I feel like I'm in the dark a lot more than I need to be, not because there's some sort of concerted effort to keep me in the dark, but because banging on garbage cans is what passes for music.

Hmmm... I guess I needed an visual metaphor there, instead of an audio metaphor, but you know what I mean. How about "a dirty tablecloth passes for a masterpiece"?

#5 Walter:

We know more about the politicians we elect, who in turn make decisions on our behalves, than we do of the editors and journalists at any media outlet. We have at a minimum been able to make an informed character judgment on them as they ran for office.

Secondly, read Snow's letter When you have two Democrat members of the 9/11 commission telling the NYTimes not to publish this, it would be safe to assume that they are privy to far more operational information on the program and its impact than a few reporters who had a story fed to them by rogue elements within CIA/State/DoD. If the journalists want to drop this bullshit anonymous sources crap and actually get their reporting on the record, then we as a public would be better able to judge their credibility of the story, and its impact. If as I suspect, the sources turn out to be the likes of Joe Wilson, and Larry Johnson, and the usual suspects who all have axes to grind and want to hurt the Bush administration more than they care about protecting secret and classified intelligence gathering programs, then the public has an even greater interest to know. I’d say, if you’re going to blow a story like this open, then you have to name names, otherwise you can’t be trusted.

I would add further, that given the incredible ignorance on the part of the modern press in regards to military culture and affairs, they are the last people I would want making a decision on what classified programs are in the "public interest"

You may put your faith in the NYTimes, I won't. Honestly, the media in general should be asking these questions in the decision to run a story instead of the lame half assed crap that Keller and Bauquet have passed off.

The tipping point for trust in the MSM has in my view just been reached.

Walter..

Quoting Greenwald, or even someone linked by Greenwald, can get a bit dicey here.

I agree that the entire thing is silliness. Not only is it hard to ascertain how the public knowing of the existance of this program could possibly hinder it, most have more or less known about it for a long time.

Whether the result of faux outrage, or simple ignorance of the facts, this "scandal" is just an attempt to drum up some rightous indignation among the base. It seems the dead cat bounce that lasted almost a whole week for Bush wasn't what they were hoping for so Karl pulled this one out of his sleeve.

And as always, you've got a certain segment of the society, regardless of the moniker they choose, who are more than happy to swallow it.

"...drum up some rightous indignation among the base..."

Interesting when you bring up structural problem in a democracy, you get a political argument.

One would think that the proper response would be something like "What if the shoe were on the other foot, would it be okay then?"

I imagine that course of reasoning is lost, however, when the issue is real. At that point, the best arguments you have are "it doesn't hurt" and "it's all politics anyway" -- nice sidestep there.

Well AL, the story did serve a purpose. If forced the Admin to brief the ranking democrat on the House Intelligence Committee on the program.

From the Washington Post

Although the chairmen and senior Democrats on the two intelligence committees apparently were also briefed when the program began, there have been changes in the intelligence panels' leadership since 2001. The full committees -- and the current chairmen and senior Democrats in some cases -- learned of the program in May

So, it would be more accurate to say that the story served its purpose in forcing the administration to rebrief new chairmen of a program that the previous Democratic chairmen found innocuous in 2001. Thank G*d for the New York Times.

Interesting when you bring up structural problem in a democracy, you get a political argument.

Which no doubt is the reason congress is busy working on a flag desecration and gay marriage constitutional amendment these days.

You believe I'm ignoring a structural problem and trying to twist it into a political issue.

I believe it's always been pure politics from day one.

Reasonable people can disagree of course, but recent history seems to lean in my direction.

Davebo, you must certainly recognize that the factual points embedded in Greenwald's post stand alone regardless of what anyone here might think of him. So I guess I don't see how it is "dicey" to link to his page. But thanks for the advice.

On that note, please excuse me as I step out of the path of this growing lynch mob. What a bunch.

The problem I have with Walter's Ridge's case is that it suggests there's a standard for reporting (or restraint) that hasn't been expressed. It does this by arguing that the contention that the present situation violates such a standard hasn't been proved. Moreover, if this stuff were actually widely known before it was reported, why does it consitute enough of a story that they were compelled to print it? Now, mind you, all of what has transpired makes sense if we just assume that "the press" doesn't know its own hole from the ground's. I don't think they have the slightest idea what does or doesn't constitute the breach of a standard of secrecy in the service of national defense, because they don't have any idea what even one of those terms actually means. Indeed, they haven't even thought about it in any sort of halfway-disciplined sense.

LOL.

It's all politics, Davebo, that's why we elect those guys we call politicians.

The question you should be asking (he prodded again) Davebo is whether you could change the situation around into a cause that you supported with a president you elected. Would you feel that the press was dismantling the war effort? Or would you just be feeling "energized" like the good little robot you are?

If you can change the situation around, then by definition we can discuss this without the political component -- at that point we are talking whether the structure works or not. If you cannot, then that's a problem for you, imo.

DM, it doesn't excuse or justify publication, but publication is very different than surreptitious disclosure directly to an enemy, if for no other reason than the government is aware that published information is no longer secret and will no longer rely on its secrecy, unlike information given directly to an enemy without general publication.

No one would suggest that First Amendment rights protect the right to pass secret information to an enemy, but a restraint on the publication of the same information should be subject to a more demanding standard if we are serious about preserving our ability to make our participation in government an informed participation.

If secrecy is truly justified, then prosecution of those who publish should be a viable option for the government. If the press refuses to honor reasonable requests for non-disclosure and no disclosure is punishable, then the government will react by making the category of secret information overly broad and will go to otherwise unjustifiable lengths to maintain secrecy. If it's warranted under existing federal statutes, prosecution is warranted here to serve as a check on an institutional press that somehow has misunderstood the freedom of the press as a special right given to the institutional press, rather than a fundamental right that all citizens enjoy to the same degree -- that is, within the limits contemplated by the First Amendment read together with the rest of the Constitution (which of course includes Article II).

#21:

obscure references to SWIFT by a handful of journals != The largest paper in the US fully exposing the operation for no reason other than an attempt to embarrass the administration with yet another trumped up "civil liberties" issue.

Greenwalds a fool, and his credentials in terrorism analysis are highly lacking. Given that the program continued to work even in 2002 and recently means that the terrorists were not fully aware of it or its implications. Heck maybe even the NYTimes didn't feel traitorous enough to explain all the details of the program and its operational use. But since yours is a single purpose point of view, it remains blind to any alternatives other than the ones that are fed to you.

Take off the blinders of hatred of Bush for a minute and you may just learn something and end up looking less of a fool than you do currently.

Daniel,

If you're asking whether I would feel differently if the press reminded the public of a situation that was common knowledge under a democrat or independant administration I can assure you the answer would be the same.

Seems like common sense to me.

However, no, we can't discuss it without the political component. Neither you nor myself the good little robot, seem capable of that.

Just as we couldn't discuss say, the Schiavo case without including the right to life component. Because it's essentially the only component of the subject.

I agree, FD.

What is lacking is a clear definition of reasonable restraint.

This is an area that Congress should take some action, if not for GW then for the next president. I'd be in favor of tighter regulations with a five-year wait until they take effect. However the issue is solved, it needs to be separated from the current administration and current war -- it's a lot bigger than that.

You know, WR, I may think your arguments are silly or weak (as I thought Greenwald's were - his assumption being, essentially, that one can't rape a nonvirgin) but I don't disparage you or Davebo as 'what a bunch'; you might be a more interesting sparring partner if you avoided the same thing.

A.L.

"..if the press reminded the public of a situation that was common knowledge.."

Ya Davebo. Got a news flash for you -- who makes that decision? Do we gather in a group of magic elves? Pick bums off the street? Use the 1-900 psychic hotline?

Because whoever that guy is, he's got some real power. Whatever he decides is common knowledge, he can publish all he wants. He's like the magic guy in our democracy.

I must have missed him in my high school civics class -- the guy who decides if the government really means it when they say "classified". What's his title, anyway?

Now I think we have way too much classification, no doubt. But as FD pointed out, this is just another symptom of the underlying structural problem. Ignoring the law isn't the way to fix it.

#29

The point, clearly, is that terrorists could have easily known about the program (and probably did), while the American public remained ignorant about the government going through its financial transactions with no oversight. The Times serves the public interest by publishing it; it doesn't harm counterterrorism efforts since the info was already out there.

And I would not characterize Bush's campaign speeches as being "obsure" references, Gabriel.

Now if you'd like to argue that terrorists get most or all of their info from the US media, you will have another dubious presumption to prove.

WR -

I know that the local police department patrols the streets, but I still break the speed limit on my motorcycle pretty regularly. In the Uk, they use fixed radar devices, known as "GATSO's" to give speeding tickets. You can buy a map of the location of the speed cameras - is the guy who sells the map helping Britons speed? Even though they know in abstract that speed laws are enforced?

A.L.

Ya Davebo. Got a news flash for you -- who makes that decision?

Editors and Publishers make that decision. Are you suggesting a better way?

I mean seriously, the press harmed the war effort by reporting on the Haditha probe. Well, actually the press instigated the Haditha probe, but regardless, would we be better of as a nation had the press decided not to publish the story?

Perhaps we could set up a new Office of Acceptable News Content within the administration to handle these questions.

AL

AL,

After foolishly chastizing the press for acting like a free press usually acts, you make yourself look even dumber by now trying to justify your attack under the pretention that you are a better citizen than they are and have a more perfect understanding of what should or should not be reported according to the standards of 'what makes for good citizenship'.

What you offer is nothing more than your opinion without any supporting facts. Fine.

But here's the rub. What really makes for good American citizenship is to defend the right of the press to publish essentially whatever they want.

Perhaps you were thinking of different sort of citizenship, something more along the lines of the submissive groupthing the Soviet communists called 'solidarity'?

As for me, I stand with the liberals defense of American values against the right wing conservative criticism of my country any day of the week. And I do so even when I think the press is wrong. But that is the difference between us, that is what makes me an 'American' citizen.

AL;

I'd like to hear your answer to your own question, even though I think it is a diversion from addressing the very real, very non-hypothetical situation of covert government snooping into the lives of American citizens.

"The point, clearly, is that terrorists could have easily known about the program (and probably did),"

How? Specifically. This has all the earmarks of a throwaway line apologists hope will become a truism.

Now AQ suspects all kinds of capabilities out of the US, some of which we realistically do not have. Why in god's name should we firm up any of their assumptions? You know the Germans had a pretty good idea we were going to invade France, does it hence follow that a US paper should run a story about it?

"while the American public remained ignorant about the government going through its financial transactions with no oversight."

But the US congress was fully briefed which is what our system of government demands. The NYT does not get to declassify material as it sees fit. Think about what you are arguing. Quite literally the NYT is saying its freedom to protect sources is more important to our nation than the governments ability to keep anything secret- even when there is no allegation of illegality. That, aside from being breathtakingly arrogant, is just idiotic.

The public has an interest in knowing what our president is up to, does it then follow that the NYT should publish his Iraq itinerary next visit he makes? This public interest argument is flat out B.S.

"...Editors and Publishers make that decision. Are you suggesting a better way?..."

The Haditha probe was a good job on the part of the reporters, because it assured the world that we are honest partners. None of that information was classifed, btw.

I would appreciate a better example. And no, I do not feel that the ultimate right to decide what to publish lies with editors and publishers. In this new information age, every man is his own publisher. What you basically are saying is that there is no such thing as keeping a national secret if it disagrees with your personal ethics or morals. To me this is prima facie unworkable.

We have many freedoms, one of which is freedom of speech. These freedoms rest on our structure of government, which I feel is under attack. Without an effective executive branch, these freedoms don't mean much. We were able to fight WWII and I didn't hear a lot of complaints. So how about let's get some balance back into the system. Please?

-- who makes that decision?

In the first instance, the publishers and editors.

In the second instance, by the consumers and advertisers and competing sources of speech who are free to criticize critique and punish that decision.

In the third instance, a jury of one's peers. If anyone at the NYTimes did anything that would have been illegal if I, a non-newspaper, did it, they should be jailed for their convictions.

What you basically are saying is that there is no such thing as keeping a national secret if it disagrees with your personal ethics or morals.

No, I'm saying that if you want to keep a national secret, then you probably shouldn't be including allusions to said secret in your public speeches.

Leaks of classified information to the press are nothing new.

In fact, it is quite common.

Point of information: The disclosed program had very little to do with the 'government going through [the public's] financial transaction with no oversight.' I'll let others address the 'no oversight' canard, but I will say that far from being a commonplace, running a SWIFT transfer is something that very few individuals will ever do during their entire lifetimes. It's a system that exists for moving amounts of tens of thousands of dollars and up internationally, among financial institutions. There's an analogous system - ABA/Fedwire - for domestic transfers, so you can be sure that SWIFT transactions are in fact border crossing. Learning these basics might enhance credibility.

I've done dozens of SWIFT transfers myself, but I happen to be a venture capitalist managing international funds. Considering the considerable regulatory, audit and tax requirements around those transfers, I've never had any reason to expect privacy in doing so. And given that someone in my position would be well-placed to attempt to slip hot money to bogus 'start up' companies, the revealed level of oversight seems perfectly appropriate from the POV of one whose activities certainly fell within its purview.

This has been, alas, yet another chance for the MSM to exhibit that whatever sense of loyalty and responsibility they may have does not extend to their fellow citizens, and for the left to once again demonstrate its lack of seriousness as seen here. When and if this all ends in fire because we've exhausted other possibilities, they will bear a large chunk of the responsibility that they will then also shirk.

PD,

Under the law the only person with criminal liability in this case is the person who leaked the information, not those who subsequently published it.

And not even Gonzales could spin this one into an argument a court would be willing to accept.

I mean seriously, the press harmed the war effort by reporting on the Haditha probe. Well, actually the press instigated the Haditha probe, but regardless, would we be better of as a nation had the press decided not to publish the story?

Given that there is video footage which pretty much undercuts the allegations made, yes I rather think we would have been better off if the sensational condemnation of the marines had not been published in the irresponsible and tendentious manner it was.

"...No, I'm saying that if you want to keep a national secret, then you probably shouldn't be including allusions to said secret in your public speeches..."

So we're back to Davebo and his magic person who gets to decide whether something is public knowledge.

Thanks Davebo. That was a huge waste of time. Kinda thought you and I were having a conversation, but you seem stuck on step 2.

I understand the leak problem (yawn) and as I already pointed out, this is an indication of the problem -- the government is crazily classifying everything. Once again, ignoring the law is not the answer.

Do you understand? I get the schoolyard reasoning. Let's move to the next level, Davebo. Heck -- I'm a civil libertarian. I hate any thought of constraining the press. But absolutes are almost never true. There are times when constraining the press is in the greater good. Our governmental system is not a comic book -- there are trade-offs for every right we have. In fact, to truly describe a right, you must be willing to describe the limits and boudaries of that right. "Freedom of the press" is a great slogan, but it needs to mean something. It's not carte blanche.

#37 You are flat out wrong.

You are wrong about the terrorists awareness of the program, and you are wrong about the program and what it covers. You are wrong about the oversight as well, unless you think Congress just rubber-stamps everything that the administration brings to it.

What public interest does the Times publishing this provide? Give me even one specific.

You have defended your decision to compromise this program by asserting that "terror financiers know" our methods for tracking their funds and have already moved to other methods to send money. The fact that your editors believe themselves to be qualified to assess how terrorists are moving money betrays a breathtaking arrogance and a deep misunderstanding of this program and how it works. While terrorists are relying more heavily than before on cumbersome methods to move money, such as cash couriers, we have continued to see them using the formal financial system, which has made this particular program incredibly valuable.

It's a system that exists for moving amounts of tens of thousands of dollars and up internationally, among financial institutions.

Actually in the technical sense no funds are transferred at all through swift. However it does provide for secure messaging about such fund transfers between financial institutions.

Thanks Davebo. That was a huge waste of time. Kinda thought you and I were having a conversation, but you seem stuck on step 2.

Actually our conversation ended when, apparantly with no other rejoinder at your disposal, you decided to act like a 12 year old and call people asinine names.

But hey, selective indignation is apparantly what this is all about so run with it.

"Under the law the only person with criminal liability in this case is the person who leaked the information, not those who subsequently published it."

This is true. However if a court or the congress subpoenas the reporters and demands their sources they have no legal justification for not revealing them and should and will spend time in prison for contempt. That is how this story should end.

#52

Add petty sarcasm to that as well.

FYI: sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.

Robin,

I don't want to spoil this thread with off topic conversation, least of all with you as I've been down that road in the past.

Suffice to say the Marine Corps apparantly doesn't share your opinion regarding what the video proves or disproves.

The probably just hate America.

"...selective indignation is apparantly what this is all about so run with it..."

Who's indignant? I'm laughing and happy.

Do you have somewhere to go, Davebo, except for meandering around with my style? If you do, let's get on with it. Your position is that any editor and publisher has a right to decide whether or not "classified" really means it, or if it's just a joke. I find this belief unworkable in our government. The problems are: 1) everybody is now and editor and publisher, 2) there is no standard for "they already knew that" -- it's just hearsay, and 3) there is no recourse by the government if people's lives are lost.

I'm with the earlier poster. People are going to die because we're taking apart our ability to fight this war and the first people to complain about government ineptitude will be those folks who made it all happen to start with.

Gabriel,

So calling someone a little robot isn't sarcasm, but pointing out that someone does it is?

As to pettiness, well each can judge that on their own.

Mark, I agree wholeheartedly with your #53. That's the way it should work.

But I'd like a thousand bucks on the notion that such a contempt trial will never take place and that the AG will not seek to prosecute the leaker or leakers. As has been the case pretty consistantly over the past few years.

So is anyone going to answer what the overriding public interest was in exposing this program?

I tend to agree- in a sense Bush has done a pretty admirable job keeping his eye on the ball and not getting bogged down in the stuff that drives the pundits crazy (this one drives me crazy as well). I think he has a bit of a spilled milk attitude towards this kind of thing.

On the other hand I could easily see Congressional investigations turning into a real circus. On the one hand i really think this leaker should be found and the reporters punished if they hide him. On the other hand this close to the election a congressional hearing would be little more than a publicity stunt that would provide little authoritative precident on this kind of thing, which is the only thing im really interested in.

Mark,

Though I don't think in this case you are incorrect, but in other cases the decision not to prosecute had much less to do with "keeping your eye on the ball" and much more to do with not wanting to keep the story in the news. I'm thinking primarily about the NSA wiretap leak.

So is anyone going to answer what the overriding public interest was in exposing this program?

If I were to guess, its to keep the story going on the NSA wiretaps.

"If I were to guess, its to keep the story going on the NSA wiretaps."

Thats weak. You reveal an unquestionably legal program to put pressure on another program that has died on the vine of total public apathy? If we are listening in on OBLs Podcasts is it ok to reveal that too in the interest of advancing the NSA probe? Again, this all comes back the the question of who the hell the NYT think they are deciding these issues.

If you're asking whether I would feel differently if the press reminded the public of a situation that was common knowledge under a democrat or independant administration I can assure you the answer would be the same.

Something doesn't compute. Granted, if this information was "common knowledge" then revealing it doesn't constitute much of a security breach, but it also doesn't constitute much of a story. So why was it printed and touted as a big story, if: 1. It's not a secret; and 2. it's not illegal?

Just doesn't add up.

You reveal an unquestionably legal program to put pressure on another program that has died on the vine of total public apathy?

Do you really think the public is apathetic on the issue, or has it just fallen out of the press? I've seen conflicted polling on the matter with one showing 51% approve of the program and another showing 56% disaprove of it.

The fact that the justice departments internal investigation of the program was blocked by the NSA on fairly ludicrous grounds hasn't helped to be sure.

#63

I already gave a plausible answer for this in #37.

No one is saying the info was "common knowledge", only that publishing it does no harm to counterterrorism because, presumably, clever and well-funded terrorists would be aware of it already. Or maybe I'm being too generous, since:

"... reports on US monitoring of SWIFT transactions have been out there for some time. The information was fairly well known by terrorism financing experts back in 2002. The UN Al Qaeda and Taliban Monitoring Group , on which I served as the terrorism financing expert, learned of the practice during the course of our monitoring inquiries.

The information was incorporated in our report to the UN Security Council in December 2002. That report is still available on the UN Website."

Perhaps incompetent or ignorant terrorists may not have been aware of this, but if anything making this info public might even help to deter them even more from trying to fund terrorist acts.

So, to recap: 1) It wasn't a secret, and 2) publishing it in a US newspaper makes Americans aware of a program that may be used against them for non-terrorist-related reasons. In fact, someone involved in monitoring SWIFT transactions was already dismissed for doing just that.

And because the Times made it public, we can all sit back and freely debate the merits and pitfalls of such a system, as our Democratic system allows and requires.

Freedom of the press isn't the freedom of the institutional press to publish whatever it wants. It is the freedom of any citizen to publish information within the limits of that freedom contemplated by the First Amendment read within the Constitution as a whole. It's very broad, but it's not absolute. The institutional press has acquired or developed information gathering capabilities far beyond those of ordinary citizens, but that greater capacity doesn't confer greater rights. If secret-leaking-government-official X shows up at the front door of Joe Average Citizen one day and discloses to JAC the existence of a secret program for tracking international funds transfers by enemies of our country, JAC has the same rights to post that info on his web page or otherwise publish it as the NYTimes does. Of course, the NYTimes has greater political leverage. For some reason, the NYTimes is confusing that its relatively greater (when compared to JAC) political leverage confers a correspondingly greater constitutional right that is accompanied by a much smaller measure of citizenship responsibility.

Lets not change the subject. Apples and Oranges here people.

The NY and LA Times have made it clear that they are the holders of the 5th Column Title in the United States.

"Do you really think the public is apathetic on the issue, or has it just fallen out of the press?"

Is there a difference? Shaw was making an argument for a market solution.

As far as polls go, im always leary if I can't see the questions and methodology. You may be thinking of USAtoday poll on the cell-phone database which companies willingly turned over. The companies may have committed a crime by divulging the info- but i havent seen many arguments that the government committed one by asking.

Obviously the bigger issue is the actual NSA eavesdropping where real allegations of illegality exist. To my recollection a good sized majority supported this even if it intruded on their personel privacy, which is doubtful for the average American if they dont happen to be talking to a wanted terrorist overseas. From the look of things the Times just doesnt see eye-to-eye with either the American people or the administration and just isnt taking no for an answer on the NSA issue. The fact that they carry it a step further and just start revealing secret programs willy-nilly to hopefully keep the feet to the flames is astonishing. The shear arrogance.

Walter's Ridge:

Then why are Democrats on the relevant committees expressing shock that they hadn't heard of the program (at least until the NYTimes began rattling the bars)? What are you implying about them?

I don't think the harm done involves warning the terrorists, according to our the Dept. of Treasury (...according to NYT!) this is no news to them. The harm done involves the bad press abroad, putting pressure on members of SWIFT to pull out.

If that happens, people will die.

I think the story is newsworthy in the broader context of Bush's power grab and the WoT, but I'd rather have seen something vague omitting SWIFT and the mechanics of the operation.

Question for A.L.:

Do you believe the WoT demands a WWII or Civil War-level of growth and reallignment in our government's power?

" 1) It wasn't a secret, and 2) publishing it in a US newspaper makes Americans aware of a program that may be used against them for non-terrorist-related reasons. "

I'm sorry, WR, but this just sets off my BS detector.

Certainly it has been possible for many years to understand and publish the ability of the government to use subpeonas in the interational banking system. The fact that we are using broad subpeonas to find terrorism activity is another thing entirely. I believe the government officials view this as being something that should stay quiet. Secondly, by twisting around and saying that we should debate the methods we use to fight the war you are ignoring the major question of whether the publication itself is in the public interest -- by your reasoning every method that can be construed to infringe on civil liberties is fair game. And your standards have no limits and no checks and balances: any publisher who believes their story is politically important can go ahead and do as they desire.

It just doesn't wash. In fact, it sounds very self-serving. For anything that's published about the GWOT, it should be fairly trivial to say that we already knew it and it might be used in some way in the future to infringe on our rights. That's the nature of the fight against insurgents. You have to do better than that.

Follow-up question to WR:

If the NYTimes says the program is "secret," then how can you defend the NYTimes for publishing something on the grounds that it wasn't secret?

WR, the conclusion that the article didn't reveal secret information doesn't follow from the fact of previous disclosure of monitoring SWIFT transactions. Would you mind elaborating on your assertion that no secret info was disclosed, preferably proving some specific support?

Whether your assertion is correct bears on whether a crime has been committed, of course, but it doesn't necessarily change whether a citizenship obligation (a moral one) should have required non-publication. Publicizing previously public but little known information* in a manner that forseeably harms the effectiveness of a legitimate national security program for no apparent reason other than an unwillingness to give the President the benefit of a presumption of good faith might not earn a prison term, but it should earn contempt.

*It's not just disclosure to terrorists that we should evaluate -- if publicizing the information made it politically difficult for allied governments to cooperate in the operation of the program, it is the general publication that causes the harm, not just revelation of the program's existence to our enemies.

SAO, you beat me to the "Post" button.

Ok, let me make a few points here:

[padding added by editor to move the long hyperlink off the home page]

- Here is the opening paragraph of the NYT story

"Bank Data Is Sifted by U.S. in Secret to Block Terror
WASHINGTON, June 22 — Under a secret Bush administration program initiated weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, counterterrorism officials have gained access to financial records from a vast international database and examined banking transactions involving thousands of Americans and others in the United States, according to government and industry officials."

As has been pointed out above, either the Times agreed with their own ink it was secret or they are guilty of some pretty nasty sensationalism.

- This story has already had real world consequences quite outside whatever AQ has learned:

"Belgian Justice Ministry to probe Swift data searches
The Belgian Justice Ministry has been asked to investigate the legality of US government snooping of financial transactions passed over Brussels-based interbank messaging network Swift."
link

So, unless someone wishes to challenge either of these sources and assertions- the Times considered the story secret and published it anyway, and the result is friction for this program.

In my opinion the motion to throw out the case against the Times on the grounds of irrelevance is denied. The only question left is whether they had reasonably legitimate whistle blowing criteria. We know the program was secret, we know theyve harmed it, the only question left is why?

Mark,

You (and SAO I believe) have hit on the most logical detrimental aspect of the Times story. Mainly that SWIFT may decide that it can't legally cooperate with the US anymore.

The possibility is certianly there, and we'll have to see what comes of it. It does appear that such cooperation is illegal under Belgian law. Since SWIFT is literally owned by all of it's member financial institutions around the world I'm not sure to what extent Belgian law will apply to it.

Here is the statement from SWIFT's Chairman, Deputy Chairman and CEO on the subject at hand.

Let's face it ...

Anyone who follows technical developments (AQ is too smart not to) has known for decades that the NSA can potentially intercept any communication that goes through the air or over a wire. So much for leaks of [illegal] wiretaps.

When the government announced it would be tracking AQs finances, and busted non-profit organizations for financing terrorism, the cat was out of the bag. Does anyone truly believe that AQ is too stupid to figure that banks use clearinghouses for transfers of funds? Is it a huge intellectual leap to figure out those clearinghouses are the logical place to track funds.

Get real! This was no leak at all. Damage concerns are pure show business. Ask any reasonably well-educated 16 year-old and find out how secret these methods are.

No whining, face the facts.

#77

Rhetorical question, why would they continue to run the program if it wasn't providing good intelligence or results?

(i.e. I don't think that a Democratic president would be getting a free ride right now)

Horse hockey. This is not even a theoretical. We know what the NYT said during a Democratic administration - they praised Echelon and argued for it.

Ace was right, they are holding us hostage. Well, hell, I am for Hillary if it make it okay to kill terrorists again.

Could somebody fix the page-wrecking hyperlink here?

The fact the gov't was using SWIFT has been out there publically for some time. No one has been unethical or treasonous despite wingnut rantings.

Too bad the right has so few research skills and such a hair trigger mouth.

Unlike the patently illegal warrantless wiretap program, this banking stuff might be legal. But I regret the NY Times publication only insofar as it moves some of the debate about secrecy and the rule of law onto terrain which is more favorable for the Bush Administration.

Taken in concert with the other programs of the Bush Administration, we see it shares many, but not all, of their flaws.

1. We can get it for you wholesale.
Given that the desire of the mewling, sniveling creatures formerly known as American conservatives for a Big Brother regime that in its omnipotence can stop Al Qaeda from imposing Sharia on our shores, it becomes necessary also to grant these incompetent clowns omniscience. And, because of their perfect knowledge, they are allowed to access to everything. They vacuum up all the financial transactions. They vacuum up all the telephone records. They vacuum up all the guns and ammo purchases of American citizens. Oh, wait, they don't do that!—the selfsame patriots who would pee into a drug test machine every morning if someone told them otherwise Al Qaeda would win have to draw the line somewhere. The Administration declares that hundreds of detainees are unlawful combatants, wholesale, without the benefit of any sort of tribunal.

2. We don't need no stinkin' badges.
Let's not forget, from Padilla to Gitmo to FISA runs an unbroken line that centuries of Anglo-American law now yield to the theory of the Unitary Executive (a rather clumsy rendering of Führerprinzip into English). Acts that required warrants or retroactive justification before disinterested magistrates are now the unreviewable exercise of power. Even the modest requirement of FISA, involving a secret court, mean nothing to these men. The Geneva Conventions? Quaint. The International Convention Against Torture? Unconstitutional. All is done, of course, in secret. Occasionally a few members of Congress (reliable Republicans, Holy Joe Lieberman) are "briefed", but generally the Administration can rely upon the Republicans to celebrate the concentration of power in their own hands and the Democrats to be too scared to discover that Americans may be no better than Germans and Russians at willingness to fork over all of their rights in some futile chase for the Windmill saboteurs.

According to a pool report from aboard Air Force One, reporters were told a British Airways pilot spotted the president's plane and radioed, "Did I just see Air Force One?"

Then, according to the report, after some silence, the official said the president's pilot, Col. Mark Tillman, responded "Gulfstream 5," a much smaller aircraft than Air Force One.

After a long silence, the British Airways pilot, seeming to get that he was in on a secret, said, "Oh."

Andrew, you've gotta start drinking decaf.

There are interesting points to debate about this in your post(s), but the rhetoric you've spray-painted them with is pretty offputting.

I'm not Hugh Hewitt, and I'm not out there with a noose arguing that we ought to string up the journalists and editors at the Times (either one). So save the frothing-at-the-mouth references for his blog, please?

Let me go back to my original question - how does a journalist, specifically an American journalist deal with conflicts between professional and civic obligations?

I'll jump back in to my earlier comments later on - I think they will become a post.

A.L.

Let me see if I have this straight: the NYT writes a big story about a secret anti-terrorist program that was not illegal but others defend the Times and say that's ok because it really wasn't secret. So why is it newsworthy? Because it was generally a secret.

Another justification is AQ is too sophisticated to get caught by it. Yet the WH asserted the program has nabbed terrorists. So it actually was effective.

The bottom line is that freedom of the press is not unrestricted any more than freedom of speech does not have constraints. It is disappointing to read the inane attempts to excuse the disclosure of this program, destroying its effectiveness even if minimal in their opinion.

In other wars, the press understood they were Americans first and journalists second without compromising their integrity. That ethic appears lost in the current generation.

Ironically, the NYT and others refused to reprint the Mohammed cartoons because they felt the "insult" to Muslims by publication outweighed the news and educational value to Americans. So the papers are able to exercise discretion about whether to publish a story. I'd like to see the Times prepared to protect the lives of Americans as much as the dignity of Muslims.

#78:

I didn't say the SWIFT actions weren't producing results, I said the "secret" nature of it is a preposterous claim.

Let's face it, if it had produced real results Rove and Bush would have sung a duet.

OBL is a Billionaire. Do you really believe that he is not aware how money is transferred through bank clearinghouses? SWIFT is just another clearinghouse.

C'mon, this information has been out there for decades. Let's not pretend OBL couldn't figure out how the tracking would be done.

The only reason to make a big deal of it now, is that it puts The Decider in a bad light ... again.

I'd call Dubya an incompetent liar, but he's had too much practice for that to be true.

but A.L., I don't even drink coffee.

(I am, on the other hand, in day 9 of the flu, much of it feverish, and brain damage may have begun.)

To answer the original question, however: I think newspapers have a special obligation to apprise the American public of patently unlawful behavior by their own government. The idea that the government is constrained by the laws, not that the laws are the instrument through which the government control the population, is, to my mind, the heart of American exceptionalism. Even the British had not advanced so far down the road of law at the time of the American Revolution. To see the die-hard defenders of all the Bush programs pile on the journalists is somewhat like watching sports fans trash a referee they suspect is correct but who has angered them by a call against a team that they support largely though accident of birth! Under this metric, the NYT had a special obligation to write about the telephone wiretaps and about our semi-official abuse of prisoners. The SWIFT program is not as strong a case, but it is worth mentioning that the program was apparently narrowed at the behest of the financial institutions.

I would never support the NY Times reporting that a subpoena had been issued for the phone, bank, or credit card records of Mohanmed Smith, suspected affiliate of Al Qaeda, except when this information became public record in the normal course of justice. I do not think the Times would report that, whether it were legal or no.

However, José Padilla is your fellow citizen, and you failed to stand up for his rights—until transferred to civilian court he was held under theories that perished in our legal tradition as far back as the year 1215. I am not really interested in hearing about my obligations to my fellow citizens George Bush and Dick Cheney, who have the full weight of the government apparatus they so unfortunately control. I am interested in retaining, even in the time of terrorism, the relationship between individual rights and the government that, to my mind, defines the United States of America. Your conservative commenters can not, quite seriously, give them away fast enough. And for what? Do you really think there is a guarantee that if we replace the rule of law with enlightened despotism—make no mistake, George Bush has even when he was still Governor of Texas made it clear that his pure heart outweighs written law—Osama bin Laden will be thwarted?

The structure of the Bush Administration is utterly corrupt, and for this, I don't think that the New York Times is to be blamed even in cases where their judgment is questionable. God only knows whatever other secret programs antithetical to privacy and limited government are still hidden from use. As citizens of a democracy, we are not allowed to use ignorance of them as an excuse.

#84:

So let me get this straight.

If torture of Guantanamo prisoners were disclosed, would this secrets revelation be aiding the enemy? Would it's exposure be justified as a violation of our nations stated principles?

Waterboarding is the act of tying someone to a board, blindfolding them, stretching a cloth over their face then pouring water through the cloth. Since the board is tilted so their lungs are higher than their nose and mouth. Since their lungs are higher drowning is unlikely but the sensation of drowning is so real that broken bones often result from the thrashing of the victim.

Is our "Christian" leader on the moral high-ground when approving such methods in our name? Is the press "aiding the enemy" by exposing this atrocity?

Would you like to have your wife try this procedure on you?

"I didn't say the SWIFT actions weren't producing results, I said the "secret" nature of it is a preposterous claim."

I know this question is confusing you guys, but you arent getting away from it. Why did the New York Times writers claim the program was secret if it wasnt? Are they inept or sensationalists?

The NYT statement that the SWIFT program was secret has been born out by the subsequent whining of The Decider. If you remember the head of the Treasury Dept. wrote a pointed letter stating that high-level requests from the Shrub's administration not to publish were made. It seems obvious that the Incompetent In Chief considered it a secret and informed the NYT of that. Why is this hard to understand?

The point is that it has never taken a financial genius to figure out the methods that must be used.

Anybody able to follow that little tantrum?

I still have no idea why the NYT would classify the program as secret if it wasnt. I assume we are to suppose the writers are as smart as we are expected to be... ie not necessarilly 'financial geniuses'.

Walter's Ridge,

I am astounded that you could make the statement that the government did not try hard to get them not to print this story. It has already been stated that the president, vice president, secretary of the treasury, committee members who had been briefed from both parties all talked to the NY Times and asked them not to print this story because it was a valuable tool in the war. Just what would make you believe that the government did try hard if this did not. There are not many more levels of government to ask them not to print this to go and still they said they did not feel it would jeopardize security to print this story. I have nothing but sheer contempt for the reporters and editors involved in this mess and in the other leaked messes. I am in total agreement with the colonel who spoke to Peter Jennings and Mike Wallace and told them he had nothing but contempt for them for what they had to say.

On another matter, it is a big difference between a priest and a reporter. They are not equivalent in their responsibility to keep the secrets or to share the secrets. The commenters above really are pushing it to try to equalize them. Reporters are unlicensed gossip writers and that is all they are. The gossip might be news or the gossip might be gossip but it is all the same to them. To try to portray them as being super-national because they are the great god reporters is ludicrous and Mike Wallace should be ashamed of himself for even trying to pass that POS idea off on the audience.

Let me lay it out in short, easy to read sentences.

Prior to publication, the NYT was requested by the (Idiot's) Administration not to publish the article.

Cheney said, "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," see: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Bush-Terrorist-Financing.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Were I on the NYT staff, I would assume the administration considered this matter secret.

In addition, I would have to consider this administration considers everything secret.

I would also have to consider many prior administration statements that financial transactions were being tracked.

That simple fact would lead one to believe that the tracking must be being done through clearinghouses.

That being the case this information must come as a surprise to no one, except, possibly you Mark.

I still have no idea why the NYT would classify the program as secret if it wasnt.

Rank and file Democrats on the Intelligence Committees didn't know about the program, the New York Times didn't know about the program, and the Beligian government didn't know about it . . .

but bloggers did. Score one for the blogosphere.

Seriously though, the strategy of following money transfers was certainly laid out in the 9/11 Commission report,* but what I think we have here is a failure to distinguish strategy from specific tactics. What wire transfers are being watched, what countries and international groups are cooperating, etc.

• As I recall, the Commission strongly discouraged trying to "dry up" terroist money because the cost of terrorism is relatively low and the information from watching wire transfers much more valuable.

Evidently when the Bush critics run out of rational arguments, their response is to just double down in the outrageous rhetoric.

Actually those who assert that there is no way to prosecute the NYT for intentionally revealing classified information seem to have missed the fact that there is no support for that claim. The First Amendment does not so state and the Supreme Court has never held that the press is immune to such a prosecution.

Ken and the Electric Floridian and anyone else under the impression that this program was not secret.

America could theoretically obtain records regarding transactions that had one end in America. I'm sure everyone could surmise that. But what about a cha