"Soft Watch at the Moment of First Explosion" by Salvador Dali 1954
Well it seems that I am not the only one who thinks so
The chairman of the House homeland security committee urged the Bush administration on Sunday to seek criminal charges against newspapers that reported on a secret financial-monitoring program used to trace suspected terrorists.
Representative Peter King cited the New York Times in particular for publishing a story last week that said the Treasury Department was working with the CIA to examine messages within a massive international database of money-transfer records.
King, a New York Republican, said he would write Attorney General Alberto Gonzales urging that the country's chief law enforcer "begin an investigation and prosecution of the New York Times - the reporters, the editors and the publisher."
"We're at war, and for the Times to release information about secret operations and methods is treasonous," King told The Associated Press.
King's action was not endorsed by the chairman of the Senate judiciary committee, Republican Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.
Senator Specter's lack of support comes as no surprise to anyone, least of all the talented Mike Finkelstein reporting @ NewsBusters
Specter, who began his political career as a prosecutor, played defense lawyer for the Gray Lady on this morning's Fox News Sunday. Host Chris Wallace asked the senior senator from PA "do you think the Times was wrong to publish this story as well as the NSA warrantless wiretap story, and does it rise to the level that they should be prosecuted?"
Specter: "Well, we have seen the newspapers in this country act as effective watchdogs. You had Jefferson lay out the parameter saying if he had to choose a government without newspapers or newspapers without government, he'd choose newspapers without government . . . I don't think that the newspapers can have a totally free hand. But I think in the first instance, it is their judgment. The editor of the New York Times was quoted as saying that they have considered the government's request not to public and made their decision that it was in the public interest. I'd be prepared to criticize the New York Times if I felt it warranted. After knowing a lot more about the facts, but on the basis of the newspaper article, I think it's premature to call for a prosecution of the New York Times just like i think it's premature to say that the administration is entirely correct."
This was miraculously on the same day that Senator Specter announced that White House and Congress were close to reaching a resolution on submitting a NSA wiretap program to judicial review, and Gray Lady's editor, the arrogant Bill Keller, wrote his unpersuasive response to the public, managing to blame "conservative bloggers and TV or radio pundits" for taking the newspaper's actions seriously. Eh?
A deeper error is Keller's characterization of freedom of the press as an institutional privilege, an error that is a manifestation of the hubris that has marked the NYT of late. Keller writes: "It's an unusual and powerful thing, this freedom that our founders gave to the press. . . . The power that has been given us is not something to be taken lightly."
The founders gave freedom of the press to the people, they didn't give freedom to the press. Keller positions himself as some sort of Constitutional High Priest, when in fact the "freedom of the press" the Framers described was also called "freedom in the use of the press." It's the freedom to publish, a freedom that belongs to everyone in equal portions, not a special privilege for the media industry.
The inimitable Noel Sheppard, one of my editors @ NewsBusters, has an excellent piece up @ The American Thinker
[I]t is high time the U.S. government took a stand against the reporting of classified intelligence information by America’s press. Irrespective of the self-serving opinions of Bill Keller and his associates, the public’s interest in safety and national defense is much greater than its desire to know the intricate details of how the government achieves such vital goals.
This is particularly true during a time of war when the program at issue has absolutely no impact on any citizen within America’s borders, is not violating domestic or international laws, and has no Geneva Convention component.
With that in mind, the Justice Department, led by attorney general Alberto Gonzales, must investigate and decide whether or not to prosecute the Times for its possibly treasonous acts. To be sure, the Times is cynically counting on such an eventuality not coming to fruition due to the government’s fear that during this process, it would be compelled to reveal details about the SWIFT program that might further compromise its viability.
This was certainly the case with terrorist surveillance when such revelations would have been tremendously detrimental to national security beyond what was despicably reported in December. Almost unquestionably, the Times and its attorneys counted on this.[...]
As such, this national security program: appears to violate no known domestic or international banking laws; had the cooperation and oversight of the largest central banks around the world; had international legal counsel examinations regularly performed on it; was done with the approval of former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, and; had absolutely no impact on Americans other than protecting them from those who would destroy them.
Hugh Hewitt takes Keller's letter apart word by word, don't miss it. Wizbang has the Readers Digest version, whilst Tom Maguire remains unimpressed
The power that has been given us is not something to be taken lightly. The responsibility of it weighs most heavily on us when an issue involves national security, and especially national security in times of war. I've only participated in a few such cases, but they are among the most agonizing decisions I've faced as an editor.
Tell me again whether there are any checks at all on this "power that has been given us". Where is the accountability at the Times - can We the People un-elect Bill Keller? How can we make him stop?
Or, if there is no accountability, is that really how we want to run our democracy? Don't We the People have the right to decide that some national security secrets need to be kept secret? Or can any bureaucrat with an agenda overrule his elected superiors?
Let me re-phrase that - can any bureaucrat with an agenda with which the Times is comfortable overrule his elected superiors on national security issues?
Indeed how do we make NYT stop? The Administration obviously does not have the political stomach to do anything about it, despite the amazingly hostile Press Corps who have undermined the Presiden's authority at every turn, and flew in the face of of the privileged position they have been given and choose to constantly abuse, by disclosing one national secret after another.
It is unfortunately past time for the Bush administration to enforce the laws of the United States against the New York Times. The Times and its likeminded media colleagues will undoubtedly continue to undermine and betray the national security of the United States until they are taught that they are subject to the same laws that govern the conduct of ordinary citizens, or until an enraged citizenry decides, like Bill Keller, to take the law into its own hands and express its disagreement some other way.
But not to worry, after getting slammed for daring to attempt to catch terrorists using our NSA data mining program, and surveillance of financial transactions, we are now working on mind reading techniques. That of course will take some time, but time is what the liberals seem to have plenty of (via Colonel Austin Bay who has another not to be missed post)
Trivializing the enemy is another dangerous journalistic tactic. Many of the Islamic terrorists are basically amateurs. The bunch rounded up in Miami recently are starting to be portrayed as victims, rather than threats. However, if one or two FBI supervisors had zigged instead of zagged back in early 2001, and the 19 or 20 911 terrorists would have been rounded up. It would have been very easy for enterprising journalists to portray this as an overreaction by the FBI. After all, who could take seriously this plan to simultaneously hijack four aircraft and crash them into buildings? It was all too absurd, and another example of the excessive police power of the government.
Treason aside, these tactics of destruction by revelation, and trivializing the threat, do provide substantial benefits to the enemy. While the most professional and experienced terrorists were always aware of things like traffic analysis and CIA access to international wire transfer data, most al Qaeda activists do not. But now they do, and the implications have been spelled out for them, in great deal, by helpful journalists. This influences future reporting, which will tend to avoid connecting the dots between these revelations and the success of some future terror attack. A sort of unconscious professional courtesy. There is one new element; net based journalists. That includes widely read bloggers and reports like this. But that only keeps the crimes visible, it doesn’t do much to punish the guilty, or stop the assistance these traitors are giving to those who would kill them, and us.
These traitors will continue to get away with it. Unless their activities are shown to assist terrorists in a particularly direct and obvious way, scary stories about potential perils will continue to protect those attacking the counter-terrorism effort. By blurring the line between legitimate dissent and active assistance to the enemy, political opportunism has sunk to new lows.
The New York Times is indeed at war with America.
Heather MacDonald @ The Weekly Standard addresses the legal issues surrounding the NYT conduct
There is nothing about this program that exudes even a whiff of illegality. The Supreme Court has squarely held that bank records are not constitutionally protected private information. The government may obtain them without seeking a warrant from a court, because the bank depositor has already revealed his transactions to his bank--or, in the case of the present program, to a whole slew of banks that participate in the complicated international wire transfers overseen by the Belgian clearinghouse known as the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or Swift. To get specific information about individual terror suspects, intelligence agents prepare an administrative subpoena, which is issued after extensive internal agency review. The government does not monitor a terror suspect's international wire transfers in real time; the records of his transactions are delivered weeks later. And Americans' routine financial transactions, such as ATM withdrawals or domestic banking, lie completely outside of the Swift database.
Can the Attorney General prosecute The NY Times? Sure he can. Gabriel Schoenfeld has the so called Comint statute in mind. Will he? Of course not.
Professor Henry Mark Holzer provides a seven count indictment for the NYT (h/t AntiMedia)
“[i]t is an article of faith on the Left and among its fellow travelers that the Bush administration stole two elections, made war on Iraq for venal reasons, tortured hapless foreigners, and conducted illegal surveillance of innocent Americans. A corollary of this mindset is that the press, primarily the Washington Post and The New York Times, has a right, indeed a duty, to print whatever they want about the administration—even if the information compromises national security. Not true. The press is not exempt from laws that apply to everyone else. The press is not exempt from laws protecting our national security. The New York Times is not exempt from the Espionage Act . . . .” (Nor, by the way, is that newspaper exempt from the crime of treason.)
UPDATE I: Treasury Secretary John Snow writes a letter to Keller @ NYT expressing sheer disgust at the paper's disgraceful behaviour
Indeed, I invited you to my office for the explicit purpose of talking you out of publishing this story. And there was nothing "half-hearted" about that effort. I told you about the true value of the program in defeating terrorism and sought to impress upon you the harm that would occur from its disclosure. I stressed that the program is grounded on solid legal footing, had many built-in safeguards, and has been extremely valuable in the war against terror. Additionally, Treasury Under Secretary Stuart Levey met with the reporters and your senior editors to answer countless questions, laying out the legal framework and diligently outlining the multiple safeguards and protections that are in place.
You have defended your decision to compromise this program by asserting that "terror financiers know" our methods for tracking their funds and have already moved to other methods to send money. The fact that your editors believe themselves to be qualified to assess how terrorists are moving money betrays a breathtaking arrogance and a deep misunderstanding of this program and how it works. While terrorists are relying more heavily than before on cumbersome methods to move money, such as cash couriers, we have continued to see them using the formal financial system, which has made this particular program incredibly valuable.
Lastly, justifying this disclosure by citing the "public interest" in knowing information about this program means the paper has given itself free license to expose any covert activity that it happens to learn of - even those that are legally grounded, responsibly administered, independently overseen, and highly effective. Indeed, you have done so here.
UPDATE II: The Tony Snow video on NYT's judgment, and Keller finally grants interview to CNN, video here, as well as an interesting theory from the inimitable Allah.
UPDATE III July 1st: The inimitable Ann Althouse pens a must read
[...]the recently revealed secrets -- about the surveillance of telephone call patterns and financial transactions -- were not cases of government suppressing failures. These ongoing programs were successful, and revealing the secrets impaired the operation of very significant efforts in the war on terrorism. I realize that there are arguments that people need to know about successes that are subject to controversy: the telephone surveillance program is attacked as an illegal invasion of privacy.
UPDATE IV July 2nd: Scott Johnson's 'Who died and left you President'. Don't miss it!
I wasn't going to bother, but I think on second thought (since I'm suffering from insomnia tonight anyway) I'll address this nonsense about how the terrorists knew we were monitoring the banking system anyway so what harm has been done?
In the first place, let's go back over a salient point slowly here: the...program...has...been...catching...terrorists. Have we all grasped that point? Let me repeat it: the Times admits that this program has actually been working.
Second point: as a direct result of the Times's publication of the specifics of the program, there is now a major political effort afoot by European politicians to put a stop to it. Again, let's go slowly here for the special-needs folks among us: if...this...program...was...already...public...knowledge, why...have...the...Europeans...only...just...now...started...complaining...about...it?
Have we grasped the implication there? Furthermore, even if it was common knowledge, and we were only catching terrorists because they're damned stupid, even so the Times has managed to see to it that we won't catch even the stupid ones because the Europeans are making us drop the program. And I remind you -- because attention spans seem to be short on this point -- that this program was, by the Times's own admission, catching terrorists.
Now, let's imagine that I have decided to try to make sure my teenage boys don't get involved in violent porn. They are perfectly well aware that Windows keeps a history of websites visited -- that is, they know that there are ways in which I can monitor what sites they visit. But then they also have done some research and figured out how to identify and clear out the telltale histories and cookies that would give them away. What they don't realize is that I have also, without their knowledge, installed a secret little app that I wrote myself that keeps a separate log, stored in a location they don't suspect and therefore won't go clean out.
So we're all sitting around with some of our guests -- the boys with us as well -- and one of my guests suddenly says, "You know, Kenny, that spyware you wrote that sits on the boys laptops and monitors their websites without their knowing about it is really cool." Then he turns to the other people sitting there -- as my boys' jaws drop -- and says, "Yeah, it's just the coolest thing: even if the boys clear the Windows history out, he keeps a log in this folder labeled "Fior" under the system32 directory, and all he has to do is check that log to see what entries are in it."
So I get pissed, and I say, "What the hell are you doing saying that in front of my boys? You just made the whole thing useless!" And before he has time to say, "Look, we're all parents of teenagers here and I thought the other parents had a right to know what you were doing in case they wanted it to," another parent pipes up and says, "Why are you upset, Kenny? There's no harm done here -- you think your boys are so stupid that they didn't know that Windows keeps a history so that you can monitor what sites they visit?"
I'll tell you a secret: I wouldn't find that particular "no harm done" argument compelling in the least.
The height of absurdity on this thread came from Lazerlou when he posted that "WTF is the problem?" comment full of quotations about how New Zealand's anti-terrorist banking programs were a matter of public law. Alexandra appears to have (I think for space purposes) removed his pages of quotes from the original site -- though she has left up the link -- but I'm pretty sure I distinctly remember that Lazerlou actually quoted explicitly a paragraph from his link that mentioned that there are many other countries in the world that do NOT cooperate with the UN's guidelines on terrorist financing. It seems never to have occurred to Lazerlou that the primary effect that the New Zealand law has is to ensure that when terrorists are looking for a way to get money transferred, they tell each other, "Well, don't go through New Zealand." But Lazer's own quote shows that everybody in the business knows perfectly well that, say, Sudanese banks don't report suspicious transfers to the U.N. or the U.S.
The whole value of this program seems to be that a terrorist could put money in a Sudanese bank that was a wholehearted supporter of the terrorists, and transfer it to an Iranian bank that also wasn't reporting on it, and tell himself, "Yeah, the Yanks don't know about this one because the Sudanese and Iranians are on our side" -- and yet we would stand a chance of spotting it and catching him anyway. But not anymore, because now they know we don't need, or at any rate haven't needed, the cooperation of the pro-terrorist regime whose banks were used for the transfer.
I mean, look, how infantilistically ignorant of the most elementary principles of espionage and covert activity do you have to be to know that the Holy Grail of covert action is to have figured out a way to know what your enemies are doing where they think they're safely hidden, and to keep them from finding out that you know about it? Do you people know absolutely nothing about, say, the critical role Enigma played in WWII, or about the numerous times in which we knew what our enemies were about to do, thanks to Enigma, but didn't stop them because we didn't want them to realize we had the machine, because of the incredible value there is in having a way to keep tabs on your enemy that he doesn't realize you have? (A conservative estimate: our ability to read Enigma codes, coupled with the Nazi belief that we couldn't, shortened World War II by at least a year.) Let's say that it's common knowledge that you are monitoring highways in order to catch the bad guys, and they are using a small little dirt road through the mountains that they think you haven't noticed -- but you've actually got cameras on it 24/7, so that every time they go through, you get advance warning that's something up. Can you people really not understand that it doesn't matter that they know we're "watching the highways" as long as they think we aren't watching this highway? Can you not perceive how damaging it would be for a newspaper to say, "Hey, there's this one road the terrorists use all the time and we have cameras on it so in the past couple of years we've been able to capture several terrorists 'cause we spotted them on that road?" Can you not see that we want them to keep doing what they're doing 'cause we've so far managed to make them think they're getting away with it, and if they move then we won't be catching them any more?
My God, what a stupid argument this "they already knew about it so no harm done" crap is. This blog has seen some doozies, but I do believe that one is the all-time champ.
I repeat: the Times admits that we have been catching terrorists with this program. Thanks to the Times story, we won't be catching them with this program any more. But hey, no harm done, right?
Sweet Mother of God.
Posted by: Kenny Pierce | Thursday, June 29, 2006 at 04:36 AM
Lex, the fact that the overarching view of a program is public knowledge does not mean that the details aren't classified. (Trust me, I was in SIGINT in the Navy, so I know what I'm talking about.) It's quite possible for program to be "common" or public knowledge yet the details are still classified and it is still a violation of the law to reveal those details.
In fact, I was involved in just such a program. Even though it was common knowledge and even though part of it was compromised by an enemy of the US (and any intelligent person could have extrapolated the rest), it was still a violation of the law to reveal the details, for which I, or any of my shipmates, would have been marched off to the brig forthwith.
It is clearly not "game, set and match" as you are so eager to declare, and I seriously question your eagerness to forgive the Times for treason and move on. I'm relatively certain you would not be nearly as magnanimous to the administration, which puts your supposed neutrality at question.
The administration will decide if they want to take the Times to court, and the courts will decide if the Times committed any crimes.
Posted by: antimedia | Wednesday, June 28, 2006 at 10:18 PM
By the way, for those of you who fear the machinations of Dubya above all other evils and who do not think he should be entrusted with the ability to wage any covert operations without the personal permission of Bill Keller: I'd rather have a President who is serious about finding and stopping terrorists, albeit occasionally a bit lax on the procedural niceties, than have a President like this one.
But hey, that's just me, with my irrational attitude that it's more important to stop people who are trying to kill me than it is important to stop people who disagree with my interpretation of where precisely lies the Constitutional responsibility for stopping the people who are trying to kill me. If you think that your own opinion on an arcane Constitutional argument that, if it goes to the Supreme Court, will almost certainly be settled 5-4 along partisan lines, is so unanswerably correct as to trump the national security concerns that keep the details of anti-terrorists programs secret so that the terrorists can't adjust tactics to avoid detection, then you are far more impressed with your own legal acumen than I am with mine, that's all. And if you think that making sure that the balance of power between President and Congress doesn't shift by a degree or two is more important than catching terrorists capable of taking out the World Trade Centers before they get their hands on nuclear weapons, why then again you and I simply have a rather different set of priorities and there doesn't seem to be much more to say.
I might point out -- simply to forestall the inevitable rejoinders -- that I am by both temperament and action in general a Libertarian rather than a Republican, and that the phrase "throwing away your vote" has been sent my way by my wife more or less regularly through the years. Thus I do care very much about checks and balances and I do very much dislike the idea of giving the government a great deal of power and I am far more alert to the possibility of the abuse of undue government power than is the average Democrat (which is to say, I understand that government power is always liable to abused and therefore want to see government's role in my life reduced to a minimum, whereas Democrats seem to believe that government power is only liable to be abused when Republicans are in charge, and the Democratic dream appears to be to have the government involved in every imaginable aspect of my life as long as it's the Democrats who have hold of the safe end of the cattle prod).
But even though I am a Libertarian who thinks that if you throw fifty rocks into the halls of Washington political power you'll hit forty-nine persons who stand ready to exploit the power of their position to their personal advantage at whatever detriment to the voters on whose sweat and effort said persons are parasites, and even though under ordinary circumstances I wouldn't trust a politician further than I could spit, I also understand that life is full of tradeoffs in which one must rationally decide which of two evils is greater and which is lesser. And I have a very difficult time indeed understanding the people who think that, at present, the Shrub is more likely to kill my children than are Islamist terrorists. I am unspeakably weary of the people -- such as Bill Keller -- who can be absolutely counted on, in every situation, to behave as though when Door Number One has Islamist nutcases and Door Number Two has Dubya, it's Door Number Two that's hiding Public Enemy Number One.
But that's just me with my perverse taste for staying alive.
Posted by: Kenny Pierce | Wednesday, June 28, 2006 at 07:13 PM
Lex seems to be the most articulate spokesman here for (if I may call it the MSM point of view) namely, that the story is basically over, you shall not have at the NY Times, it's much too crafty, understands the ROE for media warfare, so forget any inquisition, alleged sedition or treason, and move on. Kenny Pierce, with ample specificity, argues not so fast.
Here is where it's at right now, as gringoman.com sees it (just a quick look-in, of course, the capsule summary of the moment.).....On long-time CBS/Dan Rather friend NY Times' latest violation (allright, alleged violation, if you insist) of US national security: Some believe that prosecuting the Times would be too problematic, counter-productive and likely to fail in today's criminal-friendly court system. Lawyerly and other observers are now taking such a view. (The Times can keep that smug smile after all, it would appear?) However, said observers do believe a grave harm has been done. They are not quite moving on. Prosecute the Gray Arrogance? Maybe not. But how about hauling Times' hirelings before a Grand Jury to find out the source of the criminal leaks? If and when they refuse to name the insidious (even invidious) who leak on tax-payer time, show their butts to the proper prison...gringoView: In either case---prosecution or going after the leakers--- the ball is in the court of George Bush. Let's not pretend otherwise. Now what will he do? Will George Bush kick, or will he call another time-out that seems never to end?
ps On the question of treason, an interesting item. Pipeline makes a case for NY Times having committed it........
Pipeline News pointed out that this "is the classic definition of treason going back at least 600 years, to Britain's Treason Act of 1351, which defines high treason, in part as: 'or be adherent to the King's enemies in his realm, giving to them aid and comfort in the realm...'"
Of course, anybody in law school very likely could show how this is inapplicable to U.S. law and the NY Times, not to mention a Constitutional Republic etc ad legalismus. But can't it also be shown that law school can be very dangerous for common sense?
Posted by: gringoman | Wednesday, June 28, 2006 at 05:51 PM
We have in the Press, embodied in the NYT, a sort of Praetorian Guard which has given itself the power to raise up and depose presidents. For the sake of our country and our liberty, this must be nipped early.
Posted by: igout | Wednesday, June 28, 2006 at 05:20 PM
"String the leakers up" is metaphorical, not a literal call for the death penalty in this case.
Just thought I'd better make that clear...
Posted by: Kenny Pierce | Wednesday, June 28, 2006 at 01:58 PM
My lunch hour is almost over, but I thought it would be useful to clarify issues here.
There are several different questions, and one interesting thing about this comment thread is in noting how different commenters are interested in different questions.
1. Did the publication of this information do any real harm in the first place?
2. Should any responsible news organization, in possession of the information available to the Times and others, have published the details of this operation?
3. In publishing this information, was the Times's motivation honorable, or were they motivated primarily by partisan rancor and/or a desire to sell newspapers, to the degree that they were willing to sabotage the government's ability to protect the American people in pursuit of those selfish motivations? (This is what a non-lawyer would ordinarily mean if you asked, "Is the New York Times guilty of treason?")
4. In publishing this information, did the Times act illegally? More specifically, did the Times commit the specific actions that American law defines as "treason"?
5. How should private individuals respond to the Times's decision to publish?
6. How should the executive branch respond to the Times's decision to publish?
7. How should the legislative branch respond to the Times's decision to publish?
Looking back over the discussion:
Lazerlou primarily, but others as well, want to argue that no harm was done because the terrorists knew all about this anyway; they are attempting to argue Issue #1. I think they're making asses of themselves in so doing but that's just MHO.
Lex devotes some of his arguments to Issue #1 but the majority of his effort, it seems to me, is in answering Issue #2 in favor of the Times. Because I find Lex the most interesting pro-Times commentor, that's accordingly where I've primarily focused as well. The biggest point of disagreement between Lex and myself seems to be that Lex thinks that the Times may legitimately say, "We don't trust this President and therefore we'll blow any covert operation in which he engages barring extraordinary proof of innocence," whereas I do not believe that the burden of proof that the Times apparently would impose on the President, is remotely defensible.
The third issue is one on which I've touched briefly; it is on this issue that the Times's open editorial hatred of this President, the principles to which they unthinkingly commited themselves in the Plame case and by which they now are unwilling to abide, and their past history of revealing details of covert operations, are all relevant. I think you'd have to be pretty obtuse not to believe that the Times's attitude toward revelation of classified material is determined almost 100% by whether they think that revelation will help Dubya (bad revelation! special prosecutor! betrayal of our country's secrets!) or hurt him (it's in the public's interest to know!).
On the fourth issue: I have no clue other than I'm pretty sure they're not legally guilty of formal treason.
On the fifth issue: unless you buy the pro-Times arguments in re the first three, you certainly cancel any subscription you might have.
On the sixth issue: I've changed my mind on this one. I think it's more important to nail the bastards who are leaking classified information than it is to nail the Times. Let the market deal with the Times by means of an ever-shrinking market share; give the reporters immunity from prosecution, subpeona them, and then throw their asses in jail until they tell us who the leakers are. And then string the leakers up. If leakers don't talk to the press then Bill Keller never has to agonize over decisions like this in the first place. So, I don't think we ought to prosecute the Times even if they've technically broken the law.
But I do like the idea apparently going around Congress of revoking their press credentials.
On the seventh issue: No new laws; I don't want laws targeted at individual abuses because the laws generally overcompensate. Revoke their press credentials, issue a bipartisan resolution condemning their decision to publish, and leave it at that. Lex and I couldn't agree more firmly here: laws should be based on principles, not personalities.
Posted by: Kenny Pierce | Wednesday, June 28, 2006 at 01:56 PM
Lex,
"Point 2" in this case refers to the following two alternatives (I know you know this but I'm just saving people the trouble of tracing back through the discussion):
I don't know that you want to chase this any further, since I doubt any minds are likely to be changed by further discussion; but your second reason has nothing to do with this specific program and actually would indicate that you are moved primarily by Point 1. And your first reason is nebulous at best, especially considering that Keller himself admits that the program was legal, effective, and conducted with significant oversight measures. "It is far from clear that legal due process was followed" is not the same thing as, "The following specific evidence leads me to believe that the President was likely to use this program to violate the liberties of Americans."
To put my two alternatives another way, the question is simply this: in order for a covert anti-terrorist operation to be left unpublished by a responsible news organization, should the burden of proof be upon the executive branch to show, to the satisfaction of the news organization (which will naturally be difficult to do without revealing details of the operation to persons who have not gone through the safeguards required for the granting of security clearance, viz., the reporters and editors in question), that the program is squeaky clean? Or is it the responsibility of the news organization not to assume that anything covert should be busted wide open, and to take into account the public's interest in having a government that can effectively wield covert operations against foreign foes as well as the public's interes in having a government that isn't actually turning its power against the public?
Remember, again, that Keller admits that as far as he could tell the program was legal, effective, and overseen, and that a bipartisan effort was made to convince him to keep it secret. It isn't even that the executive branch made no effort to convince him it was a safe and responsible program; they in fact appear to offered a significant amount of evidence that it was safe and responsible.
So what you offer in defense of his decision is essentially -- now feel free to object to my rephrasing:
1. The administration didn't prove that it wasn't doing anything wrong in this particular case.
2. This administration can't be trusted.
Now can you see that sounds to me a heckuva lot more like Point 1 ("anything this President wants to keep secret, should a priori be assumed to be in need of revelation, even if there is nothing about any particular program to give reason to think that that program is a problem") than like Point 2 ("there are specific aspects of this program that you consider to be evidence that the President was in this case contemplating nefarious ends")?
Now, a slightly different point. Your objection appears to be that the President may not have followed due process -- that is, that while what he was trying to do was valuable and worth doing, he didn't go about it in the right way.
So let's look at the tradeoff here, putting ourselves in the Times's position.
On the one hand, we have terrorists who are merciless, evil, and bent on finding as many ways as possible to kill as many Americans as possible. If we reveal the details of this operation, we are assured with great emphasis by people on both sides of the aisle that our own government's efforts to thwart these people will be significantly degraded -- meaning that more Americans and other innocents are likely to die.
On the other hand, we have a President who is doing exactly the sort of interdiction-of-financing that we, the New York Times, have repeatedly called for him to do in our own editorial pages -- but we can't be sure that he's following the political rules exactly. We self-confessedly have no reason to think that what he's doing is illegal; we admit that what he's doing is yielding fruit in catching the terrorists who want to kill Americans; we can offer no reason to fear that he intends to use this program to violate Americans' rights. But he hasn't gone about it, in our opinions, in the technically correct manner.
Let's also not forget our top-of-our-voice moralizing that we were doing just a few months ago about how inexcusable it was to reveal the classified secret that a woman who, without disguise, drives to work every morning at a CIA office, and who makes no secret of being married to a man who wants the whole world to know that he himself has been sent on missions by the CIA -- oh, the horror at the thought that some nefarious person might have revealed the classified information that this woman works for the CIA! It was, after all, the Times (among others) who called eagerly for a special prosecutor to frog-march away the persons responsible for such an unforgiveable crime.
So. You're the Times. On the one hand, you can stay quiet about the program, which you have every reason to believe will help lessen the likelihood that terrorists will succeed in mass murder, and which furthermore will show that respect for the sanctity of classified information that you called for ad nauseam all too recently. On the other hand, we can help head off a minor failure of due process, by blowing the lid off a classified operation over the desperate objections of everybody familiar with the program, both Democrat and Republican. Gee, let's see, this is a really tough call. Agonizing, ain't it?
Oh, wait, I left something out: you really, really hate this President and think that the highest priority in politics is to do whatever it takes to ensure that whatever he's trying to do gets thwarted -- even if what he's trying to do is carry out his sworn oath to protect the American people from their foreign enemies. Hm, now, does that perhaps change the dynamics of the decision?
Listen, Lex, you have expressed a desire to move on, and if you don't respond I will assume that's merely because you're tired of the subject, not because my irresistible logic has rendered you speechless. I appreciate very much your thoughtful dissent from the locally dominant viewpoint and hope we see more of you.
Posted by: Kenny Pierce | Wednesday, June 28, 2006 at 01:32 PM
from Lex: (Aside to gringoman: If you honestly think The Wall Street Journal takes its news-coverage cues from The New York Times, you are, to be polite, remarkably uninformed.)
Game, set and match, folks. This issue is over. Time for all of us, left right and center, to move along.
Posted by: Lex | Wednesday, June 28, 2006 at 09:28 AM
Gringoman to Lex: It's not about what I "honestly think." It's about what is on the record. By framing this in the specious "taking cues from the NY Times," you are showing that (1) you have not seen the admission that other papers, whether WSJ, LAT etc, published this only after the NYT decided to defy what the White House calls an over-riding national security interest. You are clearly ignoring what everyone else seems to know: the NYT was absolutely the point man on this story. You are also ignoring the admissions that the other papers would not have published without the NYT leading the charge. (Whether their reluctance would have been due to less arrogance, or greater fear of public and governmental condemnation, or just a more intelligent sense of national security, or maybe fewer Manhattan cocktails, we needn't analyze here.)
This is also why your "taking cues" premise is specious. The WSJ, for example, was not "taking a cue" from the Times---except in the obvious sense that it was tagging along on a very big story that could no longer be throttled due to the Times' alleged violation of the Espionage Act. The simple fact is that the other papers---and certainly the WSJ---would not have touched this story until Mr. Sulzberger's crew dumped it into the public domain.
Posted by: gringoman | Wednesday, June 28, 2006 at 12:25 PM
Uh, no, igout, We're done here:
That doesn't mean there won't be an investigation -- Congressional committee chairmen can investigate any damn thing they want (ditto ignoring things). But there almost certainly will be no charges, and if there are, they will go nowhere. Accept it: Whether intentionally or not, the president and vice president said things about the Times that were not true. Hard as some here might wish for the Times to be guilty of a crime, it's not. Did it exercise poor judgment? Perhaps, but in light of the overwhelming evidence that this program was out on the public record long before the Times breathlessly reported its "scoop," even that assertion is looking dubious.
Posted by: Lex | Wednesday, June 28, 2006 at 10:41 AM
Time will tell, not you, whether this subject is closed.
Posted by: igout | Wednesday, June 28, 2006 at 10:00 AM
antimedia: Lex, if you're becoming convinced that the Times didn't do anything illegal, then you aren't bothering to read the law.
antimedia, you can't classify something that's not a secret, either legally or from a practical standpoint.
From the White House Web site:
So if we're going to accuse The New York Times (and, because we're all about fairness rather than partisanship, the LA Times and The Wall Street Journal) of treason, we first have to accuse the president of it.
(Aside to gringoman: If you honestly think The Wall Street Journal takes its news-coverage cues from The New York Times, you are, to be polite, remarkably uninformed.)
Game, set and match, folks. This issue is over. Time for all of us, left right and center, to move along.
Posted by: Lex | Wednesday, June 28, 2006 at 09:28 AM
Ghost writes
Ghost, you are so lame it's ridiculous. Every administration going back to FDR has done this. Clinton did it. Nixon did it. Kennedy did it. Bush Sr. did it. Reagan did it. Hoover did it.The least you could do is get your facts straight before regurgitating your stupid talking points. BTW, Specter is a doddering old fool who should have been put out to pasture a while ago. He has no clue what the Constitution says, as evidenced by his idiotic statements.
Lex, if you're becoming convinced that the Times didn't do anything illegal, then you aren't bothering to read the law.
Lazerlou writes
Apparently you skipped history class.Posted by: antimedia | Tuesday, June 27, 2006 at 07:52 PM
Reading the comments, I'd judge that one side is committed to believing any evil of this administration; the other, to believing any evil of this newspaper. Who knows? Maybe we have the makings of an American version of the Dreyfus case, which at its end settled whether France would be Red State or Blue State. Sooner or later, we too will have to have it out.
Posted by: igout | Tuesday, June 27, 2006 at 05:05 PM
Lazerlou,
Treasury Secretary John Snow's letter to Keller @ NYT is very well written. I am not sure you have read all the links in the main post thoroughly to say that. Perhaps check the links again, there is really plenty of evidence including the latest from Professor Holzer towards the end of my main text, which Antimedia pointed to earlier.
Posted by: Alexandra | Tuesday, June 27, 2006 at 03:36 PM
Do you remember? Do you remember a time when the Sulzberger Times (the point man for this story, no matter LA Times, WSJ etc who would not even have printed it without the capo di tutti capi decision to publish) was not such an Islamic enabler? Do you remember when it was not such a Privacy Yenta (high-toned, course)? You don't. Well, how about this (hat tip to the Filipino Firebrand Michelle Malkin)......
Reader Douglas Rose has drawn our attention to this September 24, 2001 New York Times editorial ("Finances of Terror") (access limited to TimesSelect):
Organizing the hijacking of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon took significant sums of money. The cost of these plots suggests that putting Osama bin Laden and other international terrorists out of business will require more than diplomatic coalitions and military action. Washington and its allies must also disable the financial networks used by terrorists.
The Bush administration is preparing new laws to help track terrorists through their money-laundering activity and is readying an executive order freezing the assets of known terrorists. Much more is needed, including stricter regulations, the recruitment of specialized investigators and greater cooperation with foreign banking authorities. There must also must be closer coordination among America's law enforcement, national security and financial regulatory agencies...
But as Scott writes, "That was then."
And this is now.
Posted by: gringoman | Tuesday, June 27, 2006 at 03:30 PM
The freedom of the press is one of the most important protections against government tyranny. I have difficulty undertanding how anyone could argue that this is not a newsworthy story. The Bush administration's power grab based on mirky legal arguments about the President's role as commander in cheif is a HUGE story relevant to every American. It is unprecedented that teh government is collectiong data about the private transactions of citizens. The 4th amendment is under attack by the Bush administration, and this is part of that larger issue.
And how is it possible you can argue that exposing this program endangers Americans? The increased terrorist danger from publishing this story is debatable at best, but the danger of a Executive branch spying on private citizens is very real. Y'all should be ashamed of your "kill the messenger" logic. It is piss poor.
Posted by: lazerlou | Tuesday, June 27, 2006 at 02:56 PM
NxNW: Thanks to you also for the kind welcome. To respond to some other points made here:
ELC: If this is old news, long available, why did the White House ask that it not be published?
Short answer: I don't know.
Slightly longer answer: I thought I heard on the radio that the Wall Street Journal has said it was not asked, but I might have been mistaken -- that seems unlikely. However, as other commenters have pointed out, this administration's obsession with secrecy has crossed the line of ludicrous on more than one occasion, such as attempting to pull previously public court rulings off the Internet. It is plausible, though I know of no evidence either way, that the administration simply didn't know that the horse already had left the barn.
ELC: Sorry, but the "old news" boat seems to have a few leaks. Though it might just be that, while nobody reads reports on the UN website, all the good little foreign terrorists read the NYT website first thing every day.
Perhaps. Perhaps they also know how to use Google. At any rate, that observation doesn't rise to the level of a compelling argument of either fact or law.
ELC: Absolutely not. One hundred percent wrong. The Press = The Press. Period.
Quite wrong -- in my opinion. (I don't know how we'd get a definitive answer short of digging up the Framers and reading whatever portion of their minds hasn't yet become worm food.)
The Framers recognized freedom of the press as belonging to the People, not just to certain people who happened to be in a particular line of work. That's because they envisioned and believed they were creating a society in which anyone might well have to function as a journalist from time to time, even if that wasn't how one earned one's paycheck. And indeed, through our history, that is what has happened. With blogging, the technology is finally catching up to the Framers' dreams.
ELC: I couldn't care less. What I want to see is a judge and jury saying they did nothing wrong. Or otherwise.
With all due respect, it isn't about what you want, it's about what the law requires. (See my "nation of laws" emphasis above.) And the more facts come to light about the so-called "secrecy" of this program, the less likely it looks that this is a case of treason, or any other crime, that would pass the smell test of any halfway competent prosecutor.
Finally, and disturbingly, there's this:
These paragraphs tell us nothing about the secrecy of the program. But they tell us a lot about the administration's attitude toward congressional oversight. I'd be just as disturbed were Hillary Rodham Clinton sitting in the Oval Office instead of George W. Bush.
Posted by: Lex | Tuesday, June 27, 2006 at 01:07 PM
Lex,
It's a delight to have you here. As one of the more senior (ahem, time wise) commenters here I can vouch that we always appreciate a good discussion. Some go on for days. I think the post on the subject of religion & homosexuality in the church is still going.
Sorry I wasn't around yesterday. Btw, I see Alex actually had the info you quote already in her main post under the Heather McDonald link @ The Weekly Standard. Interesting link Antimedia gave above from Professor Holzer, NYT indictment on seven counts. Good read.
Posted by: North by Northwest | Tuesday, June 27, 2006 at 11:41 AM
"Larry Johnson, a former CIA agent who actually has spent some time in this line of work, says the Times did nothing wrong." I couldn't care less. What I want to see is a judge and jury saying they did nothing wrong. Or otherwise.
Posted by: ELC | Tuesday, June 27, 2006 at 11:32 AM
Larry Johnson, a former CIA agent who actually has spent some time in this line of work, says the Times did nothing wrong. Johnson is quite the anti-Bush partisan, but he also does bring some professional expertise to this discussion that I haven't seen elsewhere, for whatever that might be worth.
Posted by: Lex | Tuesday, June 27, 2006 at 10:32 AM
UPDATE: Apparently the program was facilitated with duly issued warrants given to SWIFT, the co-op that tracked the transactions. That being the case, then the program almost certainly is legal.
Still open to question, so far as I know, is whether its classification was legal, relevant (i.e., meaningful in a practical sense, given the fact that it seemed to be common knowledge among int'l bankers) or both.
Posted by: Lex | Tuesday, June 27, 2006 at 10:28 AM
Kenny: Thanks for your kind words.
As I said, I don't yet know whether the Times was ethically correct or not in publishing its report on this particular program. But legally correct? I'm growing more confident that the newspaper broke no law.
That's because I'm seeing more and more indications as I read that the program, if indeed legally classified in the first place, was pretty common knowledge in international banking circles. That fact alone renders classification basically irrelevant and therefore greatly undercuts any chance of a successful prosecution, from what I understand. (I'm not a lawyer.)
To some of your other points:
If you really wish to insist that Bush's past pattern of behavior is relevant -- even granting everything you could possibly hope to prove about the degree to which Bush is in league with the Powers Below -- then you need to do one of two things.
1. Either you are claiming that anything this President wants to keep secret, should a priori be assumed to be in need of revelation, even if there is nothing about any particular program to give reason to think that that program is a problem.
2. Or else there are specific aspects of this program that you consider to be evidence that the President was in this case -- as usual, you would say -- contemplating nefarious ends.
I'm gonna go with Point 2 for the time being, for the reasons that 1) it is far from clear that legal due process was strictly followed in this program and 2) failure to adhere to legal due process would be consistent with past administration behavior. But if new information surfaces indicating that due process was strictly followed, I'll happily rethink my position.
Indeed, since the Times published in the face of bipartisan pleas not to publish, it seems more likely than not that the Times thinks they're immune from prosecution, and if what they were doing did not technically violate any statute then that would certainly explain such a sense of immunity.
Although I might quarrel with the language of "the Times thinks they're immune from prosecution," which implies the Times thinks it can get away with having done something illegal, yeah, that's essentially what I'm getting at: I think the Times believes it has broken no law, and insofar as I can tell from the available information, I believe the Times is correct. Again, this belief is subject to change upon receipt of new information.
1. I think people with subscriptions to the Times should cancel them.
2. I think the Justice Department should do everything in its power to identify the people who leaked that classified information to the Times, to convict them, and to ensure that they receive the maximum possible sentence.
3. I think the Justice Department should examine potentially relevant statutes to determine what, if any, laws the Times broke, and if they did in fact break any, then I think the Justice Department should go for the most serious conviction it can manage.
If in fact new information surfaces to suggest that the Times has, in fact, broken a law, I quite agree with you regarding these points ... and think they should be extended to other media that reported on the program as well, including but not limited to the Los Angeles Times and The Wall Street Journal. I'm just by no means as certain as some other commenters that a law truly was broken here.
4. I do not, however, particularly want to see new laws written with the Times specifically in mind, any more than I would want to see new constraints placed on the executive branch with Dubya specifically in mind.
Precisely. We are a nation of laws, not personalities. Let's act like it.
And I thank you again for your respectful response. I'm pleased to respond in kind. This is my first visit to this site, and, aside from a few exceptions, I'm impressed with the level of dialogue.
Posted by: Lex | Tuesday, June 27, 2006 at 10:20 AM
[Just in from the June 27 update for June 20 gringoman.com]
Rep. Peter King (R-NY) wants the long-time ally of CBS and Dan Rather prosecuted for its latest divulging of national security secrets. King, the Times reports,(while burying it on page A12) is " calling on the attorney general to begin a criminal investigation and prosecution of the New York Times, its reporters, the editors that worked on this and the publisher."
Is Team Bush listening? George Bush has wagged a finger at the Times. Will he do anything more?
ps. For moonbattery or even the "rational" ACLU "progressive" who may see the outspoken New Yorker Peter King as "just another Bush bot," be herein informed: Peter King, this ex-Marine,now Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, is also against the illegal alien invasion of the USA. He believes that George Bush is way off base on the border chaos, and does not mind saying so to one and all. As for the NY Sulzberger Times, King just happens to dislike sedition and treason posing as privacy concerns. He is also against giving aid and comfort to homocidal enemies of the nation---especially to Islamic fanatics who are very likely planning something bigger and deadlier than 9.11
Posted by: gringoman | Tuesday, June 27, 2006 at 09:35 AM
Well, this Republican administration believes it is above the law...period. And at least one Republican knows that and is doing something about it.
A bill becomes the rule of the land when Congress passes it and the president signs it into law, right?
Not necessarily, according to the White House. A law is not binding when a president issues a separate statement saying he reserves the right to revise, interpret or disregard it on national security and constitutional grounds.
It's a challenge to the plain language of the Constitution," Specter said in an interview with The Associated Press. "I'm interested to hear from the administration just what research they've done to lead them to the conclusion that they can cherry-pick."
Specter's hearing is about more than the statements. He's been compiling a list of White House practices he bluntly says could amount to abuse of executive power _ from warrantless domestic wiretapping program to sending officials to hearings who refuse to answer lawmakers' questions.
The government has far-reaching ability to suspend the civil liberties of individuals and groups...legally and with oversight.
This Republican administration has made it an issue of Executive priviledge, and has established a dangerous precedent.
I think the best litmus test suggested has been whether or not Dubya's cheerleaders would be as enthusiastic about signing-away their rights as a citizen if it was Hillary in the White House...you'd hear quite a different tune.
And regarding:
"I'm sure the terrorists were shocked shocked I tell you to find out that the American Government was spying on not just their phone calls but their bank tranactions as well, right? Not."
That is spot on. Anybody sophisticated enough to move monies through the international banking system, and knew the U.S. was surveilling since 2001 (widely cited and publicized), would be able to figure out that SWIFT was the hub and was probably being surveilled. Additionally, all of the major terrorist events since 9/11 have involved comparitively small amounts of funding which was moved in ways that were undetected.
SWIFT already had complaints about the operation in 2003...the operation was apparently further restricted at that time...and by 2006 was a throw-away in order to generate a political argument intended to solidify the Republican base along the hard-line in front of the mid-term elections.
Before the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, the international community began adopting a series of antimoney laundering regulations meant to stop terrorist organizations from financing their activities.
These measures -- which obviously did not prevent 9/11 from taking place -- were further strengthened after the attacks. Have they been effective in preventing or even reducing terrorism?
The new banking guidelines and regulations were based on the belief that terrorist organizations would use the Western banking system to move large sums of money around. This supposition, however, is proving to be unfounded, and was formulated based only on a few examples of money being sent to some of the 9/11 terrorists by wire transfer using Western banks.
It seems that the ability by terrorist groups to move money across borders will continue despite international, regional, and national efforts to control the hawala networks and to freeze the assets of suspicious organizations.
As law-enforcement agencies are coming to realize, terrorists do not need large sums of money for their activities and -- given the nature of the people involved in terrorism -- they do not use Western institutions for this purpose if at all possible and might instead be resorting to traditional hawalas and money couriers.
A report issued in August 2004 by a team monitoring the implementation of UN sanctions against Al-Qaeda, UN Security Council document S/2004/679 found that the costs of the most damaging terrorist attacks were not extravagant:
-- The simultaneous truck bombings of the United States embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998 are estimated to have cost less than $50,000;
-- The October 2000 attack on the "USS Cole" in Aden, Yemen, less than $10,000;
-- The Bali, Indonesia, bombings in October 2002, less than $50,000;
-- The 2003 bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Jakarta was about $30,000;
-- The November 2003 attacks in Istanbul cost less than $40,000;
-- The March 2004 attacks in Madrid cost about $10,000.
The London metro bombing on 7 July was also an inexpensive operation by any standards. Most experts place the cost at about $25,000 -- including the flights to Pakistan by three of the bombers prior to the attack.
According to a UN Monitoring team, "There are some 32 international and regional organizations working to establish standards and agree to policies to combat terrorist financing." Despite these efforts, terrorist attacks continue and there seems to be little progress in stopping them: Since the 9/11 terror attacks there have been thousands of acts of terrorism worldwide, according to the U.S. State Department. In 2004 alone the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center listed 651 "significant acts of terrorism."
Posted by: Ghost Dansing | Tuesday, June 27, 2006 at 05:02 AM
I'm sure the terrorists were shocked shocked I tell you to find out that the American Government was spying on not just their phone calls but their bank tranactions as well, right? Not.
Shocked to find out? Not really since the Administration's repeatedly stated they'd be doing it after 9/11. So shocked, no. Delighted to find out the details of how its being done? You betcha. If it's anti-terror and effective, you can bet the leftist Times will tip off their allies - the murderous bastards trying to kill us.
Posted by: George Berryman | Tuesday, June 27, 2006 at 03:54 AM
Some?
Posted by: Darrell | Tuesday, June 27, 2006 at 01:59 AM
Lex claims to be openminded, yet he protests that no one has shown that the Times has broken any laws. That is idiotic on its face, so how Lex can claim to be openminded is a matter for others to ponder. I'll simply call him what he is - a posuer - someone who is not what he claims to be.
Here is a seven count indictment against the New York Times and unnamed co-conspirators within the government. Read that and tell me that the Times has not violated the law.
For the dingbat whiners complaining about the administration, we've heard it all before. Your complaints are duly noted - and duly ignored. Some of you are in serious need of psychiatric help.
Posted by: antimedia | Tuesday, June 27, 2006 at 01:31 AM
BTW, how long did Judith Miller do in the slammer. How about Mr.Leaker, Scooter Libby. I thought the libs felt that it should be a crime punishable by death for HIM.
Posted by: jess1dering | Monday, June 26, 2006 at 10:59 PM
http:americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=5150 Here , for your inspection is evidence of one of K.P.'s many astute premises. Seems that under the Clinton Administration , the "highly principled" New York Times thought that secret programs were a necessity. Kenny, you make the observation that we should consider principles rather than personalities. That requires effort and character and committment to rigorous honesty. It's not stuff suited for the spineless.
Final opinion..... the left ( which OBVIOUSLY includes the NYT's, will stop at nothing to discredit Bush. They want the power back. They have their adgenda and they mean to advance it.
They have demonstrated time and again that they do not regard the truth as important. The free press should be accountable to tell the truth and to obey the law. If they don't, they betray all who have sacrificed for the precious and rare priviledge they enjoy today.
Posted by: jess1dering | Monday, June 26, 2006 at 10:50 PM
http://timblair.net/ee/index.php/weblog/editor_asked_to_explain_editing/ Hi Gang ! See if this jogs your memory about just how filthy the NYT's rag really is.
Posted by: jess1dering | Monday, June 26, 2006 at 09:45 PM
Much like the dislike for "Liberals and Liberalism", Communism, Fascism, Islamic Extremists and modern Republicans all dislike the Free Press...all goes back to Watergate for the Republicans.
But on this one, I'd really like to know who the so called leaker ("so called" because it really isn't much of a leak)is.
This looks to me like something out of the Rove playbook...Democrats have nothing to gain by re-hashing this argument...and the Republican administration, rather than their usual stone-walling couldn't get enough admissions and confirmations of the NYT article in the press fast enough...fast enough to get to the "...I double dare 'ya to challenge this one..." part of the plan.
It almost seemed as if they were arguing with an imaginary opponent, before anybody started arguing...and just dumping all kinds of details.
The NYT's article was actually pretty balanced, and a reader could generally fall in the "for" or "against" column based on the facts...the revelation of SWIFT participation seemed to be the only "revelation", and given the Post- 9/11 environment and the Patriot Act...other laws too...one could guess where the information would be coming from with very little research...not much of a revelation.
The Republicans, on the other hand, get to posture like they're "tough on these terrorists", and re-assert the "bad 'ole media is a threat to the Nation" meme...meanwhile, this Republican administration was probably on far firmer ground in this episode, than it was in the "wire-tap" episode.
My bet is the Republicans are not going to take the media to court...partly cause they'd just lose, and partly because it smells like a Rovish, strategic media leak to begin with.
I still think the real issue is Executive powers...the high Constiutional issues of individual freedom's and liberties versus safety is a smoke screen that is sure to be a wedge issue and an effective distraction from that which truly requires investigation...the circumvention of the checks and balances in FISA for the wire-tap piece.
Posted by: Ghost Dansing | Monday, June 26, 2006 at 09:39 PM
Re: Lex | Monday, June 26, 2006 at 04:46 PM: "The Press = The People." Absolutely not. One hundred percent wrong. The Press = The Press. Period. As others have said, here and elsewhere, the people have not elected anybody at the New York Times (or any other newspaper) to represent them in anyway whatever. I don't exactly understand why you don't seem to think that fact is significant. NYT (and other newspapers, liberal or conservative) represents itself and its narrow politically partisan interests and those who agree with them. In fact, NYT has been launching repeated partisan attacks at those who have actually been elected to represent the people, that is, the current administration.
Posted by: ELC | Monday, June 26, 2006 at 09:13 PM
Lex,
You're by far the most intelligent defender of the Times on this thread, and naturally any comment that, for lack of time to address each previous commenter individually, is addressed to general tendencies, will not apply en toto to each individual commenter -- and the more intelligent the commenter, the less will general observations apply.
I continue, however, to disagree with your attempt to say that the nefarious past of George Bush is relevant to the question of what the Times should have done in this case. If any pattern of past behavior is relevant, then it would be not the pattern of George Bush's behavior, but that of the New York Times. The Times has provided ample evidence that its owner and editorial staff is ideologically opposed to Bush, and has engaged in a pattern of compromising covert counter-terrorism operations. You do not place the same significance on the Times's past behavior that I do (I'd be curious to know what purpose you think the Times served in revealing the operational details of the CIA's shell airlines, for example); but then I am much less willing to leap to the conclusion that Bush lied, and rather more willing to give credence to the Constitutional opinion that Congress tried to overreach in FISA, than are you. But which of us is correct about what the past patterns say, while potentially worth exploring, is still not terribly relevant in this context.
If you really wish to insist that Bush's past pattern of behavior is relevant -- even granting everything you could possibly hope to prove about the degree to which Bush is in league with the Powers Below -- then you need to do one of two things.
1. Either you are claiming that anything this President wants to keep secret, should a priori be assumed to be in need of revelation, even if there is nothing about any particular program to give reason to think that that program is a problem.
2. Or else there are specific aspects of this program that you consider to be evidence that the President was in this case -- as usual, you would say -- contemplating nefarious ends.
It seems to me that until you can show that this particular program had red flags other than "Bush wants it kept secret," then either the Bush pattern of behavior is an irrelevance, or else you're saying that the executive branch should not be allowed to wage covert operations until a new President is elected. If I've overlooked your pointing to such specific red flags, please forgive the oversight.
Now, to the next point. I am myself not a lawyer and do not know whether the Times violated any laws. You will note that I myself haven't called for the Times to be prosecuted for treason. In talking about the necessity that the Times not be above the law, I was responding to the person who pulled in the First Amendment to defend the Times. If you wish to argue that there is no need to appeal to the First Amendment because the Times didn't break any law in the first place, I think that's a much more rational approach than the First Amendment chatter, and I'm quite ready to be convinced. Indeed, since the Times published in the face of bipartisan pleas not to publish, it seems more likely than not that the Times thinks they're immune from prosecution, and if what they were doing did not technically violate any statute then that would certainly explain such a sense of immunity. If you want to take that line of argument I'll listen to it with much more respect than I would listen to a First Amendment argument.
Whether or not the Times has done anything technically illegal, however, I still am convinced that it has behaved inexcusably. I would not have said that before reading Bill Keller's letter defending their decision; ironically, it was his grossly inadequate and self-satisfied letter that really caused me to form an opinion on the subject at all.
So my own opinion about what ought to be done -- at least until somebody can show me any reason to think that there were problems with this operation other than "Bush is a bad guy" -- is this:
1. I think people with subscriptions to the Times should cancel them.
2. I think the Justice Department should do everything in its power to identify the people who leaked that classified information to the Times, to convict them, and to ensure that they receive the maximum possible sentence.
3. I think the Justice Department should examine potentially relevant statutes to determine what, if any, laws the Times broke, and if they did in fact break any, then I think the Justice Department should go for the most serious conviction it can manage.
4. I do not, however, particularly want to see new laws written with the Times specifically in mind, any more than I would want to see new constraints placed on the executive branch with Dubya specifically in mind. If we are to set about changing the balances of rights and responsibilities and freedoms, then we need to do so as much as possible without regard to the specific personalities and quarrels that presently dominate the emotions on both sides.
Finally, Lex, nothing else I say on this thread about the Times's defenders in general should be taken to apply to you personally unless I specifically say so. Fair enough?
Posted by: Kenny Pierce | Monday, June 26, 2006 at 06:26 PM
The Republicans have an old axe to grind agains the NYT and the MSM in general. The Free Press revealed Republican misdeeds, and changed the culture.
Cheney and Rummy, both throwbacks to the 70's, Vietnam and Watergate felt emasculated because they were stripped of prerogatives.
Rummy, a Ford chief of staff who became defense secretary, and his protégé, Cheney, who succeeded him as chief of staff, felt diminished by the post-Watergate laws and reforms that reduced the executive branch's ability to be secretive and unilateral, tilting power back toward Congress.
The 70's were a progressive period for the press, which reached the zenith of its power when it swayed public opinion on Vietnam and exposed Watergate. Reporters got greater access to government secrets with a stronger Freedom of Information Act.
The Executive Branch was curtailed by imposing specific oversight by Congress and the Judicial Branch with respect to the privacy of American Citizens...even in wartime.
Dick and Rummy thought the press was running amok, that leaks should be plugged and that Congress was snatching power that rightfully belonged to the White House.
And so it goes today...I guess the information that the government was monitoring financial transactions was well to everybody but those posting here, and in the so called "conservative" blogosphere. I've already pointed out it was written in the Patriot Act in 2001, and recieve articles of critique through the years, including one that I referenced from 2005...showing the knowledge of the activity, and the ease with which the surveillance was circumvented.
The real issue is the issue of unrestricted Executive power...This Republican administration would rather the public controversy be about whether people think surveillance should be legal...it is, and was, and their are laws governing it.
This Republican administration circumvented the Law in the NSA case...and it is not being investigated...they would rather the financial surveillance be investigated because they probably didn't circumvent the law, and it provides a red herring away from the real issue.
Red herring: The phrase red herring has a number of metaphorical senses that share the general sense of something being a diversion from the original objective; in politics, a minor or even phony issue trumped up as being of great importance, in order to influence voters to vote for one party or candidate and against the other, or distract from more important issues that might help the opposing party.
Posted by: Ghost Dansing | Monday, June 26, 2006 at 05:42 PM
Please, can I get this straight?
The US government is investigating the financing of terrorism.
The NYT publishes a story to that effect.
It places troops in danger?
OK. Here is what has been done in NZ...
Now, that law in NZ is applied and functions in the light of day. Transfer USD10,000 to an account in the US, and the bank will tell you "We are required to disclose this transaction. What is the purpose of the transaction?"
Having disclosed all of that, how many more US servicemen will you blame for having killed?
WTF is the problem!!!???!!!
Posted by: probligo | Monday, June 26, 2006 at 05:00 PM
Raven,
Perhaps you missed this paragraph quoted in my main text, written by one of my editors @ NewsBusters, Noel Sheppard
Whose oversight did you have in mind?Another link which you may have missed in my main text, from Heather MacDonald @ The Weekly Standard
You go on to say
You suggest that there is some ambiguity as to the legality of the program. I put it to you that even the NYT did not make the case for any illegality.Posted by: Alexandra | Monday, June 26, 2006 at 04:56 PM
Lex,
I agree with you, but I am still perplexed to understand which law was broken by the Administartion in enforcing the classified program we are dscussing here
You say in your piece @ Lex:
I disagree with your 'implied inference' assumption, as the subject matter was clearly classified and therefore not up for debate as to what you personally may think will or will not damage the nation's security. It by definition will affect national security, and in any event since when does the NYT decide which Government classified information to make public. Which part of "classified" did it not understand? The Times had unilaterally declassified otherwise classified material, which it obtained illegaly, by virtue of the fact that it was classified information regarding terrorist surveillance when it took posession of it. As I link in my main text:
Posted by: Alexandra | Monday, June 26, 2006 at 04:55 PM
Kenny, I've already said I'm willing to look at this case in isolation and, having begun to do so, am by no means sure the Times did the right thing here.
But the more I read, the less of a problem this looks like.
Besides that, I look at patterns for a living. I've found that looking at single, isolated data points is a real good way to come to some very wrong conclusions. That's why I brought in FISA and, by implication, Iraq WMDs and other issues: We tell our children the story of the boy who cried wolf for a reason.
And as I stated above, I've been a registered Republican here in North Carolina since 1978, so all your whining about Democrats and the Times is irrelevant.
Anyone wishing to claim that the Times violated the law bears the burden of proof. As I said above, I certainly haven't ruled it out, but you haven't proved jack at this point.
Moreover, please stop complaining about Bill Keller's not being elected. Yeah, the press is an unelected institution: The Press = The People. It's what the Framers had in mind. And before you get all "But-the-Times-is-telling-the-terrorists-what-we're-up-to" on my butt, please re-read the preceding paragraph. Thanks.
Posted by: Lex | Monday, June 26, 2006 at 04:46 PM
Here, just because I want to be as above-board as possible, I'll spell out the general arc my argument is likely to take in this discussion. Attentive and intelligent persons would see it coming without my help, but if you'll forgive my saying so, I have not found that the kind of person who thinks that the correct answer to every question of American politics is "Bush is the Anti-Christ," is terribly attentive in conversation. Naturally I hope all of you in this thread will prove to be exceptions.
But, to help you out and keep you from stumbling inadvisedly into a logical trap:
The way you guys are arguing leads you perilously close to defending an implicit principle that, "There are one set of Constitutional and philosophical rules that apply when the Right Guys are in charge, and a different set that apply when the Wrong Guys are in charge." And that's bad because if a significant number of Americans are genuinely out to create that sort of situation, then we really do have an incipient Constitutional crisis on our hands: what makes our government work peacefully is the agreement on both sides that the rules will be the same no matter which party is temporarily in charge. The more people who believe the rules should vary based on who holds office at any given time, the nearer we are to deciding controversies by civil war rather than by elections.
But if you do not in fact believe that there should be one set of rules when true-servant-of-the-people Democrats hold the White House and a different set of rules when corporate-shill-fat-cat Republicans hold the White House, then the question of whether George Bush is the Spawn of Satan is a complete irrelevance -- in which case you should be able to discuss the question of appropriate checks and balances without reference to his evil character.
It is for that reason that I am trying to warn you that the more you rant slobberingly about what an evil man George Bush is, the less credible you make yourself. If the question were, "Should we take control of Congress away from the Republicans this year and give it to the Democrats?" you'd be arguably on topic. But the question is whether the New York Times should have published classified operational details of a particular anti-terrorist operation that Bill Keller himself admits was legal, effective, and equipped with provisions for oversight. If you answer, "Of course he should have because George Bush Is Out To Destroy The Liberty Americans Hold Dear," or, "But George Bush has done lots of illegal things," or, "But George Bush doesn't understand the Constitution," or, "But George Bush waits until Laura goes to sleep at night and then downloads Japanese-aerobic-instructor booty-spanking videos onto the Oval Office laptop," then you simply make yourself look like a silly teenager who has not yet learned how to read, nor how to reason, nor how coherently to argue to the point.
Posted by: Kenny Pierce | Monday, June 26, 2006 at 04:43 PM
The Constitution is not a suicide pact. First Amendment rights have always been qualified by implied responsibilities. A free press must honor the general welfare.
In this case, the Times all but admits that the program under scrutiny is entirely legal--and it was classified. The Administration made the case that the program was effective--that it enhanced the general welfare.
Can someone please explain to me how this was even a close call for the Times?
I don't advocate prosecution, except of the government sources. I would cancel my subscription, though, if I could do that again. Sulzberger and Keller are killing the old dame. That's a crime, too.
Posted by: Old Dad | Monday, June 26, 2006 at 04:31 PM
Just stop buying the Times.
Posted by: rich | Monday, June 26, 2006 at 04:24 PM
the level of ignorance of the rant by some here is astounding!
the NYT time has done a diservice to the nation. note i said nation, not the government. and this program was known by all branches of the government.
the public does not have the right to know everything.
Posted by: Huan | Monday, June 26, 2006 at 04:03 PM
It seems to me that the common pro-Times thread here is:
1. Bush and company are evil people who should be presumed always to be doing evil things.
2. When trying to decide whether we are more threatened by the possibility that secrecy will be exploited by the Bushies, or that the publication of information will allow the terrorists to adjust their strategies so as to be harder to catch, you guys are more scared of Bush than you are of terrorists.
3. You're not particularly interested in the details of any particular covert operation exercised by this administration: if the administration wants to keep it secret, then it needs to be published because we can't trust this administration. For in this case there's no question of a lack of oversight or of checks and balances or of illegality: as far as I can tell you guys and the Times think the details needed to be published purely because the administration wanted to keep them secret.
Since this reduces pretty much to, "The government should not be allowed to do covert operations unless Democrats are running it," which is not a position sane people would want to be associated with, I presume you would in actuality have a somewhat more nuanced position. Assume that I am very stupid (since I disagree with you, that shouldn't be hard for you) and explain to me exactly what constraints you want placed on the executive branch's ability to wage covert operations in time of war -- taking due note of the fact that (a) every additional person who is given oversight is another person who can through stupidity or malice or misguided good intentions blow the secret and (b) blown secrets mean crippled programs and another advantage to the enemy.
My own impression is that your primary objection is to the American people: you deeply resent the fact that we as a people chose to grant the powers of the executive branch to a man whom you hate and distrust; and you want to set up public policy rules that are based not on sound general principles of government but on a personal distrust of the man to whom the People granted the office. My very strong impression is that you think that this President should be stripped of as much power as possible, because he personally is not worthy of trust. The more you guys carry on about what a son-of-a-bitch this President and his fat-cat corporate buddies are, the less you can expect to be taken seriously as people who have principles of sound and Constitutional government, rather than partisan rancor, at the heart of your objections.
But I'm willing to listen if you'd like to convince me I'm wrong. I can only advise you:
1. As long as you continue to show not the slightest hint of appreciation of the very real need for the executive branch to have the power to wage covert operations with oversight limited to a very small number of the People's representatives and not available to the general public at all, any defense you care to mount of the Times will be unconvincing save to those who find that the Evil That Is George Bush outweighs all other considerations.
2. Stick to the point. The question on this thread is whether the Times should have revealed the operational details of this anti-terrorist operation. FISA and allegations of torture are an irrelevance to that question; your inability to stay on topic without bringing in more evidence that George Bush Is The Devil simply makes you appear less rational, not more; rational people do not deal in irrelevancies. Don't tell me that George Bush likes to violate the law; show me evidence that this particular program could reasonably be thought to violate the law. Don't tell me that George Bush wants to impose fascism on America; show me evidence that this particular program was apt to provide cover for fascist abuse. Don't tell me that it's a crime to classify information in order to cover up criminal behavior; show me any reason under the sun to think that the reason this particular program was classified was in order to cover up criminal behavior. The specific question here is the New York Times and its behavior, and the general question is the degree to which the press has the responsibility to obey the laws that concern revelation of classified information. To say, "But George Bush is Just So Evil," is to say literally nothing to the point, unless your hidden premise is, "And as long as a newspaper believes that the current inhabitant of the White House is an Evil Person then the newspapers are not obliged to obey the law or pay consideration to the protection of covert operations."
I note with particular interest that we have in this discussion quite a contrast between two people both of whom are defending the Times. One person appears to argue that the Times should be allowed to break the laws concerning classified information because the First Amendment trumps anything Congress might have passed limiting newspapers' right to publish classified military secrets. The other argues that George Bush should be barred from basing a defense of his NSA program on the grounds that the Constitutional roles assigned to the executive branch trump anything Congress might pass attempting to limit the executive's exercise of those privileges -- because we cannot have a president (though apparently it's okay to have a newspaper) that is "above the law." It's really quite fascinating to have listened to an incessant FISA-related chorus of "rule of law, rule of law, rule of law" as long as the Constitutional question had to do with the behavior of an executive elected by the People, and then in dramatic contrast to hear the instant silence about "rule of law" when suddenly it's a question of whether an unelected private organization with a known antipathy to the President chooses repeatedly to ignore the laws having to do with classified military operational details. You guys, if you wish to be persuasive, might set about figuring out how to avoid creating the impression that you are eager to maximize the Constitutional priveleges of the Times and minimize the Constitutional privileges of the President simply because (a) you're remarkably short-sighted and (b) at this particular moment in time the Times is run by Democrats and the President is a Republican.
Posted by: Kenny Pierce | Monday, June 26, 2006 at 03:54 PM
If this is old news, long available, why did the White House ask that it not be published? Why did both co-chairmen of the 9/11 Commission ask them not to publish? Why did Keller have any anguish (as he claims to have had) about whether to publish? Why does he resort to the tiresome "public interest" defense? Sorry, but the "old news" boat seems to have a few leaks. Though it might just be that, while nobody reads reports on the UN website, all the good little foreign terrorists read the NYT website first thing every day.
Posted by: ELC | Monday, June 26, 2006 at 03:53 PM
Sock it to 'em!
A lot of the American military, veterans, their families and many other citizens are watching to see how seriou this administration really is in fighting this was and protecting our military and us.
It seems to me, they are sitting on their hands and approaching this violation politically.
That's not the right message.
Posted by: Paul of York | Monday, June 26, 2006 at 03:46 PM
The reporting on on this goes back further than 2002. PBS reported on it in 2001. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/white_house/july-dec01/funds_12-4.html
Of course, we know what a pinko organization they are, so they'll be the next to be executed after Bill Keller.
Posted by: zen_less | Monday, June 26, 2006 at 03:30 PM
The disrespect for the freedom of the press is unreal. The Times can and should publish anything it gets its hands on if it is in the public interest to know. The executive branch spying on citizens and eroding privacy rights based on shady argunments about the role of the President as Commander in Chief is relevant news.
If you wingnuts have a problem with the truth, make sure it doesn't get out of the government. It is not the NY Time's role to be the protector of secrets. In fact, their obligation is the exact opposite. If you have such concerns about national security, why don't you call for the governemnt to be more careful.
The power grab by this executive branch is downright scary. They real conservatives I know are willing to admit this.
Posted by: lazerlou | Monday, June 26, 2006 at 03:17 PM
But, as Robert pointed out above, this wasn't exactly a secret. So, um, what's the basis for wanting to execute The New York Times for treason again?
Folks, there are plenty of legitimate criticisms of The New York Times in particular and American journalism in general. This ain't one of them.
Posted by: Lex | Monday, June 26, 2006 at 02:51 PM
Are you suggesting that the Government needs to inform the terrorists that they are being investigated, or needs to inform the public, which amounts to the same thing.
Neither, Alex, as I said in my post. In the quote you extracted from my comment: "No, Alexandra, it is not acceptable that the Bush administration conduct secret programs" you truncated it, omitting the following: "...without any oversight whatsoever."
Sure, any government will find it necessary, at times, to conduct certain intelligence activities in secret. But that's why we have things like FISA, and the Senate Committee on Intelligence. So, when the Bush administration - to take a case in point - elects to run supersecret deals that potentially violate the constitution and warrant impeachment, it is very much the job of the press to inform the citizenry of such conduct so that we can assess the need for oversight.
Repeatedly, as each of these scandals (from the CIA prisons to NSA wiretapping) unfold, we hear the same defense from the White House: "Our actions are totally legal. However, we can't explain to you why they are legal because of national security." That isn't good enough for me, and it shouldn't be good enough for you. If a federal judge, on the other hand, has signed off on the matter, and if Congress approves, then we can accept that level of oversight without need for further detail regarding something like the NSA program. Other cases, like the CIA secret prisons, are clearly unacceptable and not defensible under any circumstances.
Posted by: The Raven | Monday, June 26, 2006 at 02:46 PM