The New York Times Sues The U.S. Government

 

The New York Times sued the U.S. Defense Department yesterday demanding that it hand over documents about the National Security Agency's domestic spying program.

The Times wants a list of documents including all internal memos and e-mails about the program of monitoring phone calls without court approval. It also seeks the names of the people or groups identified by it.

A.J. Strata: "One cannot wonder about the timing of this act with the ongoing investigation into the NSA leak and indicators the NY Times’ source is one or two high profile Democrat Senators."

David McCraw [a lawyer for the Times] said there was “no connection” between the Justice Department probe and the Times’ lawsuit.
[...]
“This is an important story that our reporters are continuing to pursue and of the ways to do that is through the Freedom of Information Act,” McCraw said.

Yes, we believe you. Ahem. In fact why don't we simply reveal all our secrets to the terrorists, whilst ignoring others. It seems to be entirely irrelevant  to the NYT either way, as long as there is a glimmer of a hope that President Bush may be crushed in some way. They have simply become unhinged in their Bush phobia to such an extent, that it has simply blinded them to any arguments that may directly or indirectly be to his benefit, regardless of their effect on national security, which in this witch hunt will always take second place.

As I have always said, the left hates the President far more than it fears al-Qaeda, therefore any arguments of this nature will simply be filed as some sort of phobia, with different words attached to it....that is until the next attack.

And the objective? To safely ignore the phobia in order to pursue a different agenda.

Surely this information has to be highly classified for Goodness sake. I really am assuming at this stage that the petition will be refused on grounds of national security, or on grounds of simply having the gall.

So what does the Department of Justice FOIA say about that:

The exemptions authorize federal agencies to withhold information covering: (1) classified national defense and foreign relations information; (2) internal agency rules and practices; (3) information that is prohibited from disclosure by another federal law; (4) trade secrets and other confidential business information; (5) inter-agency or intra-agency communications that are protected by legal privileges; (6) information involving matters of personal privacy; (7) certain types of information compiled for law enforcement purposes; (8) information relating to the supervision of financial institutions; and (9) geological information on wells. The three exclusions, which are rarely used, pertain to especially sensitive law enforcement and national security matters.

Why doesn’t the NYT declare itself a foreign country at war with the United States. Contract with the ACLU another hostile power, (Jay are you listening?) to function as it’s Justice and State Dept. Then at least they would be honest in their ongoing war with the United States.

Comments

[The FLY]

After nearly three months Mr. Russell Tice the publicity seeking former NSA employee, and according to ABC News one of the NYT's original sources, is apparently still awaiting a response to his December 18, 2005 "Whistle Blower" open letter to Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts and others requesting that his allegations be heard before Congress. More.

[RL]

One of the only reasons why i used to pick-up the times was because of Mr. William Safire's thoughtful analysis in his consistently well-written weekly columns. Now that Mr. Safire is semi-retired, this rapidly-fading idol of the msm has unfortunately lost one of its only voices of intellectual-honesty and original-thinking, in my humble opinion.

[eteraz]

nevermind alexandra, the problem was at my end!

[jess1dering]

Ahem : let's try cede the Union .....since I have no idea what cade the Union might mean...:)

[eteraz]

hi alexandra,

i believe all my trackbacks to your wonderful websites are ending up in your comments moderation section or some sort of filter you might have set up.

alas: my recent post i tried linking to relates to american-muslim organizations.

[Stefan]

If the New York Times would declare itself another country at war with the US then we could send Paul Krugman, Thomas Friedman, Maureen Dowd, Frank Rich, and Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. to GITMO as enemy combatants!! Sounds like a plan!!

[rich]

They may be trying to pin down the Justice Department on the basis for the classification of the information. Any statement in response to the FOIA request and any documents produced in response to the request will be scrubbed to see if they can be used in a the defense of the criminal case. This is assuming that the New York Times corporate entity will be indicted. It may be a forlorn hope, but it is probably better than doing nothing.

[RL]

Right on Huan.

Thanks for the funny photo Alexandra. It's nice that some folks (toi, le papillon Queen Alexandra) have a pleasant sense of humor around here.

Personalized vanity license-plates spotted at Langley, late yesterday afternoon. It's just too bad that, F NYTIMES, exceeds the DMV's letter limit for personalized tags here.
It's also too bad that there are still far too many,"kerry edwards", bumper-stickers in the parking-lots at Langley and Foggy Bottom.

Jayson Blair must be very proud of his fomer employer, forhaving totally adopted his ethical-code and lowbrow-standards.

[jess1dering]

Alexandra: Hello , o greatly creative one !! Your blog is a source of great pleasure and challenge and hope to me. This particular entry puts you right up there with the best of the political satire blogs !! I love it ! The NYT's and the ACLU could represent the interest of Radical Islam and cade from the Union. WOOOHOOO !

[Huan]

I hope the leak investigation finds both the sources to the NYT and hold the NYT liable for knowingly publish US classified information.