I believe this is the original article (registration required). And here is a letter from the editor in response.
This is not black and white, in my opinion. Newspapers use thier discretion all the time, like when they decline to publish the name of rape accusers. While the papaer did nothing illegal, as far as I can tell, and I don’t think there is any threat to freedom of the press, I amnot sure that there was a legitimate"need to know" in this case, considering that it wasn’t a clandestine White House operation but in fact was operating under the full purview of the Congress. I mean if one person with an agenda wants to expose a program and say, “It might not be legal?” to the reporter, is that enough?
Oof, you got me! I mean, well played sir! You exposed me for the average citizen that I am, knowing next to nothing about how to maintain our country’s freedom while still protecting it’s citizens. Fortunately, no one elected me to bear that burden.
Personally, I wasn’t aware that your bank transactions were all that personal. I mean, if I go on a crazed spending spree, my bank is on the horn with me to verify that the charges are actually mine. If all of the sudden I’ve got a ginormous amount of debits to “Harry’s WMD Shack, Inc”, then I would assume the bank would do what any concerned citizen would do and maybe report it to the authorities.
What I don’t want is the government to have the right to analyze what I buy and try to retro-fit my transactions to prove that I’m an actual terrorist.
And on preview, SteveG1, thank you for your post. Very well stated.
You are correct. But nobody is willing to put down the partisan knives long enough to do that. And despite their claims of nobility, I think this is exactly what happened with the Times and this story. They truly believe that they are soldiers of light and truth and this was another flaming arrow over the ramparts of the evil empire.
Well, following this logic, there shoukld be no concept of keeping anyhting classified for national security purposes. There shold be no closed door sessions for anything, and every meeting the Persident has shold be video-taped and transcripted for immediate broadcast.
If that is going to far, where should the laine be drawn? And by whom? You? Me? The press? Or the people we elected and have the responsibility to protect us?
Like it or not, Miller, we have a system in place. None of us are privy to the inner workings of that system and we rely on our own ideological prism to analyze and interpret events.
I am choosing to take the Bush administrations statements about this program at face value. I am also choosing to believe that the Times is infused with ideological bias and that it played a factor in their decision to publish this story.
Some of you would sooner set yourselves on fire than take my position.
I will admit that it was an easy throwaway line, but not that it was without thought or justification.
The publication of the Pentagon Papers was a defining moment in American journalism. It established the right of the press to publish secret information despite governmental objections. Although the litigation did not establish the wisdom of the publication of the secret report, I would submit the actions of the Times were widely regarded as a credit to journalism, winning the Times a Pulitzer Prize for public service.
It is clear to me at least that the Times is not willy-nilly publishing every confidential thing they run across. Rather, they are making a journalistic decision as to when to publish secret facts they uncover. The most compelling example of that was their publication of information regarding the NSA warrantless telephone data collection progam only after keeping it secret for over a year at the government’s request.
One important job of the press is to report on maters of public interest and debate. The extent to which we desire law enforcement to have access to personal information, whether it is phone records or financial data, is an important topic of public discussion. The question of whether the importance of the issue as a matter for debate is sufficient to overcome the potential harm the exposure will is something that calls for case by case determination each time.
From what I have seen here, the Times has made a strongly defensible journalistic decision that will most likely be proven correct in the fullness of history, like its decision to publish the Pentagon Papers has been.
How the hell do you ask for a cite on this? If you think his claim that there is “no compelling reason” is false, it falls to you to show that he is wrong.
It’s enough to kill the program and potentially endanger lives. That’s why I would love to see the government crack down hard on leakers of classified information. Period. Regardless of the ideological justification of the leak.
If it was vitally important to find out who broke the law by speaking the name of Valerie Plame, it’s important to find out who exposed this program.
So you are comfortable with being an armchair philosopher with nothing positive to contribute…secure in the knowledge that you can ridicule those who are trying to protect you while reserving the right to howl like a monkey if they make a mistake. Does that about cover it?
So why is the OP pitting the New York Times but not the Wall Street Journal, which I understand also ran the story, and was not even asked to withhold it?
That said, I’d give the paper a medal rather than a pitting. If the government doesn’t want something published, it oughta be up to them to keep the press from finding out about it. Since they couldn’t do that, can’t say I have a lot of sympathy for them.
I just love how everytime this administration gets caught doing something sneaky, it’s always somebody else’s fault. Never an internal problem. Never something they shouldn’t have been doing in the first place (talking about the wiretaps here, not necessarily the money watching deal). Love how the first response is always to question the patriotism of anybody who dares to oppose the powers that be.
Here’s a newsflash: We are NOT at war. Congress has not declared war on anybody since WWII. Yes, terrorism is a Bad Thing. I have no problem with killing terrorists before they kill us, but it seems all sense of proportion has been lost here. The continued existence of the United States is not now, has never been, and is never likely to be at stake due to acts of terrorists. A hundred planes could crash into buildings, and it ain’t gonna destroy the country.
In my opinion, Shrub has done more damage to freedom than the terrorists ever will. We are less free today than we were on 9/10/01. Not because of the actions of any terrorist, but because of the actions of this administration. The Patriot Act is an abomination. Illegal Wiretaps are unconscionable. Super secret “no fly” lists, with no known criteria for inclusion thereon are not the American Way. You have to watch what you say or post, because you never know when some government drone is going to decide that you probably won’t vote Republican, so you must be a terrorist worthy of going on the “Enemies List”.
Kudos to the New York Times. Keep up the good work.
How exactly does the reporting of this program invalidate future use of this program? There are terrorists who were and weren’t using phones before the NSA business, and there are terrorists who do and don’t use banks now. The extent and methodology of things being monitored hasn’t been disclosed, so some people/groups are going to continue to be more or less discreet than others. This was always true, so what exactly changes (other than stating in the open what a lot of us probably suspected from a practical POV)?
Which is why we need the press to publish stories like this: so that we actually have some understanding of what our government is doing, and can act to check it if it is acting in a manner we don’t care for.
Yeah, I think self-immolation is probably a smarter choice than taking anything the government has to say at face value. And that’s not a partisan sentiment: I’d feel the same if this program had been leaked under an Al Gore or John Kerry administration. The government, by definition, is not a trustworthy institution. I’m regularly stunned that anyone thinks differently, in this day and age.
You are correct. An intelligent and reasoned debate, free of political taint, is what is needed to resolve this issue to the satisfaction of the majority. There will be those on either end of the spectrum who will simultaneously complain that we are going too far and not far enough, but we need to let pragmatism rather than ideology rule the day.
And given that statement, I think if the program was working…and it was legal…the times should have enjoyed a steaming cup of STFU and let it continue.
The thing is, people who have chosen to take the Bush administration’s statements at face value thus far have found themselves regretting their decision. It’s a “boy who cried ‘wolf’” situation. “No, really - this time we’re really telling you everything you need to know. This time, we totally promise.”
This administration has fucked so many issues in so many positions, you can’t blame us for wincing every time he approaches us from behind. And he started off with a lousy $300 reach-around.
The NYT was the primary investigative source for the story, from what I understand. Once it became clear that the story was going forward, the spirit of competition came forward.
Blow me, fuckwad. If you want to engage on the merits, I’m here for ya. If all you want to do is get personal, I can do that, too. Stick to the topic at hand, or go back to diddling little boys. All the same to me.
But, the major question you leave yourself open to is IF the program was legal and effective. The article itself (which I assume you have read) makes clear that the legality of the program is in a “gray area” and that a significant source of the information disclosed was officials with reservations about the program.
As Bill Keller, executive editor of the Timesexplained:
Maybe, but then this administration has made a “career” of framing every little thing in terms of a War On Terror. Even the slightest verbal criticisms are condemned as “undermining the effort” or as “endangering the troops”. It is time to stop. The administration has done too many things in a War on terror,which had nothing to do with it, made things even worse, or had no effect at all.
That is another thing. This administration invokes 9/11 as if it is some automatic “god mode” to do whatever they please, and hide it under a blanket of secrecy. no matter what the issue is, it always gets twisted into “9/11 changed everything”. It is time for that to stop too. The Taliban is regaining strength in Afghanistan. Bin Laden is still out there somewhere. We have turned Iraq into a terrorist breeding ground. Even Cheney has finally said things will go to hell no matter what we do. http://www.calitics.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=696
Side comment to John Mace…
I’ve been hearing the “give him a little slack” too, about Bush. My question is, just how much rope do we give him? He’s had 6-7 years of slack and benefit of the doubt. Enough is enough.