But exposing the program won’t do anything to deny funding to the terrorists. They’ll just find other ways to finance their operations, and it may take us months or years to rebuild our capability to monitor their financing, if we ever do. And it doesn’t seem to me that we were trying to deter them. It seems to me that we were using information about how their cash flow to catch them.
Exposing the program was a classic example of liberal arrogance.
…said Edward Fucking Scissorhands. Jesus, you carry so many knives that if you slipped and fell you’d look like the “after” scene in a Kill Bill movie. Debate the issue, scream about the NYT, do whatever you want, but you bitching about partisanship is like Clothahump bitching about drive-by OPs.
Ding, ding. Ding, ding. Obfuscation time, obfuscation time ! Remember, don’t actually argue against Der Trihs; just accuse him of being crazy and hope no one notices you’re bobbing and weaving ! Ding, ding…!
Yes, this point was made in another thread. And it is correct that while you may lose some effectiveness from loss of stealth that you gain some from showing your hand. But I’d say that the most effective methods will use both. And it makes no sense to forfeit stealth when there already is a visible show of deterence. Stealth is the harder of the two to achieve, and to give it up for no benefit other than “I don’t trust them” is counter productive.
What other ways are there to move money around besides banks? 
Do you honestly think that the simple existence of a banking surveillance program will make all terrorists swear off banks forever?
Do you accept that both with and without oversight from the outside that zero abuse might occur?
I don’t know enough about the particulars of the program to say if it is still of any use. My point is that why would you make a successful program—that is legal and has no accusations of abuse—and reveal it making it less effective. Whether the effectiveness drops 5%, 50% or 100% (cancellation), why. What public tanghible public good is served other than “Whew, thank God that program stopped. There might have been abuse from it sometime in the future.” Seriously, we public good is served by revealing this program and reducing it’s effectiveness in fighting terrorists?
Where did I say they’d quit using banks?
Where did I say a survellance program would make terrorists swear off using banks?
The Germans or the Japanese in the Second World War would have switched to new military codes if sanctimonious liberal twits in the media had exposed the fact that the Allies had broken the old codes. They wouldn’t have just quit using codes altogether. In just such a fashion, the terrorists will simply find new ways to move their cash through the banking system, now that they know that the old ones are insecure.
Of course.
Do you agree with the Founding Fathers that we’re safer as a society living under a government of laws and not a government of men, so that we don’t have to trust and hope that our leaders choose to behave justly?
First of all, you haven’t demonstrated that it will be less effective. For all you know, terrorists have assumed we were monitoring bank transactions from the get-go, and this won’t surprise a single one of them.
The public good of transparent government is that we the people have a voice in what our government does. We as a society may want to set limits on the degree to which our government uses private information to fight terrorism, just as we have set limits on how vigorously it can fight crime. We can’t do that if the government keeps its activities secret from us.
Excellent point. Not that it will do any good. Never mind that it saved lives, it was secret.
None of that is anything like hypocrisy.
In fact, both the things you’re discussing are part of the same issue: the role of the press in a free society. In such a society, we value the role of a free and open press, and have consistently determined that a free and open press is characterised both by an ability to publish its finding, and also by an ability to rely on sources of information without having those sources subject to reprisals from vindictive private parties or government officials.
As for the issue of revealing the names of NYT sources, i’m not sure what they’d have to say if someone published their sources’ identities on a website. If the website was owned by a priavte citizen—you or me, for example—who had done his own investigative reporting to find out who those sources were, then the Times should respect our own right to engage in such activities.
But that’s not what has been gong on in the recent cases involving sources. In those cases, the Times has never asserted that people aren’t allowed to try and find out who the sources are. They have simply asserted that the government should not have the power to compel the Times to reveal their identities. Quite a different thing.
It’s interesting that you use the WWII analogy, because it actually points up how lame your criticism is.
Sure, if someone had told the Germans and Japanese that their codes had been broken, they would have changed the codes. But surely both the Germans and Japanese knew that the Allies were trying to break their codes. After all, that’s why they had codes in the first place. And, despite the fact that they knew this, they continued to use the codes.
Same thing here. The terrorists know that bank accounts are being watched. In fact, i’d be willing to wager that they suspected this well before the New York Times story. But they still need to use financial institutions to move money around; carting massive bags full of banknotes won’t do the trick. Sure, they might try new tactics now, but, as i suggested in an earlier post, the surveillance program can watch for changing patterns and learn from them. If the terrorists try to make drastic changes, they could well give themselves away. Knowing about the surveillance program doesn’t make the program ineffective.
At the risk of taking this out of Pit territory, I’d like to ask about generalities rather than the specificities of this program and Bush.
Would folks supporting the NYT here also support the press in publishing any state secret whatever, no matter what the potential for abuse may or may not be (even if there is none), no matter who the President is or what his past actions have been, no matter what the results of such publication would be, with no consequences whatever? I assume the answer is yes, from the posts here, but I want to be sure.
And, of course, there’s absolutely no difference between breaking the codes of an enemy power with whom the United States was in full-scale war, and conducting surveillance on millions of civilian bank accounts in the hope of finding some terrorist activity.
You didn’t, but I personally can’t envision “other sources of revenue” that won’t be equally affected by the banking surveillance program without, you know, not using banks. I mean, I guess they could hold bake sales or something, but that seems pretty insignificant compared with international financing.
Seriously, what other sources of revenue exist that are outside of the framework of this surveillance program?
The reason your analogy makes no sense is that, unlike the Axis powers’ military codes, terrorists do not control the international banking system. Even if they knew we were monitoring bank transactions, how can they move money through the system differently than they already are?
Agree with the first part absolutely. As far as the second part, we will always have to trust to a degree. Unfortunate? Yes? Reality? Yes.
Oh, come on. What you say is possible, of course, it might even wind up being more effective. But unless you think that our Presidents should start using a dart board to make decisions and our soldiers should stop aiming when they shoot, this is a waste of time. Remember how we got Gotti? He knew he was being watched, and that was probably somewhat effectivce in curtailing his illegal. But we got him when he spoke in a place where he thought he wasn’t being watched.
So, I ask again, are you advocating that the government have zero secrets from us?
I’m actually somewhat confused by the outrage. Do those of you who think the NYT did the wrong thing actually believe that it was a secret that we tracked foreign assets suspected of being used for terrorist funding, and also the money laundering used by such parties?
Seriously?
You are being deliberately obtuse.
Who said there is no difference? There are many, many differences. Do you think that this is some brillaint revelation on your part? Must something be identical to another thing for it to be relevant? :rolleyes:
Now that you mention it, in The Teeth of the Tiger, Tom Clancy talks about just such a program…and the book was published in 2003. If Clancy can figure out something like that is possible, I’d imagine the terrorist financiers could grok the concept as well.
I’m sure the knew we were doing something. Yet the program was fruitful. I think it is logical to say that they more they knew about the steps we are taking to get them, the more successful they will be in evading us.
No, I’m not. We have a well-developed framework for identifying and protecting information which needs to be kept secret in the interest of national security. How to make a nuclear bomb, where our CIA agents are stationed, etc. The fact that we don’t make a secret of our having nuclear bombs or a CIA hasn’t hurt us in the least.
Would the CIA be more effective if its existence had never been revealed? Possibly. Simiarly, would we catch more criminals if we had a secret police force? Again, possibly. Do you think either of these is a good idea?