, Speaking Fees from \u201cNo Easy Day\u201d<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":623,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[209,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-teh-stoopid","category-legal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/623"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=67547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67547\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=67547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=67547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=67547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}