'No Easy Day' Controversy: Pentagon Threatens Legal Action Over Book On Bin Laden's Death

The Pentagon is threatening legal action to stop the release of "No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama bin Laden."

The book was written by Navy SEAL Matt Bissonnette under the pseudonym Mark Owen, and it offers his account as one of the members of the team that killed terrorist bin Laden in his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

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But the Pentagon is challenging the book and working to stop its publication because it claims the author is in violation of confidentiality agreements he signed with the Navy.

Owen signed a nondisclosure agreement in 2007 which reads in part: "I hereby agree that I will never divulge anything marked as SCI [Sensitive Compartmented Information] or that I know to be SCI to anyone who is not authorized to receive it without prior written authorization from the United States Government department or agency."

The Pentagon's top lawyer, Jeh Johnson, sent Owen a letter Thursday warning him not to go forward with releasing the book.

"In the judgment of the Department of Defense, you are in material breach and violation of the non-disclosure agreements you signed," Johnson wrote. "Further public dissemination of your book will aggravate your breach and violation of your agreements." 

"No Easy Day" was originally slated for a Sept. 11 release, which was then moved up to Sept. 4 because of the huge demand that came with news of its publication, sending it ahead of "Fifty Shades of Grey" on Amazon. But the Pentagon's dispute means the release schedule is now unclear.