The MSM is asserting that its should be the final word on what information stays classified, and what doesn’t, not our elected officials who are charged by the Constitution and our Federal legal code to be the arbiters of those decisions. Basically declaring that freedom of the press trumps all other considerations, the New York Times continues to defend its publishing of the leaked classified information on the NSA’s program to intercept communications between known Al-Qaeda and other terrorists outside the U.S. and individuals inside the country, citizen or not. The Bush administration insists that the public announcement of this program has harmed national security — this writer asks, how could it not?

But the Gray Lady is not swayed. From yesterday’s New York Times, we get this:

Bill Keller, executive editor of The Times, said no one at the paper had been contacted in connection with the investigation, and he defended the paper’s reporting.

“Before running the story we gave long and sober consideration to the administration’s contention that disclosing the program would damage the country’s counterterrorism efforts,” Mr. Keller said. “We were not convinced then, and have not been convinced since, that our reporting compromised national security.

“What our reporting has done is set off an intense national debate about the proper balance between security and liberty — a debate that many government officials of both parties, and in all three branches of government, seem to regard as in the national interest.” [emph mine]

Google NSA surveillance and you can see just how much support the press is giving the Times’ position, with not very much siding with GW out there.

The Time’s article does include most of the quotes and statements from Bush officials, like Attorney General Gonzales, supporting the surveillance, I’ll give them credit for that. But, you can read between the lines to see that worry about upcoming prosecutions is weighing on their collective minds. The Bush administration is serious as hell about protecting our country from another terrorist attack, even though we all know that they can’t stop them all. They are also serious as a heart attack over finding and prosecuting whoever in our government leaked the NSA information to the Times, and want that person’s hide mounted on a wall somewhere. More power to ‘em I say.

But what about the chutzpah of the Times’ editors to run with this story regardless of the consequences — to themselves, and to all of us? There are only two possibilities here. 1) They are insane and suicidal, or 2) they don’t believe that we are in a Global War On Terror with the radical Islamofascists, despite the evidence of 9/11, the Cole attack, the first World Trade Center bombing, the bombed embassies in Africa, and the list goes on and on — which means that there is a number 3 — both of the above.

The NY Times article concludes with this quote from Judge T. S. Ellis III of Federal District Court and its reaction.

“Persons who have unauthorized possession, who come into unauthorized possession of classified information, must abide by the law,” Judge Ellis said. “That applies to academics, lawyers, journalists, professors, whatever.”

Some media lawyers believe that The Times has powerful legal arguments in defense of its reporting and in protecting its sources.

Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., who has represented publications like The Wall Street Journal and Time magazine, said: “There is a very strong argument that a federal common-law reporters’ privilege exists and that privilege would protect confidential sources in this case. There is an extremely strong public interest in this information, and the public has the right to understand this controversial and possibly unconstitutional public policy.” [emph mine]

Maybe they do — after the war is over — of course, if we don’t win this war, none of this will matter! (db)

Technorati Tags: NSA surveillance, New York Times, Al-Qaeda

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 12th, 2006 at 1:17 pm and is filed under G.W.O.T., Media Doin' It Wrong. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.  |   Print This Post  |   Email This Post

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