The cia came back to him and his publisher and said theres 339 passages here you have to delete because they are revealing National Security information. They went to court, they fought over, cia cut that number from 339 down to 168. In that the end of the day, 30. The publisher put out the book with white spaces for the 30, bold face for the 160 they caved on, and italic for the other. So theres an object lesson how subjective this can be. Thats the formal start of a review board process inside the intelligence community. But he did go through the review process . He did submit it before publishing the book . Guest rights. The case and went all way to the Supreme Court was a man named frank who did not submit his book. Thats what the judge is referring to the bolton case when he said hes risking losing his royalties. In 1980 the Supreme Court upheld the seizure of all of his royalties. His book advance, all of his royalty income. Because he did not give the book to the cia for review. Now smith and the government argued the government admitted smiths book did not have classified information is about the abandonment of the south vietnamese in 1975. In the government admitted they didnt have classified information. But they went after smith on was he violated his contract. The Supreme Court without holding oral arguments or folate briefing took off all of his royalties in that case. It turns out, the book tv would love this is years later when researchers got into the justices papers, they found Justice Powell drove that opinion because he was so angry at his former clerks hit all talked about woodward and Scott Armstrong for the book, the brethren, and powell was so mad at those guys. Thats the precedent against the threat on bolton today the government could take away his work. Is their informal system in place now for prepublication review . Yes there is. I differs from agency to agency. This is so decentralized that it becomes really capricious and pretty arbitrary. Here is what happened to bolton. Im quoting from the judges opinion that just came out this past saturday. Bolton went through four months of facetoface and online and phone review with the senior person at the National Security council. A woman named ellen knight with decades of experience the security clearance lots of prepublication shes done it for other nsc people. By april 27, ellen knight had cleared the book. Bolton had made all of the changes she had asked for it on the 27th of april the government admits this, she told bolton your book is cleared. It does not have classified information. Its 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. They bring in a guy with no prepublication review experienc experience. Hed been working in the white house counsels office. Set over there effectively to secondguess the senior person who cleared the manuscript. And he according to the affidavit to the judge found six examples of classified information that were still in there. There were still in the bolton manuscript. He said and the government went to the judge and said you cannot let this out the judge holds a secret hearing this is the strangest part of this whole review talks to the judge in private without the other counsel that any other party they said this is classified. I am pretty dubious on these claims. Weve had thousands of examples with dubious secrets where they release one document with one set of depletions and another version with another set of deletions. It is so subjective for these calls that my gut tells me to it trust the senior person with the most experience who is doing an irregular order. And you look with suspicion on this kind of political insertion in the process. So lets go back to what you originally said when mr. Snuff lost his royalties. If john bolton submitted his book to the process and it was approved, where is the danger and losing your royalties . What the judge said in the opinion is bolton never got that approval from ellen knight in writing. And, the judge said its pretty reasonable for somebody so senior in the white house, so recent experience with the president and intelligence material that the government might want a second review. The Justice Department had to admit in the hearing last week this is the first time the senior justice lawyer could ever remember the government requiring a second review. So its really an unusual circumstance. But from that secret hearing that the judge held, he was convinced there was classified information in the manuscript. Its hard to tell ive read about two thirds of the book and i cant see with the 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. So is it expert in National Security world own freedom of information requests. Given surprises on the things over the years that have kept out of the book . Yes very much so i mentioned earlier the march had a book you can see the layers of censorship because the publisher boldface, italics, white space. You can see how objective it is. This is where the case and now may be the bolton case go to. Is that the line between the most highly protected political speech, thats the First Amendment right the Constitutional Rights of all of us at is probably the most important dynamic for democratic selfgovernment as we can all express ourselves. The line between that and a National Security claim can get pretty blurred. They took away franks right to comment on this disaster that happened in south vietnam. Here with john bolton the second layer of review looks to be pressure on him to not to say such embarrassing things about president trump. And so it is a the government does not have any adjudication theres no tribunal inside the government that can look at what the government claims is secret and what say john bolton says should not be secret. So that is the great irony. Before john bolton left office, and set last september he was an original declassification authority. If last september and he is still in office and he had a 500 page manuscript, he couldve stamped his name on it and said this is declassified. [laughter] and he had the authority to do it. This is the surreal reality of National Security he is going to be caught in for some months given this court case. So 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 prehes trying to get his memoir through the prepublication review process but hes complaining wait a second, i gave a speech, a public speech that have been cleared by the Security Officers but now the review board says no thats classified. But wait is in the public what you guys thinking . He talked about how the review added two years to his publication process. I think that is what john bolton was most worried about. That the white house would keep bringing in people like michael ellis, forcing another review and hold up the book until it wouldnt be a bestseller anymore. So you talked about the fact that different agencies through this prepublication review system differently. Where is the most stringent reviews and where are the least stringent . So the most stringent ones tend to be in the intelligence community. Nowadays, i think 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 done it to ask for everybody. From agency to agency you get completely different results from these reviews. Theres a great case study is the Hillary Clinton email. The state department did a review of all of her email and said there are no classified items in here. It was sent over an unclassified system its not a National Security secret buried the cia got involved in said wait a second we are seeing in mentions of drone strikes, and drone secret program you cant have that in your unclassified emai email. We dont have all those emails released yet. But according to what members of congress is said about them, those drone strike mentions were New York Times stories. Her aides are sending her New York Times stories. The aides and herself theyre thinking thats 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. You see this incredible difference between agencies. But i will tell you we have a document on our website where we have two different versions ten days apart. One is the top third, bottom third, blacked out. National security secret, grave damaged secret but then ten days later only the middle part blacked out . The punchline it was the same reviewer ten days apart looking at the same document looking at different opinion about what would be damaging to National Security. Think that is the part of this it raises questions for all of us as citizens theres no independent arbitration of these kind of claims. There are real secrets i am not a fan of the folks who think everything should go up on the wall. Think theyre real secrets again get People Killed or give bad guys that capability be dont them to have. But most of what the government hull as a subjective call we dont have very good systems judges are not prepared to do it, and judges when the classified representations from the Government Act in their chambers like judge lambert, what are they going to say . I can to create open im not going to trust you . Its very hard for the judge to go on this. Im hoping the bolton case brings enough attention to this process that congress, maybe the next congress will take a look at setting up a more consistent, standard process of review it will get rid of some of these anomalies. They will have a same standard for everybody and move these kinds of political speeches out into the public where they belong. Any liability for the publishers . No liability for the publishers. The judge really clearly said that right up front. Its wellestablished for years going back to the pentagon papers. The liability is nominally publisher. All the government has a right to do now is to continue to after john bolton maybe try to get that frank solution of taking ways royalty. Host of people are interested in seeing your work working they go . So archives gwu or ed or just search National Security archives. Answer on that website type in the phrase dubious secrets and you will see thousands of what im talking about here. Different blacked out portions. Its an object lesson and all this is citizens the government has a secret, we should ask questions. Thank you for joining us on book tv. Subject its a real pleasure to be with you peter. So tonight on book tv in primetime democratic representative. Mela of Washington State talks about her life and political career several authors discuss their biographies of George Washingtons mother, mary ball washington. Howard bloom recounts a failed not to plot that killed fdr and churchill and stalin in 1943. In brian walsh discusses the various threats humanity faces such as global warming, asteroid and nuclear war. Find more information booktv. Org check your program by entering guide. So during a virtual author event hosted by townhall seattle cultural writer katie looked at how women experience and manage power is a portion of the program. So this is a program very famous photograph taken in 1950 by the photographer art shape. As you can see shes in her 40s, shes getting ready shes in the bathroom are in very high heels and with you quite see you then. Shes putting up her hair somehow this photograph is always obsessed its the contradictions of it. The fact that shes wearing heels but shes naked. She wasnt really she did not technically give her permission for this photograph. But she did leave the door open with this strange man who was the photographer kind of sitting right there. He said he heard the clicking and she was kind of like a naughty boy she didnt care. But what you see in the photos is her not caring that the world is seeing her in this intimate moment. That is what is projected there. I guess the two things that inspired this book from that photograph are the idea that maybe it is okay to at a certain point in your life to sort of show yourself in that kind of intimate unguarded moment like the real self the real you. That was one thing about the photograph. The other thing about the photograph that interests me is something that she herself was really interested in. It was kind of showing women in all of their. The kind of weird, jarring, like putting your heels harrop shes wearing hills and shes naked all the contradictions of who she is not moment. Shes like a brilliant, feminist, intellectual but shes a woman getting ready in the mirror. All of that kind of contradictions that goes into being interested me and this book prayed the second thing that inspired this book is one of the biographers asked her was talking about our relationship. For those who dont know much about it she was very had an open was very tormented is extremely with this whole life. They have this open relationship that she basically wanted more of him then he wanted of her. She was sort of an unequal relationship should write him a letter saying without you i mutilated. She said she felt her relationship with him was her greatest achievement. Which irked a lot of people because she was such a Brilliant Writer and philosopher. Of what say to feminists who say your relationship was at odds with your feminist theories . And he looked at her and said well, im sorry to disappoint the feminist, but i just dont give a damn. I lived how one said its too bad so many of them live in theory and not real life. I found that quote so interesting. Maybe that concept of disappointing the feminist partly because i myself have disappointed the feminist for many decades, but also the idea that you could be somebody who lived, some cicada just in relationship with a man but also this incredibly powerful person in your work in your life. In your intellectual achievements. And that paradox i think is at the heart of this book which really obsesses a lot over the questions of how, and i look at my own life very frankly in this book. How sometimes you are strong and successful. And sometimes you are not. So to watch the rest of this discussion visit our website booktv. Org and search the title of her book the power notebooks. Good afternoon i am the director of government book studies at the policy center. let me start by introducing our guests and then well talk a little bit and then were looking forward to having you ask questions as well. Reason im very excited about the book and also about our guest is its a rare thing to be good at Public Service and to be a person