[Update: The gods are agin' me this AM, as I cannot get either of the LA Times links to function without breaking the code in the WP post. Can't explain it, can't seem to fix it. Go to LATimes.com to find the two articles referenced and excerpted below -- Okie]

Although Oklahoma was not in the deep south, when I was growing up it seemed like for many there the civil war was still being fought. I often heard utterances of “damn Yankees”, especially in reference to folks from New England, and in particular to those in New York. I don’t think that I ever had a handle on that until this AM, after following a link from Hugh Hewitt’s new Townhall.com blog to Charlie Rose’s interview with New York Times editor-in-chief, Bill Keller. (Video is free today, $0.99 after that on Google Video, plus you get the plus of his interview with Robert Kennedy Jr. discussing his article in Rolling Stone where he insists that the ’04 election in Ohio was stolen from the Dems. Geez! Let it go, man . . .)

Instead of showing Rose’s questions and my making snarky comments between each quote, I’ll just let Keller’s statements stand on their own, with what I feel are critical elements bolded. I’m actually listening to the video as I put this post together, just to get the proper level of adrenaline amped up. It’s hard to understand the arrogance of Mr. Keller unless you spend the time to listen to, or especially to watch him make these statements. After th excerpts of his interview, I’ll discuss some news items that broke over the last 24 hours that seem to strongly contradict the NYT editor-in-chief, those courtesy of the LA Times, the NYT’s co-conspirator in breaking the SWIFT monitoring program.

Thanks to Radioblogger for the transcript. Go there to read the full interview.

We felt in this time, in this case, that the value of publishing it was that this program was part of a larger tendency on the part of the Bush administration to expand executive powers in the War On Terror without the kind of oversight that has been customary from Congress. That was the principal concern that people who knew of the program raised with us. On the other side, we felt that the administration’s arguments that publishing would damage national security, in the end, were not very convincing, and..

They made two cases. The lesser of the two, and the one that was presented to me, really as something of an afterthought, was that this will inform terrorists of something that they don’t know. I find it hard to believe that people at the Treasury Department and the White House really believe that, given that they have publicly testified repeatedly to the fact that they go after all the information they can get about international financial transactions that are behind terrorism.

The other argument was a political one, that to some extent, the operation of this program depends on the cooperation of bankers, including bankers who are Europeans and in other countries, and that if this program saw the light of day, some of those people might feel embarrassed before their shareholders or customers, and feel that they needed to withdraw their support.

They feel a legal obligation to comply. And secondly, the administration makes, I think, a pretty strong case that this is an effective program…

It’s one that has safeguards built in, not safeguards that satisfy everyone, but definitely safeguards. There’s an accounting firm that’s retained to make sure that they’re not dipping into things that they shouldn’t be dipping into, and it seemed to us that this is not going to be a hard sell for a banker. I think even in parts of the world where they’re unhappy with the United States, and unhappy with the Bush administration, the idea that you try to intercept international financing of terrorists is pretty popular.

Well, you know, one of the more cynical members of my staff observed that a lot of the denunciations of the Times since this story published were from microphones at Republican Party fundraisers, you know, that beating up on the New York Times is red meat for a certain portion of the conservative base.

Yeah, I don’t think it’s all that. I think they were genuinely upset. I think they really did not want us to publish this story. I think there’s an element of embarrassment here.
(…)
I think they’re embarrassed by the fact that this is an administration that has put a high premium on holding its secrets close, and has not had a very good record of doing that.

No. I think absent that experience, in this case, it would have been a close call, it was a close call, it might have been a closer call, but I think we still would have published. You know, we hold stuff out of the paper all the time when we believe that lives would be put at risk. That’s just the responsible thing to do, and you know, it gets a lot of attention when you publish something they don’t want, but you don’t get any attention when you don’t publish. But this just did not feel like one of those cases…

Well, there’s not a formula that you can apply, and I can’t know, nor can the administration know what the consequences are going to be.

I think that’s kind of what I meant by embarrassment. Not just before the American people, but it does probably make allies wonder a little bit about how porous this administration might be in the future.
(…)
And therefore, they’ll continue to talk to each other anyway.

Well, I think our job is not to tell people what they’re supposed to think. It’s to give them the material so that they can make up their own minds. And in this case, I think a lot of people will look at the story of this program and say this is a good thing. I’m glad we’re doing this. Probably most people are delighted that we are trying to track down the people who finance terror. And that’s fine. I mean, you don’t just write about the programs that are questionable or illegal or ineffective. You write about as much as you can within the bounds of common sense and protecting lives.

I mean, it would be nice if something productive came out of this whole discussion of the role of the press, because there is, obviously, confusion about why people who are not elected and have this kind of power handed to them.

[And, this part needs both parties' input, just so that you can get the full measure of its meaning.]

CR: All governments like to control information.

BK: All governments, they want to control information.

CR: Everyone I’ve ever seen or known.

BK: They like to have their message come out their way, and that’s perfectly understandable. But we’re not fulfilling our function if we take everything they say at face value.

CR: So when it comes down to this question, it’s your judgment versus their judgment. That’s when…

BK: Well, that’s the way the guys who invented the country set it up. Yes.

———————————————————–< <<

From the horse's mouth, so-to-speak: The SWIFT program was legal and effective -- but that didn't matter. The administration begged and pleaded, along with the co-chairs of the 9/11 Commission, but that didn't matter. Members of Congress, including Democrats asked them not to run the story, but that didn't matter.

"All governments, they want to control information." And the elites don't trust any government, or anyone in government that disagrees with them, so any government program deserves to be outed and made irrelevant, even if it is working to save American lives, cause hey, they be the press!

"[T]here is, obviously, confusion about why people who are not elected and have this kind of power handed to them." Bill, you have certainly got that one right! Hopefully that confusion will be addressed by a Congressional probe in the near future. And for those that keep asking me, "Why do you keep lambasting the papers and not the leakers, I do want the leakers found and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law! So, get off that one.

-----------------------------------------------------------< <<

When Keller said, "I think even in parts of the world where they're unhappy with the United States, and unhappy with the Bush administration, the idea that you try to intercept international financing of terrorists is pretty popular[,]" I don't know if he was aware of this as yet, but since this story broke yesterday, it would seem odd if the NYT's guys weren't working on something similar to it. From the LA Times:

EU to Look at U.S. Bank Surveillance

European Union officials are seeking an investigation of the U.S. government’s program for monitoring international banking data, with the most pressing questions aimed at figuring out how much European governments and institutions knew about the secret operation.

Lawmakers of the European Parliament, meeting this week in Strasbourg, France, demanded that the European Central Bank and similar institutions in the 25-nation bloc reveal the level of their cooperation in or knowledge of the U.S. government’s policy of searching private financial records as part of its anti-terrorism efforts.

The U.S. program, revealed last month by this and other U.S. newspapers, “could give rise to large-scale forms of economic and industrial espionage,” the Parliament said.

Lawmakers voted 302 to 219 to approve the resolution demanding explanations, a sign of Europe’s growing unease over Washington’s efforts in the U.S.-declared war on terrorism.
(…)
Belgian authorities are investigating whether the Brussels-based Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or SWIFT, broke the law by passing bank transaction data to the CIA.< Once that inquiry is concluded, European Commission officials will try to determine whether EU privacy laws were also violated.

Then, for icing on that nasty cake, the story goes on to associate the SWIFT program with the CIA’s alleged practice of “illegal seizure, removal, abduction and detention of terrorist suspects”. But, given that some EU members may now be held liable “for human rights violations”, whatever that will mean, and that investigations are being held to see if the member banks have violated any laws, how can Keller and Co. even remotely believe that exposure of that program hasn’t harmed our ability to track terrorist finances? How could this not result in LESS International cooperation in the future? How does that benefit the interest and safety of the United States, not to mention the rest of the Western world?

And, it’s not just the NYT or the LAT, the urge to one-up, out-source, be-the-first-to-expose runs deep in the MSM. The New York Daily News got its 15 minutes this week by exposing the terrorist plot to bomb New York Subway tunnels and possibly to flood lower Manhattan. Another “Whoops! We bad?”

[FBI Assistant Director Mark J.] Mershon, flanked by Bloomberg and New York Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, said that authorities had not planned to disclose Hammoud’s arrest or other elements of the plot disruption, and that the unwanted publicity had “greatly complicated” efforts to catch the five remaining fugitives.

At least one lawmaker was also critical. Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.) said in a televised interview that for months he had been receiving regular intelligence briefings on the alleged plot as chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.

King said, “It would have been better if this had not been disclosed” publicly, so as not to disrupt the investigation and intelligence-gathering effort.

Patterico is upset over this disclosure:

I’m sick of this happening again and again. This was just one operation, and not an entire program as happened with the Swift disclosures. But it’s symptomatic of an ongoing and very serious problem. I want to see Administration action on this, immediately.

We have a Constitutionally mandated free press, that in this moment-in-time appears to have no self-control, or is simply arrogant beyond measure. The leaks must stop. National security is being severely compromised. Reporters must reveal the sources of leaked classified information, of spend a good amount of time as guests of the state. Simple choice, really — Time for Pulitzers to stop trumping protecting-the-lives-of-Americans . . . (db)

Technorati Tags: Charlie Rose, Bill Keller Interview, New York Times, SWIFT, Radioblogger, Google Video

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 8th, 2006 at 11:15 am and is filed under Focus On Politics, Intellegence Efforts, Media Doin' It Right, 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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