The Feds Get Permission to Seize Edward Snowden's Book Profits

Could they try to come after the money Rogan made on that podcast?

If I've read your comment correctly there are two major points:

1. It's highly likely (you said definitely) given the person and subject that some information in the memoir is at least sensitive even if it is not classified, and there's an equally good chance there is some classified information.

2. The actual suit doesn't need the book to contain classified information, they can block it entirely based on process.

That's a good and helpful answer. It would be helpful to have substantial examples of (1).

(2) seems to be the thing that other commentators are claiming is being weaponized for soft-censorship (especially wrt Snowden not being in a position to use an internal three-letter-agency process to publish, and the fact that said three-letter-agencies would likely block publication using their internal processes).

Regarding (2) do you happen to know if there are just-the-government-following-standard-operating-proceedure and non-political examples of agencies blocking the proceeds of books/memoirs based on the process?

The example that comes to mind for me is Patraeus's memoirs - which was widely political and scandalous but still agencies did not seek to withhold profits from book sales.

Any examples of where (2) being used day-to-day as SOP?

Classified information is antithetical to Thomas Jefferson's ideal of a well informed citizenry to whom government is ultimately responsible and accountable. He affirmed this idea throughout his political writings, but most notably in Bill 79, "A Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge." Its preamble reads as follows:

Whereas it appeareth that however certain forms of government are better calculated than others to protect individuals in the free exercise of their natural rights, and are at the same time themselves better guarded against degeneracy, yet experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms, those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny; and it is believed that the most effectual means of preventing this would be, to illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large, and more especially to give them knowledge of those facts, which history exhibiteth, that, possessed thereby of the experience of other ages and countries, they may be enabled to know ambition under all its shapes, and prompt to exert their natural powers to defeat its purposes; And whereas it is generally true that that people will be happiest whose laws are best, and are best administered, and that laws will be wisely formed, and honestly administered, in proportion as those who form and administer them are wise and honest; whence it becomes expedient for promoting the publick happiness that those person, whom nature hath endowed with genius and virtue, should be rendered by liberal education worthy to receive, and able to guard the sacred deposit of the rights and liberties of their fellow citizens, and that they should be called to that charge without regard to wealth, birth or other accidental condition or circumstance; but the indigence of the greater number disabling them from so educating, at their own expence, those of their children whom nature hath fitly formed and disposed to become useful instruments for the public, it is better that such should be sought for and educated at the common expence of all, than that the happiness of all should be confided to the weak or wicked:...

Bill 79 was mostly about public schooling, but it contains the kernel of an argument for more open governance and against ubiquitous secrecy in language like "give them knowledge of those facts, which history exhibiteth, that, possessed thereby of the experience of other ages and countries, they may be enabled to know ambition under all its shapes, and prompt to exert their natural powers to defeat its purposes".

> NDA enforcement is not at odds with the first amendment.

This isn't ordinary NDA enforcement, it's enforcement of a prior restraint on speech. With a normal NDA, if you publish information you're not supposed to, they can go to court and prove that the information was covered by the NDA and then get an order to stop you from continuing to publish it or sue you for damages.

In this case they haven't proved that anything in the book was actually subject to the NDA and they're objecting because they didn't get to review it before publication. But you can reasonably expect any government "review" in this context to be an effort to unreasonably delay or otherwise interfere with publication of the book, even if there is no legitimate cause.

The difference is that they would otherwise have to prove the contents of the book was in violation of the NDA. Without that they could suppress the book even if it wasn't. That might not be constitutional and there are a lot of good policy reasons for it not to be.

This would be a lot more obvious if they were seeking to restrain publication, so they're looking for a backdoor, and trying to get there by taking the money. But that should fail for the same reason Son of Sam laws are unconstitutional. Writing and publishing a book takes time and money which the person who wants to write it generally can't get without the expectation of recovering it after publication. You don't have time to write a book if you can't get an advance and thereby have to spend all your time working some other job to put food on the table. Which can cause the book not to be written and the readers would be denied the information.

It's as much about the right of the readers to pay someone to tell the story and thereby ensure the story gets told, as it is the right of the storyteller to make a buck.