By Jeff Stein
Spy Talk
WASHINGTON — You’d think that the nation’s number one domestic counterterrorism agency would have better things to do than yap at authors and publishers about using the bureau’s official seal on their books.
But I.C. Smith, a retired senior FBI counterintelligence agent who wrote a very critical book about the bureau in 2004, just found out otherwise.
A few weeks ago an FBI lawyer instructed Smith that he had to remove the FBI seal from his Web site, including one on the jacket of his 2004 book, “INSIDE: A Top G Man Exposes Spies, Lies and Bureaucratic Bungling Inside the FBI.”
The G-lawyer also told Smith that the publisher of his book, Thomas Nelson, Inc., would also be instructed “that if the book is reprinted, the cover be redesigned to remove the FBI Seal.”
