President Chastises NY Times

In a move that's sure to win him the approval of the American people, President Bush took sharp aim at the NY Times' reporting of a top-secret but legal program that's been used to apprehend AQ operatives and terrorists. Here's the AP's reporting on it:

"The disclosure of this program is disgraceful," he said. "For people to leak that program and for a newspaper to publish it does great harm to the United States of America," Bush said, jabbing his finger for emphasis. He said the disclosure of the program "makes it harder to win this war on terror." The program has been going on since shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

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"Congress was briefed and what we did was fully authorized under the law," Bush said, talking with reporters in the Roosevelt Room after meeting with groups that support U.S. troops in Iraq. "We're at war with a bunch of people who want to hurt the United States of America," the president said. "What we were doing was the right thing."

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"The American people expect this government to protect our constitutional liberties and at the same time make sure we understand what the terrorists are trying to do," Bush said. He said that to figure out what terrorists plan to do, "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."

In short, the NY Times' hatred of President Bush was so strong that it outweighed their concern for human life and for our nation's security. That's simply unacceptable, especially in a time of war. Taking away an effective tool from our national security team is despicable. The NY Times, LA Times and the WSJ should all be made to pay, either financially through a massive cancellation of people's subscriptions or through criminal prosecution.

Here's Bill Keller's feeble attempt to justify the NY Times' actions:

"We don't know what the banking consortium will do, but we found this argument puzzling," Keller said, pointing out that the banks were under subpoena to provide the information. "The Bush Administration and America itself may be unpopular in Europe these days, but policing the byways of international terror seems to have pretty strong support everywhere."

It isn't that the consortium won't help us. It's that terrorists now know that they've been found out and are vulnerable. That they know means that they'll shift tactics and procedures to evade detection.

The NY Times' actions didn't just anger President Bush; they also upset Michael Barone. Here's what Michael had to say on the matter:

Why do they hate us? No, I'm not talking about Islamofascist terrorists. We know why they hate us: because we have freedom of speech and freedom of religion, because we refuse to treat women as second-class citizens, because we do not kill homosexuals, because we are a free society. No, the "they" I'm referring to are the editors of The New York Times. And do they hate us? Well, that may be stretching it. But at the least they have gotten into the habit of acting in reckless disregard of our safety.

Last December, the Times ran a story revealing that the National Security Agency was conducting electronic surveillance of calls from suspected al-Qaida terrorists overseas to persons in the United States. This was allegedly a violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. But in fact the president has, under his war powers, the right to order surveillance of our enemies abroad. And it makes no sense to hang up when those enemies call someone in the United States, rather the contrary. If the government is going to protect us from those who wish to do us grievous harm, and after Sept. 11 no one can doubt there are many such persons, then it should try to track them down as thoroughly as possible.

Little wonder that President Bush called in Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and top editor Bill Keller, and asked them not to run the story. But the Times went ahead and published it anyway. Now, thanks to The New York Times, al-Qaida terrorists are aware that their phone calls can be monitored, and presumably have taken precautions. Last Friday, the Times did it again, printing a story revealing the existence of U.S. government monitoring of financial transactions routed through the Brussels-based Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, which routes about $6 trillion a day in electronic money transfers around the world. The monitoring is conducted by the CIA and supervised by the Treasury Department. An independent auditing firm has been hired to make sure only terrorist-related transactions are targeted.

Members of Congress were briefed on the program, and it does not seem to violate any law, at least any that the Times could identify. And it has been effective. As the Times reporters admit, it helped to locate the mastermind of the 2002 Bali bombing in Thailand and a Brooklyn man convicted on charges of laundering a $200,000 payment to al-Qaida operatives in Pakistan.

In short, Michael's told us that:

• Congress has been briefed and has been doing oversight on this program;
• the program's been effective in capturing terrorists;
• and it's legal.

Why the NY Times thinks that this is newsworthy is inexplicable. The other thing that I don't get is how the NY Times thinks that the average person even mildly cares about this program. My good friend King at SCSUScholars says that SWIFT only deals with transfers of large sums of money from one country to another. King provides the best analysis of what SWIFT is and how it's used.

I couldn't care less about a program that uses information that has to be supplied to the IRS and other financial institutions. I'd further bet that support for the Times' actions would reach 10 percent if the program were explained within the context of the laws of land.

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Posted Monday, June 26, 2006 12:25 PM

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