One fascinating aspect of the controversy over the terrorist bank monitoring imbroglio has been the insistence by the press that 1) the terrorists already knew about the program so it wasn’t a secret; and 2) it’s okay to reveal secrets as long is it’s in the cause of “the people’s right to know.”
Does anyone else see something a little strange there? It was okay to reveal a program that all the reporters and editors involved wrote was a “closely held” secret when the story broke but now we’ve decided it wasn’t a secret anyway?
I must confess to becoming dizzy from all the spin being created by the press and the left on this issue. Round and round we go, careening from explanations about what a good thing it is to reveal secrets that, in the opinion of the press, are essential to the preservation of liberty to why it doesn’t matter because the terrorists know everything so its not a secret anyway.
Stop the world I want to get off!
This encomium to the freedom of the press, waxing poetic about the media’s right to publish anything it damn well pleases by Time Magazine Managing Editor Richard Stengler is a real jaw dropper. For sheer brazenness on the issue of press irresponsibility, it has no equal. And its dripping condescension and arrogant assumptions about the American people reveal a man so out of touch, he may as well be writing from another galaxy:
The stories in the New York Times and other newspapers about the government’s highly classified program to monitor bank records have provoked outrage from the White House. President George W. Bush called them “disgraceful” and said the revelations caused “great harm” to America. Vice President Dick Cheney said the press had “made the job of defending against further terrorist attacks more difficult.”I do not know if they are right. What I do know is that Presidents in wartime assert that their constitutional responsibility for national security trumps any issue of civil liberties. Often that has meant trampling on them.
First, I suppose it’s possible one could out a “highly classified program” that everyone knows about, although one would think the very definition of “highly classified” would preclude such a construct.
But note Mr. Spengler’s uncertainty about whether or not the Administration’s criticism is valid. In other words, when in doubt, publish. That seems to sum up all of the gratuitous chest thumping we’ve seen from the likes of Bill Keller and Dean Baquet who, as editors of the New York Times and LA Times respectively made the decision to publish details of this top secret program. And reporter Eric Lichtblau, who stressed how secret the program was in his New York Times article, is now backtracking furiously:
“USA Todayâ€, the biggest circulation in the country, the lead story on their front page four days before our story ran was the terrorists know their money is being traced, and they are moving it into—outside of the banking system into unconventional means. It is by no means a secret.(HT: Patterico)
The fallacy of that particular piece of illogic is in the details. For instance, Hitler knew full well we were going to invade France in the summer of 1944. But could you imagine the New York Times publishing the fact that the intended target of the invasion was Normandy and then defending its decision by saying that Hitler knew we were coming anyway?
I realize the exaggeration inherent in my example, but the essential truth of it holds. The terrorists may have known in a general way that we were tracking their bank transactions. But given the specificity of what we were doing with Swift contained in the Times article, it is ridiculous to assume that this information wasn’t at least helpful to terrorists and their financial enablers in either confirming their methods were effective in avoiding scrutiny or how vulnerable they truly were to detection.
The former is probably equally as damaging as the latter. And the fact that Stengler doesn’t even acknowledge that possibility is revealing. By taking on the role of Commander in Chief in deciding what information should be shared with the American people, the press in this case proves themselves inept, incapable, and incompetent in evaluating potential damage to our security, reason enough to slap them down particularly hard on this issue.
In fact, Stengler’s only acknowledgement of responsibility is this curious statement:
The government’s assertion that it must be unhindered in protecting our security can camouflage the desire to increase Executive power, while the press’s cry of the public’s right to know can mask a quest for competitive advantage or a hidden animus. Neither the need to protect our security nor the public’s right to know is a blank check. So listen carefully because, after all, you are the judge. It is the people themselves who are the makers of their own government.
What Stengler fails to mention is that if a President oversteps the bounds of the Constitution in his grab for excess executive power, he can be held responsible through impeachment. Making the press accountable for misusing their trust is an entirely different matter.
How do we hold the press responsible? The free market is a useful tool in that if enough people get upset with the newspaper over publishing secrets and cancel their subscriptions, the paper dies an ignoble death. But in reality, the chances of this happening are extremely remote and in fact, would be unprecedented in American history.
This has given the press a kind of immunity that no President or politician enjoys. For this reason, Stengler’s carefully constructed house of cards about the equal responsibility of the press and the executive is, in the end, a chimerical attempt to hide the fact that the press is asking the American people simply to trust it when it comes to revealing secrets, that their motives are pure and their judgement supreme to that of the people’s elected representatives.
If there is another definition of “hubris,” I haven’t seen it.
9:35 am
Indeed, the free market is a very useful tool. Look at the verdict: The stock of the New York Times has lost 43% of its value over the past two years, compared with an 18% loss of Dow Jones stock value (publisher of the Wall Street Journal). This is a huge, significant difference. The print media has suffered in general, but the Times is in a class of its own.
9:36 am
Steve:
You are correct that the public’s disapprobation of the Times has led to it losing money.
But will that translate into a loss of prestige or even the closing of the paper?
Doubt it.
9:45 am
Rick—This latest “disclosure” by the nyt’s may indeed cost it much more in terms of prestige and profitability. I don’t think we’ll be calling it the newspaper of record much longer.
10:13 am
It’s funny how the NYT can downplay revealing sensitive security information during a time of war… but if they suspect that someone (Rove or Cheney in particular) outs a CIA agent, then all hell breaks loose. Would that be hypocritical? ;~)
Most clear thinking people can see through their anti-American/hate Bush agenda and have had enough. The NYT and the other liberal rags and media arrogantly think they’re above the law and don’t like being called out on the carpet. The leakers should be hunted down and prosecuted to the fullest. Unfortunately I don’t think much can be done to the NYT other than forcing the reporter to reveal his sources, as was done to Ms Miller. Freedom of the press doesn’t mean freedom to aid and abet the enemies of the US.
11:04 am
Laughable. The times did its job. The Times leaked nothing, they publushed something that was leaked to them, and this program was widely known.
11:07 am
Typically shallow, unsubstantiated, ridiculous comment from the number one idiot who visits this site.
12:16 pm
Laughable. The times did its job. The Times leaked nothing, they publushed something that was leaked to them, and this program was widely known.
Um, if this program was widely known, in what sense could it have been leaked to anyone?
Is Eric Lichtblau posting here under a pseudonym?
12:40 pm
I’ll go a step further on the thought of the terrorist knew we were tracking their financial transactions. No, they only knew we wanted to track finances, but they believed the Europeans wouldn’t help the U.S. If they KNEW we were getting help in tracking the transactions they would not have used those institutions.
1:17 pm
Hello, I’m not a leftist, so I know that immediately makes me one of the less intelligent that inhabit our country, so could someone please explain to me the following?
IF, as the NY & LA Times maintain, in their latest pathetic CYA on the “bank-tapping” issue that they created, that “everybody knew about it…”, even though they initially declared it to be a “...closely guarded secret…”, then why did they need to publish it at all? Why did they feel the need to put it on Page One, above the fold, as NEWS?, if it was known by everyone?
I mean, if everyone “knew” about it, what’s the point?
There are only two obvious answers, one) they wanted to make sure the Islamo-Jihadis didn’t miss it the first time around; i.e. they’ve picked sides in this war, and it’s not America’s side!; and two) as we all know, it was intended to make a political statement against the Bush Administration!
Based upon their OWN arguments, there can be no other logical conclusions!
But then again, logic and facts, to Leftists and Liberals, are like Kryptonite to Superman!; they’re fatal
1:34 pm
I was wondering what the government is doing about the leaks themselves. We all know the goal of a newspaper isn’t just to spread the news. It is to sell newspapers. The best of course of action is cut of the newspapers from their source. This is important especially relating to a highly classified program.
3:16 pm
Keller/Baquet=arrogance and disregard for this country’s security. I heard Joe Biden tell a crowd to go up and ask their conservative friends if they thought this president was competent. He said the the conservative would look done in shame before answering. Shame, I don’t think so. They might disagree with their party or the opposition but thew would never turn on their own country. They would never put others in harms way by aiding and abetting the enemy. I don’t know any conservatives who would do that. I think the difference is people like Keller, Baquet and those who hide behind the first amendment while fulfilling their political agendas have no shame.
6:05 pm
PC Said:
Laughable. The times did its job. The Times leaked nothing, they publushed something that was leaked to them, and this program was widely known.
PC…Pay attention here:
1) What is the Times “job”? To print national security secrets that are legal, currently operative, effective and productive for the sake of the national interest? You know, I always wondered if Valerie Plame worked for the CIA…..
2) If someone comes into your office, spills a bunch of secrets on your desk and you choose to publish it on your blog, who would be the one who leaked it and who should go to jail?
3) Please, since it was widely known, give me the details of this operation as you understood it before the times printed it.
PC, what’s that stand for?
Penile/Cranial inversion?
10:54 pm
Rick,
Some different spin. Why on earth do the president and VP et al feel justified using the pulpit of the Presidency to drag this disclosure out for a week or more, pretty much guaranteeing that 10s of millions of people worldwide who would otherwise not have heard of this program now know about it? As opposed to doing tight-lipped damage control, keeping their seething anger tightly controlled and hidden?
Perhaps it’s a failure of imagination, but the only plausible explanation I can come up with is that all the additional publicity about the SWIFT program isn’t really a significant national security problem.
7:09 am
Two responses to comments:
Rick on your comment #2, I agree that the Times will find ways to soldier on (forgive the irony), with the caveat that they are print media as well as content providers, the former being certainly in broad decline. I live in NYC, and everyone reads the Times, so I see no immediate bankruptcy. Over time, however, the paper will find it more difficult to fund pet projects and to field as many reporters as they do. Their influence may diminish, which would be something to celebrate.
On #13 Bill Arnold, there was never any way for this to stay “in the bag,” my goodness it was on the front page of the New York Times!! The Administration essentially responded to a few questions from the press, so effectively it did exactly what you are suggesting. Both sides of Congress are working on resolutions, the blogs on both sides have been fired up, and the Times itself has printed a series of CYA articles on the subject.
The Times’ Keller used this argument right out of the chute, that the Adminisration should have kept it quiet, but to my mind this is the most shameful of all his comments. He put it on the front page, for the entire world to see. It’s like claiming that McDonald’s is a little out-of-the-way hamburger joint.
5:08 pm
Steve Morton,
Both sides of Congress are working on resolutions, the blogs on both sides have been fired up, and the Times itself has printed a series of CYA articles on the subject.
This is precisely my point. The program was largely under the radar, though certainly not secret. NY Times broadly spread word about the program. The administration completed the job of making sure people who missed the NYTimes story learned about it. (I buy the NY Times most days, but didn’t read this story until the ruckus broke out.) A story almost never reaches full saturation, so extra publicity caused by adminstration denunciations of the press makes the story reach more people. Since they did so deliberately, one must presume that as thinking patriots (applying the “principle of least malice”), they must have calculated that the level damage due to a week or two’s worth of additional saturation of the news was outweighed by something else. That something else would be (a) trying to scare/discourage the press from similar disclosures in the future (plausible) (b) a move to get out the base vote / grab up some swing voters (plausible) (c) a combination of a and b, (d) ?
Re “responding to questions from the press”, the following go far beyond response to questions IMO.
Quoting Dick Cheney (note: I can’t find a date for the first quote but it seems in context):
“Some in the press, in particular The New York Times, have made the job of defending against further terrorist attacks more difficult by insisting on publishing detailed information about vital national security programs,” Vice President
Dick Cheney said in a speech at a political fundraising luncheon in Grand Island, Neb.
“The New York Times has now twice — two separate occasions — disclosed programs; both times they had been asked not to publish those stories by senior administration officials,” Cheney said. “They went ahead anyway. The leaks to The New York Times and the publishing of those leaks is very damaging.”
and
“What I find most disturbing about these stories is the fact that some of the news media take it upon themselves to disclose vital national security programs, thereby making it more difficult for us to prevent future attacks against the American people,” Mr. Cheney said, in impromptu remarks at a fund-raising luncheon for a Republican Congressional candidate in Chicago. “That offends me.”
Peter King, a Republican congressman from New York:
“We’re at war, and for the Times to release information about secret operations and methods is treasonous,”
GWBush:
“The disclosure of this program is disgraceful. We’re at war with a bunch of people who want to hurt the United States of America, and for people to leak that program, and for a newspaper to publish it does great harm to the United States of America. What we were doing was the right thing. Congress was aware of it, and we were within the law to do so. If you want to figure out what the terrorists are doing, you try to follow their money. And that’s exactly what we’re doing. And the fact that a newspaper disclosed it makes it harder to win this war on terror.”
Tony Snow rambled on at length along the same lines.
12:05 am
As I read through the comments above, I am finding sometheing very odd. The conservatives, who usually champion freedom, seem to be promoting the idea that our big centralized government should operate in total secrecy and that the citizens of this democracy (such as it is) should have absolutely no right to know about programs (whether we’re talking about monitoring financial transactions, phone tapping, whether warrants should be required for various forms of snooping or whatever) that might very well affect each of us as individuals.
A common reply to this is, “If you’re not involved in any wrongdoing, then you have nothing to worry about.” This will be followed with tired lines about being at war and in wartime the government should have special powers, blah, blah, blah… Trust us and we will protect you!
1) If the American public as a whole subscribes to these concepts, then those in power have every incentive to ensure that we are constantly in a state of war, thereby necessitating a continuum and/or expansion of special or secret powers. Perhaps it is no accident that three years on, after turning corner after corner, and capturing or killing so many of AQ’s #2 leaders (how many #2’s can you have, anyway?), Iraq is still such a mess.
2) If these powers are not held in check to some degree or are not subject to some degree of general transparency, then there is nothing to stop this administration or a future one from expanding these programs beyond their original (and for the sake of this discussion, I will assume legitimate) intents regarding the GWOT and perhaps using these programs against Amercan citizens; perhaps those who don’t belong to the correct political party, attend the correct churches, or support other correct party-approved agenda items.
Conservatives seem to be promoting a position on these issues that might be more in line with the thinking of old Soviet-style party hardliners than freedom-loving Americans; sacrifice the free flow of information and, subsequently, its critical role in allowing an electorate to make inforomed decisions at the polls, on the altar of party power. Predictable conservative knee-jerk reaction to this post would be a case-in-point.
Either you’re for freedom or you’re against it.
2:42 am
The conservatives, who usually champion freedom, seem to be promoting the idea that our big centralized government should operate in total secrecy and that the citizens of this democracy (such as it is) should have absolutely no right to know about programs…
Where? Where do you see any conservative saying anything REMOTELY like the government should operate in TOTAL secrecy and the citizens should have ABSOLUTELY NO RIGHT to know about intel programs?
You’re either a liar or an idiot. More liklely the latter. You think you can come here and set up straw men like that and not get knocked down for the boob you truly are?
Our “such as it is” democracy would be better served by serious people making serious arguments for the protection of civil liberties vis a vis the need for wartime security. Your wild, immature exaggerations belong on talk boards like Democractic Underground or Kos, not places where adults gather to discuss the issues of the day.
7:07 am
I agree with Rick Moran’s comments in #17. Specifically, JML, freedom is a trade-off. I give up the right to break into your house and steal your plasma TV so that I gain the right to keep mine.
In this case, I gave up the right to know about a legal program in which wholesale offshore banking transactions were scrutinized for terrorist links? My goodness, will life ever be the same? Now, thanks to the NYT and LAT, that right has been restored, at who knows what cost.
I am interested in protecting my children’s right not to be vaporized by a nuclear weapon smuggled into Times Square (no irony intended). I would like to hear from Nick Berg about his right to not have his head hacked off with a hunting knife, and videotaped and distributed for all to see, but he’s dead. I guess he doesn’t need rights or freedoms now.
But I digress. Karl Rove is monitoring me, and I have to get ready for work.
11:30 am
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12:45 am
Rick,
1) “Where? Where do you see any conservative saying anything REMOTELY like the government should operate in TOTAL secrecy and the citizens should have ABSOLUTELY NO RIGHT to know about intel programs?”
– This quote almost sounds like it is in defense of the press. I’m confused. I am an idiot, after all. It seems that you would either advocate a position that the press should be free to report as it sees fit, or you would advocate a position that the press should be beholden to government. Which is it? If we declare entire topics relating to government conduct to be off-limits for public consumption via the media, isn’t that tantamount to government operating in secrecy? Your thoughts, please…
2) Am I a liar, an idiot, or a boob? Please make up your mind.
3) You’re right to call me on the straw man thing. I did that deliberately, as creating straw men is a favorite tool of the Right. I wish I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard/read some right-winger declare that liberals hate America or that the NYT serves Al-Qaeda.
4) I say ” democracy such as it is ” because, unfortunately, the bulk of our “representation” in our government represents not common citizens, but wealthy corporations and special-interest groups.
5) “Your wild, immature exaggerations belong on talk boards like Democractic Underground or Kos, not places where adults gather to discuss the issues of the day.”
– Actually, I have little use for DU or Kos. I have the same problems with them that I have with right-wing nuts. Opposite sides of the same coin… Who are these adults who I should blindly trust? Are these the “adults” who run America today, as in “the adults are in charge?” Should I assume that our adult government knows better than I do what is good for me? I’m in the darkness here, please bring me into the light.
6) I’m interested in your thoughts on my points #1 and #2 above, which you conveniently omitted in your response above.
Steve,
I agree with you that freedom involves trade-offs. I guess the question is where do we draw the line in terms of what we are willing to trade off and what are we not willing to part with?
What bothers me about all of this is that there seems to be an “It Can’t Happen Here” attitude with regard to the possibility of the government exploiting the public’s fears of terrorism and, subsequently, the public’s tendency to acquiesce to authority figures in the face of perceived terrorist threats to serve ends that might be well beyond the scope of the public interest. It is in the Bush Administration’s best interests to simultaneously propagate a fear of terrorism and the idea that only the Bush Administration can save America from terrorists, if we all just do as we’re told. – You in the news media, shut up and wave the flag
10:09 am
JML,
I appreciate the debate and think it’s a question worth very serious thought. History has shown that administrations on both sides of the aisle are willing to abuse information, and since administrations come and go, it is worth setting the bar at a level that protects our personal liberties without jeopardizing our safety and way of life.
I also believe, as you seem to, that a free press is indispensible, not only in terms of freedom of speech but also as a part of our checks and balances.
That is precisely why I find the NY Times’ behavior to be so baffling. What civil (or other) liberties were being violated by our Swift program? Especially given the civil liberty-friendly nature of the program, why could the NYT not listen to the opinion of our elected officials, who had to have been more knowledgeable about the value of the intelligence? Was it really such a stretch to believe that the administration could not be trusted on this point?
And why, as others have pointed out, has the NYT not provided articles on Al Qaeda cells, as British papers have done? Why can the NYT expose a United States government program after months and years of looking, but cannot engage an arabic speaker to attend a few mosques and file a report?
And why, in its fervent defense of free speech, is the New York Times unwilling to publish the Danish cartoons? And if the New York Times is so interested in defending civil liberties, why in the world did it publish photos of Rumsfeld’s house, including identifying the security camera in the front yard?
I’m sorry, but I don’t trust the NY Times to make sound judgments of any sort, let alone the weighty decisions under discussion. The newspaper is failing its mission, and frankly it is well past the time for law enforcement (read: Department of Justice) to help shape the debate as to what the NYT can and cannot do.
9:21 pm
Steve,
“I’m sorry, but I don’t trust the NY Times to make sound judgments of any sort, let alone the weighty decisions under discussion. The newspaper is failing its mission, and frankly it is well past the time for law enforcement (read: Department of Justice) to help shape the debate as to what the NYT can and cannot do.”
– I don’t trust the Bush Administration to make sound judgements of any sort. So there!
I try my best to get my news from as many different sources as possible, as different sources will have different angles and specific information, and, of course, no single news source gets it right every time.
– If the DOJ intervenes and starts sending reporters and editors off to jail every time a story runs that raises the government’s ire, then that would effectively be the end of free speech/press in America. A precedent would be established that would make reporting on government activity prohibitively risky for news organizations. The news media would be reduced to running government-approved fluff pieces. There might be specific instances where taking legal action against the news media might serve specific tactical purposes, either with regard to military operations or, more ominously, with regard to political goals at home, but there’s a reason why our government hasn’t taken this route (yet). Just wait for the next terrorist strike here at home; then I’m sure you will see the end of any meaningful investigative reporting into government activity. It will be just like the days right after 9/11 when virtually nobody in the news media dared to question anything the Bush Administration did.
You asked a number of legitimate questions about the NYT’s conduct. I have no way of knowing what they are thinking. Perhaps they are responding to pressure from advertisers or other coporate interests who feel that they have a stake in what gets reported and what doesn’t. (?)
Given that the NYT is based in NYC, which is easily the most popular terror target in North America, I can’t imagine them simply being careless about running a story about a counter-terrorism program. They may be liberal, but they’re not morons. Having read the article, I didn’t see anything that stood out in terms of jeopardizing the program. If you see something that I don’t, please share. Is anybody really surprised that the government has such a program? I’ve often quipped that taking the NYT to task for this article would be like being upset with a newpaper for reporting that the Air Force has airplanes. Any terrorist worth his bomb belt has to figure that governments and financial institutions are on the lookout for shady activity.
Just for fun, here’s the artilce:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/23/washington/23intel.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5090&en=4b46b4fd8685c26b&ex=1308715200&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
Having said all of this, I’m not really out to defend the NYT. They can do that themselves.
Thank you for your thoughts and comments. Have a good week-end.
7:02 am
You too JML! This is a model debate, I’ve learned something. I read and consider your comments even though we have a different take on things.
Regards