The death of Osama Bin Laden was one of the biggest news in 2011, and further etched the US Navy Team SEAL Six into military history for the daring raid in Abbottabad. One of the members of this team, Matt Bissonnette, writing his account of raid under the name of Mark Owen, released the “No Easy Day” book in 2012 and became a New York Times Best Seller.
However, according to Federal court documents, Bissonette violated non-disclosure agreements by not submitting the manuscript to the Defense Department for clearance. In a settlement agreement with authorities, he will be giving to the government all the profits and royalties derived from the book and movie rights, totaling around US$6.6 million which he has to pay the bulk of it within four years.
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The purpose on why Bissonette would need to submit to the Defense Department for clearance of his book is to check if he will be revealing classified information given the sensitive nature of his work being part of a special operations unit tasked with executing highly classified missions. However, Pentagon never brought charges against Bissonette after opening an investigation if he revealed classified information or not.
Also part of the settlement, Bissonette will apologize for not following rules on disclosure procedures of the Department of Defense. For the U.S. government, it will dismiss other liability claims for its part of the settlement.
“No Easy Day” is about Bissonette’s service and his experiences in action in Iraq and Afghanistan including his involvement in the rescue of the crew of the Maersk Alabama in 2009 from pirates off the coast of Somalia in the Indian Ocean. This rescue mission became the basis of a Tom Hanks movie, “Captain Phillips” released in 2013.
With the loss of profits from “No Easy Day”, Bissonette still has an opportunity to earn with the release of another book that has been cleared by the proper channels. “No Hero: the Evolution of a Navy SEAL” is also written under the Mark Owen pseudonym that was first published in November 2014.
