If this isn’t deserving of Okie’s Head Up The Ol’ Wazzoo Award, I don’t know what would be!

In today’s Los Angeles Times and the New York Times the top story reveals the details of yet another secret U.S. anti-terror program — the use of vast quantities of financial data from SWIFT to track terrorists’ financial transactions world wide. Now that Akmed, Zawahiri and Jafar have the skinny, I have to ask, “Why was it in my public interest to know about this? I’m having a lot of issues with Ann Coulter right now, but maybe she hit it right on the head with her book Treason. What else could you call this expose of a critical intelligence program in a time of war?

The Bush administration had lengthy meetings with representatives of both papers, urging them to keep this program secret — does the LAT & NYT really want another 9/11 chalked up to their reckless irresponsibility? Do they hate Bush and Co. so very much that they are suicidal? Have they no shame? So, what do the big wigs at these poor excuses for cat box liners have to say about their crime? Hey fellas, don’t get a strain patting yourselves on the back! Here’s Bil Keller, NYT executive editor: [h/t: Michelle Malkin]

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.”

Hugh Hewitt is trying to get Keller on his show today, for a discussion, like that will ever happen! The stated policy of the New York Times is that it is more dangerous for the Bush administration to have access to a “vast repository of international financial data” than it is for the Islamic Jihadists to be moving money around freely to fund that next wave of terror. How else can you read this? One other possibility that I can think of is that the NYT and the Tribune Co., parent of the LAT might have some illegal clandestine international money hiding/laundering scheme going that they are afraid the U.S. Treasury will find out about, or possibly they are funding terror themselves? Wouldn’t be the first time that international finance trumped nationalism, but that’s pretty out there. (It’s kinda like when someone is kidnapped, the first suspect is the spouse — gotta eliminate the obvious first.) My best guess is that these newspaper boys smelled a big scoop and damn the consequences, after all, they are the mighty press! Breitbart details the meeting that the LAT had with the administration and its decision to print the story anyway.

Administration officials were concerned that news reports of the program would diminish its effectiveness and could harm overall national security.

“It’s a tough call; it was not a decision made lightly,” said Doyle McManus, the Los Angeles Times’ Washington bureau chief. “The key issue here is whether the government has shown that there are adequate safeguards in these programs to give American citizens confidence that information that should remain private is being protected.”

Treasury Department officials spent 90 minutes Thursday meeting with the newspaper’s reporters, stressing the legality of the program and urging the paper to not publish a story on the program, McManus said in a telephone interview.

“They were quite vigorous, they were quite energetic. They made a very strong case,” he said.

“They made a very strong case”, just not strong enough. Never strong enough, huh guys? I can just imagine one of these jokers, with an Al Qaeda gun barrel stuck down their throats, with their last thoughts being, “damn, but I swear I still believe it was in the Public Interest!” I’m certainly not the only one upset about this. Michell Malkin is posting a whole slew of letters to the NYT, which even she admits that the paper’s editors most likely will never bother to read.

They can buy ink by the barrel, but we can fight back now with bandwidth by the terrabyte. I’m getting inundated with furious readers’ letters to the Times, most of which the editors won’t bother to read or publish–since they’re not in, you know, the “public (Pulitzer) interest.” So I’m reprinting a representative sample here and I’ll keep adding to it. Don’t forget that it’s both the NYTimes and the LATimes that blew off security concerns in favor of blowing the cover of the terrorist finance tracking program.

See Michelle’s post for NYT contact info, you can contact our local rag-o’-righteousness here.

And then there’s Patterico, who’s also having an Ann Coulter moment:

I am biting down on my rage right now. I’ll resist the temptation to say Ann Coulter was right about where Timothy McVeigh should have gone with his truck bomb. I’ll say only this: it’s becoming increasingly clear to me that the people at the New York Times are not just biased media folks whose antics can be laughed off. They are actually dangerous.
(…)
The article is likely to do far more than “jeopardize [the program’s] effectiveness.” It’s clear to me that the publication of the article will shut it down entirely. The article says that, in 2003, officials of the banking cooperative “were discussing pulling out because of their concerns about legal and financial risks if the program were revealed, one government official said.” But our top officials did a “full-court press” and promised to institute even tighter controls, which had apparently been quite successful.
(…)
As I said, these people are dangerous. I think it’s time to open an investigation into these leaks. Our war on terror is being eviscerated by the New York Times, in cooperation with shadowy figures inside the government with mysterious agendas that lead them to disclose highly sensitive information regarding legal programs that have proved critical to our efforts to stop the killing of innocents.

Heads need to roll over this.
(…)
Get an independent prosecutor. Now.

If only! And, just for the record, still no mention in the LAT of the report released yesterday by Senator Santorum bringing to light the 500 canisters of WMD found in Iraq. Old? Yes — degraded? Yes — still dangerous to our troops and of possible use to terrorists in a mass-killing attack? YES! But hey, that’s not news — outing a successful classified program to track the crucial money supply of said terrorists, making it irrelevant or just outright killing it in the process — now that’s some news, baby.

Ann is right — this is TREASON! The leakers need to go to the pokey, for life! The papers need to be sued into bankruptcy. Those that made the decision to print these stories need to join the leakers. We are at war. This is reprehensible. The responsibility for the next terrorist attack on U.S. soil is on them. That will be careless disregard — minimum 25 to life! Or worse, if lives are lost it would be conspiracy to commit premeditated murder. Play time is over! (db)

[Update: The Truth Laid Bear has a special section tracking the Blogosphere's reaction to this story.]

Technorati Tags: New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Bill Keller, SWIFT, Michelle Malkin, Patterico, The Truth Laid Bear

This entry was posted on Friday, June 23rd, 2006 at 9:47 am and is filed under Head Up The Wazzoo Award, Media Doin' It Wrong, Surveillance Issues. 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

Recently Posted:

• “Young Mattie Fein” Political Ad — Hot Linkage & More . . .
• Just Bloggin’ Around: VJ Day Video, Ground Zero Mosque, Obaminations & More . . .
• We The People — An Open Letter To President Obama
• Remembering Annie & Some Hard-Life Lessons
• Obama’s Nightmare In The Gulf
• Obama’s Exectuive Order Banning Federal Funding of Abortion Proves To Be Just More B.S.
• American Women — Takin’ Names, Kickin’ Butt!
• Now Obama’s F’ing Up NASA!
• Happy 4th of July Y’all!
• VOTE!