Friday, June 23, 2006

America's 'Official' 5th Column:

NYT: "We're Above the Law"

The duo of Eric Lichtblau and James Risen have
published the details of yet another classified national-security program. This time, they exposed the workings of a database of financial records that the administration has used to track al Qaeda's banking transactions:

The Bush administration has made no secret of its campaign to disrupt terrorist financing, and President Bush, Treasury officials and others have spoken publicly about those efforts.

Administration officials, however, asked The New York Times not to publish this article, saying that disclosure of the Swift program could jeopardize its effectiveness. They also enlisted several current and former officials, both Democrat and Republican, to vouch for its value.

Bill Keller, the newspaper's executive editor, said: "We have listened closely to the administration's arguments for withholding this information, and given them the most serious and respectful consideration. We remain convinced that the administration's extraordinary access to this vast repository of international financial data, however carefully targeted use of it may be, is a matter of public interest."

According to the NYT's own reporting, the program is legal. The program is helping us catch terrorists. The administration has briefed the appropriate members of Congress. The program has built-in safeguards to prevent abuse. And yet, with nothing more than a vague appeal to the "public interest" (which apparently is not outweighed in this case by the public's interest in apprehending terrorists), the NYT disregards all that and publishes intimate, classified details about the program. Keller and his team really do believe they are above the law.

When it comes to national security, it isn't the government that should decide when secrecy is essential to a program's effectiveness. It is the New York Times. National security be damned. There are Pulitzers to be won.

http://media.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YTUwYWMzNGFjZmE2YzY5NWVkZTc0YzJhMjIyNzVjZGU=

4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I just posted at FPM that I seem to remember the LEft constantly screaming "But are we really SAFER here because of IRAQ? NO!"

I wonder if the NY or LA Times would like to address that now that they chose to out a VERY important safeguard with seemingly little consideration of what the White House told them, pled with them not to print it? You all need to know something: Today, we are NOT safer than we were yesterday. My husband spends a LOT of his time helping very very rich people to invest in even richer deals, international enormous trading deals.......since 9/11, that's been made nearly impossible because the money is SO tracked that the windows of time the deals need is too short (takes the feds a long time to vet the money) and people, though honest, don't want to reveal where they got most of their money or where it's going........that's tracked, too, one CANNOT just willy-nilly have huge amounts of money passing hands anymore and some people just don't want anyone knowing their business, even though it's legal. And, by the way, VERY strange people have approached my husband and his colleagues from time to time, but that's almost, thankfully, stopped since 9/11 when this very difficult trading has occurred due to our feds..... But now? I guess even the terror circles will find ways to get around that all now. NOT a good thing.

I guess a Pulitzer is far more important than the safety of the American public, and I"d SERIOUSLY contemplate a class action suit if it was feasible.

z

1:41 PM  
Blogger VerityINK said...

And did you see that Idiot Howell Raines today...him, of all people, said Fox news 'made up' stories! The NYT is absolutely ethically challenged.

2:23 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

FOX MAKES UP STORIES? Better than printing TRUTHS that could get US KILLED!

But, of course they don't....I'd like to hear which one he particularly refered too, wouldn't YOU!?

5:38 PM  
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