Patterico's Pontifications

6/26/2006

L.A. Times Washington Bureau Chief Doyle McManus Explains Justification for Printing Classified Details of Anti-Terror Program

Filed under: Dog Trainer,Scum,Terrorism — Patterico @ 12:17 am



Want to hear more about the L.A. Times‘s rationale for publishing classified information about a successful anti-terror program? L.A. Times columnist Pattt* Morrison has a radio program on local radio station KPCC, and interviewed Times Washington Bureau Chief Doyle McManus about how the story started, and why the paper felt justified printing the story. (Hat tip to Armed Liberal.)

The bottom line is, of course, that McManus and his colleagues took it upon themselves to decide what classified information the public (and our enemies) should know about. Bizarrely, he claims that the critical factors in his decision were whether the program was legal and had adequate safeguards — even though, as I document in a related post, it was indeed legal and had extensive safeguards in place. Thus, his excuses are an apparent cover for some other motivation, as yet unrevealed.

I personally find the paper’s decision to publish these details to be appalling and reprehensible, but I applaud McManus’s willingness to discuss it publicly.

You can reach the broadcast at this page, or, more directly, you can launch the broadcast by clicking on this link. I have a partial transcript in the extended entry. I concentrate only on excerpting McManus’s statements; Morrison also interviews an “expert” whose remarks do little to illuminate the paper’s decisionmaking process, and whose remarks I have accordingly omitted from the transcript.

My remarks are interspersed throughout the transcript below. I have sent this post to Mr. McManus for his reaction, and I’ll be sure to let you know what he says, if anything.

[Extended entry]

MORRISON: Now this was a blockbuster story [by] Josh Meyer, Greg Miller, who cover this intelligence beat. And how did you get wind of it, and how did the Just — er, uh, Treasury Department find out that you got wind of this story, to ask you not to go ahead with it?

McMANUS: Well, I can’t talk specifically about how we got wind of the story . . .

MORRISON: And I wouldn’t dream of asking you.

McMANUS: Well, you’d be — I guess you could try, except that it is worth noting that the knowledge of this program had begun leaking out in the financial community and in a fairly broad range of American officials, and in fact our reporters initially learned about it by talking to someone who knew about the program and had some privacy and civil liberties concerns about it. So it was sort of a classic case of someone who had a legitimate knowledge of the program but who was worried that it didn’t have enough safeguards and enough scrutiny.

It’s worth noting at this point that the leaking of the program into the financial community and a broader range of American officials is almost certainly a direct result of the investigation undertaken by the New York Times.

MORRISON: Sort of a whistleblower of conscience.

McMANUS: Yeah, you know, I don’t want to overdramatize that, because it was someone who, you know, remained anonymous and didn’t come forward and blow the whistle publicly. But essentially that’s right. It was someone who felt we ought to look into this because he wasn’t sure that it had all the safeguards it needed.

MORRISON: And I assume that, in the manner of these things, you called the Treasury Department and you say, what about this?

McMANUS: That’s right. I mean, we first spent some time before we went directly in the front door of the Treasury Department, talking to people in the various departments of government, in the financial community, to find out as much we could, and then we went to the Treasury Department that is running the program and said: “What about it?” You know: “What is this program? What are the safeguards?”

And in effect, the question we were asking, both for news reasons and for our own decisionmaking process on, is this a story of legitimate public interest, was: “Doesn’t this sound something like that NSA story of last year, that told us that the government had significantly expanded its powers and significantly expanded its intrusion, if you like, into records that most people probably think are private?”

MORRISON: This is the National Security Agency, the NSA.

McMANUS: That’s right. And, of course, the program there — the two programs are not at all identical. They’re not legally identical.

But in that case, the government decided to expand the National Security Agency’s ability to monitor telephone communications and other communications, and didn’t use the traditional legal route of going to a secret court in Washington to get a warrant.

In this case, the government significantly expanded its ability — not just its ability but the amount of monitoring of international bank transfers that it was doing, and it did it through a legal method, the administrative subpoena, that meant it never had to go before a judge to ask permission to do this.

We wanted them to — we wanted to give them also an opportunity to tell us, “Is this legal? Are there safeguards? When people tell us, ‘this really makes me feel like it may be overstepping the proper bounds,’ are they right or are they wrong?”

Of course, the L.A. Times was told, as was the New York Times, that the program was legal and that it did have safeguards. Indeed, extensive evidence of strict controls was presented to both newspapers. I document this in a separate post published today, here.

MORRISON: Now, ordinarily when you call up a public official, they have two options. They can comment or not comment. But this time, the Treasury Department engaged the decisionmaking process itself, about the story.

McMANUS: Well, that happens. It’s unusual, it’s rare, but it’s not unheard of, for, especially when we are reporting on something that is, uh, in some sense, secret, uh, for the government to say: “We don’t want you to write this story.” Sometimes they’ll say, of course, and in this case they did say: “Well, there’s no story here. Everybody knows we’re monitoring financial transactions.”

You know, how many times have you heard a politician say: “Oh, you know, you don’t — no-one will want to read a story about this. It’s not news.” [Morrison laughs.] That’s sort of the first line of defense.

But then, you know, not — fairly often, in this area, if — and especially if the government has legitimate concerns, and I don’t dismiss the government’s concerns here. I think their concerns were legitimate, and we took them as legitimate. Um, you know, they will say, “We don’t want you to print a story here, and we’re gonna tell you why.”

MORRISON: You told the AP it was a tough call, it was not a decision made lightly. I presume your colleagues at the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal heard the same response from the Treasury Department and felt the same way or the story wouldn’t have been in the paper.

McMANUS: I would assume so. I don’t know. I haven’t talked with them. Uh, you know, sometimes people think the folks in the media get together and coordinate what they’re doing. Actually, we have not talked at all to our colleagues at the New York Times, uh, and the Wall Street Journal. But I imagine they went through something of the same process.

MORRISON: As I remember the line, Macy’s doesn’t talk to Gimbel’s.

McMANUS: Right.

MORRISON: [Laughs.]

Actually, McManus’s assumption is wrong. The Wall Street Journal was not asked by the government not to print its story, as I document in this post. That’s because the Wall Street Journal didn’t break the story. The New York Times and L.A. Times did. The Wall Street Journal merely published on-the-record interviews with named officials once it was clear that the other two papers were going to run a story despite the government’s protests.

Oh, and when you say this information was “in some sense secret” — is that really an appropriate way to characterize classified information??

MORRISON: Doyle McManus, what kind of standards do you pretty much look at when you’re writing stories about national security? What standards do they have to meet?

McMANUS: Well, in a sense, we reason from the old wartime standard that if there is an ongoing military operation, an ongoing specific intelligence operation or an ongoing criminal investigation, uh, we don’t gratuitously reveal that unless there is a compelling public interest in doing so. You know, we don’t put lives of soldiers in danger. We don’t report that ships are leaving port.

Uh, but this was not a single intelligence operation. It was a change in policy. It was a change in the boundaries of what the government could do. It’s an enormous program that has allowed them to amass a huge database that essentially has the records of every international — not every, but an enormous percentage of the international banking transactions that have occurred since 2002 — and they’re keeping those.

Uh, we have been asking them, for example, they’ve told us: “Well, we are restricting our access to this database to cases we believe involve terrorism,” but when we’ve asked them, “Well, if, down the road, you decide you want to look into other categories of activity, could you do that?” they say, “Well, actually, yes. We do have the legal ability to do so.”

So, it’s — this is a broader issue than an individual operation. In any case, we take the question seriously of whether our disclosure of this policy change and this program will be to the disadvantage of legitimate government efforts against terrorism, and we have to weigh that against the legitimate public interest in knowing whether the government is changing the rules, knowing whether the government is operating within the law, um, knowing what the government is up to.”

This, more than any other statement McManus makes, reveals the arrogance that upsets so many of us when we talk about this issue.

There are several problems with what you just said, Mr. McManus:

  • Nobody elected you to be the guy doing that “weighing.”
  • You did the “weighing” with insufficient information, because you didn’t have the full picture of how successful the program had been in fighting terror. Your reporters’ article states:

    Current and former U.S. officials familiar with the SWIFT program described it as one of the most valuable weapons in the financial war on terrorism, but declined to provide even anecdotal evidence of its successes.

    But as I have pointed out on this blog previously, the New York Times (unlike your reporters) managed to find officials who would disclose specific successes of the program — and those successes were significant. They included the capture of the mastermind of the 2002 Bali bombing, which killed 202 people. The president knows this. When you did your own personal “weighing” of the various factors, you didn’t.

  • All of a sudden we have shifted the standard from a “compelling public interest” to a “legitimate” interest in “knowing what the government is up to.” Your defense of this burden-shifting appears to be: We didn’t reveal details on a single anti-terror operation, but rather details of a huge program that impacts several different terror operations. And, as to the question whether the government is “operating within the law,” you found no real evidence it wasn’t.

    This leaves you in the position of having disrupted a major anti-terror program, by publishing classified information, with no justification other than telling your readers “what the government is up to” and “whether the government is changing the rules.”

    As long as it’s legal, don’t you want the government to change the rules?? Don’t you want to prevent the next September 11?

Moving on with the interview:

MORRISON: You’ve been reporting in Washington for a long time, Doyle, and you’ve had these issues arise before. Do you sense any difference in the way the government responds to them since 9/11?

McMANUS: Oh, absolutely. Um, since 9/11, uh, the government has attempted to impress upon us that the stakes are higher, and I think most journalists, almost all journalists, would agree with that.

Uh, the problem is that I’ve never known a government agency that didn’t really want to keep everything secret. It’s more convenient that way.

And so, this is a government that tends to classify everything as secret and want to say as little as possible. And so, we are in a period where, uh, the media and the government are in very different places in their sense of what the legitimate limits of disclosure and secrecy ought to be.

You know, Mr. McManus, that is a legitimate point as a general rule. I don’t subscribe to a world view in which the government has the exclusive ability to decide what we should and shouldn’t know — because, taken to an extreme, that is dangerous.

But, as applied to this case, I don’t think you have much of a point. It’s clear that this operation was properly classified. Do you disagree?? And it’s clear that it was successful — although you didn’t know the extent of the successes when you and your editor gave the order to publish.

So if you and the president are in different places about what’s appropriate to disclose, it seems to me that you should be very, very careful to know for damn sure that you’re in the right if you’re going to be disclosing this information. And in this case, with an apparently legal program that may have saved a lot of lives, many of us think you made the wrong decision — in fact, a terrible and dangerously wrong decision.

Are you so sure that the public will stand behind you, Mr. McManus, as you and your colleagues unilaterally dismantle an effective program that caught a terrorist who killed more people than Timothy McVeigh — all in the name of “knowing what the government is up to”?

MORRISON: Doyle McManus, what kind of reaction has the story been getting today?

McMANUS: Well, uh, it has been denounced by the White House. [Both Morrison and McManus chuckle slightly.] It has caused a number of liberal Democratic members of Congress to say that they felt Congress should have been, uh, more fully briefed, and that they want to know what the safeguards are. Um, it’s been, sort of the predictable kind of response.

I think the real test, though, will be, um, when we learn over time, uh, whether this story had an effect in either direction — whether the story actually did have any negative effect on counterterrorist efforts. It’s not at all clear that it will have a significant effect there. And as we learn more about the program, it may give Congress and the Administration a chance to tighten up some of the areas where the safeguards appear to be pretty thin.

Maybe you consider the safeguards thin because you don’t understand them, Mr. McManus. In your reporters’ story, they describe administrative subpoenas as “a little-known power,” and claim: “The subpoenas are secret and not reviewed by judges or grand juries, as are most criminal subpoenas.” As I have shown in this post, these subpoenas are not “little-known” to law enforcement, but are actually quite common — and your assumption that “most criminal subpoenas” are “reviewed by judges or grand juries” is quite wrong. Trust me on this. Criminal subpoenas are almost never reviewed by judges or grand juries. When I read this sentence of the article to working prosecutors, they laugh out loud. That’s how wrong it is.

And I speak for a lot of Americans when I say that we don’t want to “learn over time” whether this story has impeded our counterterrorism efforts. We wish you’d simply left the story alone, so that we didn’t have to undergo that “test” of your judgment.

Mr. McManus, you don’t really know how criminal prosecutors do their business. You didn’t really know how successful this program was when you ran the story. And your stated concerns about the program — its legality and safeguards — appear to have been answered, to a large degree, in favor of the program.

Here’s my bottom line, Mr. McManus:

Maybe you should be a little more careful about taking it upon yourself to weigh your mistaken impressions of these various factors against the safety of myself and my family.

_______________________________________________________

*If she can add an extra “t” to her name, so can I.

60 Responses to “L.A. Times Washington Bureau Chief Doyle McManus Explains Justification for Printing Classified Details of Anti-Terror Program”

  1. we learn over time, uh, whether this story had an effect in either direction — whether the story actually did have any negative effect on counterterrorist efforts.

    What then? What if he made the wrong choice? The problem is he used his power to do something he has no power to undo.

    MayBee (8aec89)

  2. Nobody elected you to be the guy doing that “weighing.”

    He didn’t have to get elected. There’s this thing called the Constitution that gives him the freedom to do what he did. Good day.

    t (475495)

  3. NYT’s Keller – We know better than you…

    Bill Keller, the New York Times’ Executive Editor has written a condesending reply…UPDATE: On a similar note, Patterico (H/T – MM) has……

    Super Fun Power Hour (59ce3a)

  4. Nobody elected you to be the guy doing that “weighing.”

    “He didn’t have to get elected. There’s this thing called the Constitution that gives him the freedom to do what he did. Good day”

    Lefty loopers are always citing what the Constitution “gives” when it’s convenient to the advancement of their silly political escapades. Elected officials have the authority under the Constitution to make laws and protect and advance the interests of the American people. The President has the authority and responsibility in cooperation with Congress to provide for the nation’s security. No citizen has the authority and certainly not the “right” to interfere or even participate in those duties assigned by the Constitution to duly elected officials. Stop this ridiculous wresting of constitutional “rights” to empower leftist political ops and demagoguery. To have contact with classified information – much less publishing it – is a crime on many levels, period. These rats are going to jail. Maybe the lefty moles at CIA also. Good day.

    Bobber (e10e4f)

  5. No citizen has the authority and certainly not the “right” to interfere or even participate in those duties assigned by the Constitution to duly elected officials.

    The constitution gives congress the power to raise an army. Can a citizen tell other citizens not to join?

    actus (6234ee)

  6. I think one question to ask is would the New York Times and LA Times have published this story if Bill Clinton was president?

    Hidden within the answer is a hint as to why the credibility of both papers, along with their circulation, continues to decline.

    Whether one believes the publication was right or wrong, I think the bigger issue is that nobody believes anymore that either paper would publish stories that would damage Bill Clinton’s administration anywhere near as much as they have published them to damage George Bush’s administration. This isn’t about a principled stand on an issue. Because, silly editors, even when you take a principled stand, WE CANNOT TELL ANYMORE! And that is sad. Because, darn it, I want to trust that when the New York Times or LA Times publishes an expose they are doing it for principles and not just short term political impact. Sadly, I just cannot trust them anymore. Perhaps that is the saddest part of this presidency. Two great papers have squandered their credibility just to politically impact a sitting president they don’t like. How sad.

    Lone Star Jeffe (d3114c)

  7. […] Patterico posts a valuable transcript of a radio interview conducted by LA Times columnist Patt Morrison with Times Washington Bureau Chief Doyle McManus about their blabbermouth article on the once-secret terrorist finance tracking program. Key portion with Patterico’s reax: MORRISON: Doyle McManus, what kind of standards do you pretty much look at when you’re writing stories about national security? What standards do they have to meet? McMANUS: Well, in a sense, we reason from the old wartime standard that if there is an ongoing military operation, an ongoing specific intelligence operation or an ongoing criminal investigation, uh, we don’t gratuitously reveal that unless there is a compelling public interest in doing so. You know, we don’t put lives of soldiers in danger. We don’t report that ships are leaving port. […]

    Right Voices » » What Standards Does The NYT’s Use When Leaking Classified Material? (1466f5)

  8. The NY Times Responds…

    New York Times Editor Bill Keller responded to the tons of email and letters of anger that were sent to them over revealing National Security issues.
    A secondary argument against publishing the banking story was that publication would lead terrorist…

    Stop The ACLU (aa6604)

  9. Whether one believes the publication was right or wrong, I think the bigger issue is that nobody believes anymore that either paper would publish stories that would damage Bill Clinton’s administration anywhere near as much as they have published them to damage George Bush’s administration.

    Well, not anymore. But back then?

    actus (ebc508)

  10. “WHAT I DID ON MY SUMMER VACATION” BY BILL KELLER…

    Hi Mom and Dad!

    Well, I have to say my idea for starting this Camp New York Times retreat was certainly one of my more inspired brainstorms since taking over for poor Howell Raines as Executive Editor. I actually invited Howie up for the weekend thi…

    Right Wing Nut House (5ada7f)

  11. […] Patterico’s Pontifications: L.A. Times Washington Bureau Chief Doyle McManus Explains Justification for Printing Classified Details of Anti-Terror Program […]

    The Blorg: Links to Terror (aa3f29)

  12. Hmmm.
    Does anybody have a way of finding out if these sources get paid by appreciative entities after they “whistleblow”?
    How do we know they haven’t been encouraged by something other than their conscience to give up information about how we spy on the banking habits of very wealthy people?

    MayBee (8aec89)

  13. t … what an incredibly asinine comment.

    Suppose an extremely dangerous, violent, armed man is holding someone hostage. The cops have discovered his location and have quietly placed snipers on adjacent rooftops. You happen along, see what’s going on, break through the police cordon and shout up to the criminal, “Hey! There are snipers on the next rooftop taking aim at you right now!”

    You think the Constitution gives you the right to do something like this? How is what the NYT did so different?

    They are playing with We the People’s lives.

    We the People elect representatives to provide oversight of the executive branch. Our elected representatives knew about this program, agreed that it was perfectly legal, and agreed that it should be secret. What gives the NYT the “right” to decide it should be public knowledge?

    Gregg (db210e)

  14. More long lances …

    directed at the New York Times’ Bill Keller:

    The title to Michael Barone’s column says it all: The New York Times at War With America.

    Why do they hate us? Why does the Times print stories that put America more at risk of attack? They say tha…

    Pro Cynic (6ed3f8)

  15. Uh….Don’t Ask Me Where My Information Came From, It’s Classified…

    Cover-ups at the Two Times
    by Hugh Hewitt
    June 26, 2006 06:15 AM PST

    Bill Keller’s absurd and non-responsive posturing won’t silence the paper’s critics, and the Los Angeles Times is adopting a different approach –duck and cove…

    Gulf Coast Pundit (31a5b1)

  16. Prez slams leak of financial transaction monitoring story…

    Go get ‘em, tiger:
    WASHINGTON – President Bush on Monday sharply condemned the disclosure of a program to secretly monitor the financial transactions of suspected terrorists. “The disclosure of this program is disgraceful,” he said.

    Sister Toldjah (1466f5)

  17. What is most mind boggling of this whole episode is the prior behavior of the NYTimes in the Valerie Plame nonsense.

    Imagine this– a NYTimes reporter is JAILED for not cooperating with the Feds investigation of a Times story that involved the leak of “classified” material, which endangered the life of our boys in the field. Oh wait… that already happened in the idiotic Plame story! In which the NYTimes demanded an investigation to reveal the identity of their own anonymous leakers!!!

    Seen in the context of the later behavior of the NYTimes (the NSA “wiretapping” story, this story) the success of the NYTimes in getting a Special Prosecutor named is un-freakin-believable. Add that to the complete lack of investigation into these later “stories” (well, let’s call it what it is–treason), and you have plenty of reason to cry. Especially when numnutz in the press drone on about the Right controlling everything.

    godfodder (3dafcb)

  18. […] Michael Barone wonders why do they hate us and yes, he means the NY Times. He makes a perfect simile that can be used not only to describe the Times, but much of the perpetually adolescent left: We have a press that is at war with an administration, while our country is at war against merciless enemies. The Times is acting like an adolescent kicking the shins of its parents, hoping to make them hurt while confident of remaining safe under their roof. But how safe will we remain when our protection depends on the Times? Austin Bay, in a masterpiece of understatement, calls Keller’s letter inadequate. And Andrew McCarthy notes that journalist sources are kept more confidential than our national security issues. Patterico has an interview w/ Doyle McManus where once again, we see that sources are more sacrosanct than national security. Blue Crab Boulevard calls Keller a horses ass. CBS Public Eye has no opinion but notes that “the right” does not like what Keller has done. Presumably, then, the sophisticates on the left do approve of seeing an effective, legal, fruitful, independantly over-seen, congress-cleared program get crippled…I guess so long as it seems to “hurt” Bush. […]

    The Anchoress » Keller is well-pummeled; you don’t need me! (1b383c)

  19. So, what would be more useful, if you were operating a terrorist network: the name of one Virginia-based WMD analyst who used to be a covert agent back before the Khobar Towers bombing? Or roadmaps of how the US government monitors telecommunications and financial transactions?

    Crank (3fed2a)

  20. The New York Times and the "public good"…

    …Which, for those of you who've been following Bill Keller's sanctimonious and self-important grandstanding (condensed version here), is a very peculiar conception of the "public good," especially insofar as it doesn't re…

    protein wisdom (c0db44)

  21. […] Update: The White House has a transcript. Patterico’s got the bank-surveillance post of the day with his transcription and response to comments made by the LA Times’s Washington bureau chief on a local radio show. Goldstein wonders how many dozen roses Keller’s going to get from Glenn Greenwald for publishing the story. Ace says that Keller’s open letter is only the second-stupidest defense of the Times running it. […]

    Hot Air » Blog Archive » Video: Bush calls Times’s expose “disgraceful” (d4224a)

  22. We should trust the President. He will tell us what we need to know.

    frederika (480cbc)

  23. […] Patterico has L.A. Times Washington Bureau Chief Doyle McManus Explains Justification for Printing Classified Details of Anti-Terror Program. […]

    FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » Global War on Terror Watch: President Bush Condemns Disclosure and Publishing Details of SWIFT Anti-Terrorism Finance Program (baa0b4)

  24. I have a government clearance. One of the issues brought up during the issuance of that clearance was: “What would I do if I saw information that was counter to my beliefs?” My answer then, as now, is that it ISN’T MY INFORMATION! I was not elected to use my privileged position to effect political change. I was hired to do a particular job in which I would be in contact with sensitive information that BELONGS to the Government.

    The Government collects information in much the same sense as scouts from our earlier and simpler days. The information collected has a value beyond what it cost to amass it. If one of the writers at the Times drove a company truck home to move furniture he may not have a job the next day. What I’m saying, and I am basically addressing those with a clearance that have a burning desire to “be the Condor,” is that they are thieves. If you have a financial situation where 99 of the folks are honest but one thief, that one thief undoes all the honesty of the others.

    When a seller of used articles willingly and knowingly assumes stolen goods he becomes a fence. The difference is one of honor not of merchandise. Will the Times be the Fagin of the newspaper world?

    No doubt the thieves view themselves as on a higher plateau. One built from the lumber of civic obligation. They would also argue that they were unpaid and a thief usually gains monetarily from his transactions. There are many currencies in this world and if the thieves looked closely they would see that their vaunted “whistleblower” “Condor” motives are just a veneer over the common wood of self interest.

    Brad (e9f0d8)

  25. The Best Kept Secret?…

    Check out this article which describes the daily diatribes of the Democrats about the war, this time they are crying that Gen. Casey’s plan is really their plan:
    Senate Democrats reacted angrily yesterday to a report that the U.S. commander in Ir…

    Flopping Aces (ef3aba)

  26. Time for the obligatory Ignore Actus post

    Boss429 (4ce8ec)

  27. The people at the NY Times and LA Times – as well as those leaking the information inside the CIA – need to be tried for treason – immediately. If they are not, then anyone ever convicted of treason needs to be exonerated. These slime will do anything and everything – including making us more vulnerable to terrorist attack – to discredit this administration and sell newspapers.
    It’s pure treason.

    Joe (7f64a9)

  28. These newspapers should be prosecuted for publishing this classified information in my opinion. Why is this different than other officials who have sold secrets to the enemy? They were prosecuted and I think this is the same thing since it is classified and endangers our national security. Furthermore, where are these papers in protecting our financial information from these devious credit card companies like Chase Bank, Citibank, Bank of America, etc. who know and USE every bit of financial transaction information about you from the credit bureaus and give them to whoever they want. SILENCE The government uses the information to protect us and they make a big deal about privacy rights yet the major credit card companies can do anything they want with your financial information and not a word from the NY Times, LA Times or the Boston Globe, Washington Post. UNBELIEVABLE

    Cindy Anderson (d9bfc7)

  29. Everybody excoriating the NYT and LAT for exposing this effective terrorist-catching program are forgetting that McManus will be VERY SORRY if exposing this effective terrorist-catching program winds up hurting America. Really he will. But then he’ll just ask Actus to write a snarky comment to excuse his lack of ethics or journalistic standards.

    sharon (03e82c)

  30. He didn’t have to get elected. There’s this thing called the Constitution that gives him the freedom to do what he did. Good day.

    Really?
    Can you point to the part stating “publishing classified information is part of your ‘freedom'”?

    Your ignorance is appalling.

    But then again, that is why you’re a liberal.

    The Ace (b8a641)

  31. The constitution gives congress the power to raise an army. Can a citizen tell other citizens not to join?

    Comment by actus

    Um, and what does this have to do with the topic at hand?

    (Hint: nothing, it is not analogous in any way. But given your ignorance, nobody is surprised at this silly attempt.)

    The Ace (b8a641)

  32. KHOBAR AND THE TIMES…

    Patterico pontificated on this, examining the transcript of a radio interview of New York Times’ Washington Bureau Chief Doyle McManus:…

    Word Around the Net (f0d0ba)

  33. The NYT and LA Times — Are Now Gone From SNAFU to FUBAR…

    SNAFU stands for “situation normal, all f*** up, and FUBAR is an acronym for “f***ed up beyond all repair”, and that is exactly the state that both the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times find themselves in today. With every new story that they…

    OKIE on the LAM - In LA (e2cef7)

  34. Um, and what does this have to do with the topic at hand?

    you said that citizens can’t interfere with the powers the constitution grants the government. I’m wondering how far that goes.

    actus (6234ee)

  35. The LA Times would justify reporting the Hiroshima nuclear bomb 7 days beforehand by saying there was a compelling public interest and a legitimate interest in knowing what the government was up to. Citizens have an interest in knowing that the atomic age is about to start, after all.

    And besides, it’s not at all clear the enemy could have stopped the attack even if they knew. So who’s to say? Don’t answer that.

    Wesson (c20d28)

  36. Yes, breaking rule number one:

    actus, I know you know the First Amendment is not absolute. You know people can be prosecuted for disclosing classified info. And in dealing with this type of info (esp. post-9/11), you know there’s an argument to be made for prosecuting the publication of that info.

    But you insist on being an annoying little troll, here and elsewhere, even though the vast majority now simply ignore your decidedly unserious snark. For the reasons stated above, I know you know better. Over at PW, I’ve even see you engage in reasoned debate once or twice.

    So we are only left to wonder what sort of sad, pitiful existence leads you to behave like a child so publicly. Are you really so desperate for attention? BTW, no snarky response is needed; the question is purely rhetorical and no further response will be forthcoming. If for any reason whatsoever, you are tempted to answer anything other than “yes,” you really need to give yourself a “time out” from trolling for some reflection and work on personal growth.

    Karl (c00839)

  37. You know people can be prosecuted for disclosing classified info.

    I know leakers can. I’m not so sure that the NYT could be prosecuted here.

    actus (6234ee)

  38. *GREAT* Job and *GREAT* ‘Stuff’!!!

    KarmiCommunist (62ef5c)

  39. It would be interesting to see what the reaction of the good editors of The New York Times would be if there was a specifically identified case of a terrorist getting away because they had exposed the program that was about to catch him.

    Of course, if such a thing were ever discovered, we’d never hear about it, ’cause the Times would sure never print it!

    Dana (1d5902)

  40. Henry Mark Holzer at The Conservative Voice has drawn up an indictment. The idea seems to be catching on.

    Brian (b0d240)

  41. :: Follow The Money ::

    I listened to the under secretary of the Department of the Treasury on the new media earlier today and he said that if they ‘follow the money’ it leads them from one terrorist to another terrorist. ‘Following the money’ has been very effective and now NYT has robbed our government of that ability.

    I can’t charge the NYT with treason; that is not within my capabilities. What I can do is take a look at the businesses who support he NYT and hold them accountable for what they print. If the editors are unwilling to be ethical, then maybe consumers can force their advertisers to make those editors think twice. FOLLOW THE MONEY. It is the only way I can make a difference with this situation. Boycott the advertisers that help print this treasonist rag.

    As a blogger, you might be interested in taking this to the public. We little guys feel so helpless when things like this happen. My most effective protest is to boycott those businesses that support the NYT. (I know, I know, we have our voices, but I think our wallets would be very effect in this circumstance.) If the NYT doesn’t have money they can’t buy ink or pay their staff.

    If the New York Time has to follow the money . . . or better yet, wonder what happened to all the money, maybe we’ll get some accountability out of them.

    Brenda in Denva (8318ee)

  42. […] Sister Toldjah Expose the Left Stop The ACLU Freedom for Some California Conservative Patterico’s Pontifications […]

    Prosecuting the NY Times at 4thelittleguy.com (876ee0)

  43. It’s pretty obvious to me why the Times, both NY and LA do the things they do to hurt the country.
    Both papers are run by people who hate conservatives, hate the GOP, by and large, and hate George Bush in particular.
    Since the American public elected Mr Bush to a second term, the only way the papers an other MSM’s can get revenge on the “stupid voters” is to put their lives in jeopardy.

    Craig C (35a2ab)

  44. […] Right-wing bloggers seem to be going with an “arrogant elitism” meme. Michelle Malkin’s rundown of right-wing reaction is under the headline “Why They Blabbed: It’s the Arrogance”. Some quoted commentators include Patterico, who complains: This leaves you in the position of having disrupted a major anti-terror program, by publishing classified information, with no justification other than telling your readers “what the government is up to” and “whether the government is changing the rules.” […]

    ChezLark » Blog Archive » Too Much Freedom? (c746ab)

  45. Stories Change.
    On Friday Morning on an NPR talk show, before most fallout hit the fan, Doyal Mcmanus of LAT had a somewhat different story. He said his paper was still talking to the Feds when this story appeared on NYT Online. He then said something to the effect that LAT then carried details to make certain that the story was correctly reported since it had already broken. This is from Mcmanus on a morning NPR Friday talk show, presumably implying the NYT was solely responsible for breaking this story, before reaction to it was even news. It sounded like he knew this was a no no and was looking for cover for his own worthless liberal rag.

    William Grubb (410b69)

  46. Oh listen to the Concerned Conservatives..so concerned that the terrorists may not have guessed that their transactions might be tracked..too bad they were not as concerned when Valorie Plame was outed. Hell that was being hero in their minds..never mind the lives lost and the programs destroyed..Bring that up and all you hear are excuses..she wasnt a secret agent..the CIA was lying about that..and on and on..What a double standard I find here..

    charlie (e16458)

  47. Charlie, you are the double standard. You wring your hands over Valerie Plame but think this is ok. Hypocrite.

    sharon (fecb65)

  48. Wasn’t he refering to the LA Times?

    Even less so then.

    actus (6234ee)

  49. Do any of you have any idea what the risk of death by terrorism is?? Even in the year of 9/11 the risk of death by FOOD RELATED deaths was multiple times more risky than death by terrorism in the US. Hell, lightning has killed more Americans than terrorism. So unless you actively worry each day about death by lightning strike: don’t use “risk” as a reason for all this. Risk of terrorism is and always has been negligible.

    Eroding rights, decreasing privacy, blanket “this is top secret so you can’t question it”, violation of international law (geneva convention) are all trademarks of the current administration (although the plot seems rather like Orwell’s 1984 or history repeating itself).

    The question I’d be asking: legal is one thing (congress passed a bunch of laws to ridiculously increase presidential power), but “moral”, “honest” or “right thing to do” are another. I make international transfers and I don’t remember ticking the box anywhere that says I want the US government to have any knowledge of that.

    Nathan (e4008d)

  50. Good God, Nathan. It’s a good thing you weren’t around in WWII to tell all those poor saps that more ppl would get killed by lightning than the Japanese. And I guess you should be worried about the govt knowing about your international tranfers if they are to terrorists. Otherwise, you don’t have anything to fear, do you, since you’re only concerned about food poisoning and lightning.

    sharon (fecb65)

  51. It can’t be an original observation, but how is it that national secrets are of public interest, while personal secrets, say, of editors and publishers, ae not? They are, after, all, public figures, and so subject to public interest. The answer of course is that they control the printing presses. I have some rather angry things to say about these characters on my own blog:

    http://forgottenprophets.blogspot.com/2006/06/matters-of-public-interest.html

    In this world there is very little justice, so we cannot look forward to the sons of these traitors dying under the knives of terrorists. That’s only for the sons of other, stupid Americans. I guess.

    J

    Jack H (e9f6e0)

  52. Hugh Hewitt Interviews A Traitor…

    Patterico has more in-depth analysis of McManus from a different interview which is also well worth reading….

    Alamo Nation (59ce3a)

  53. the real test, though, will be, um, when we learn over time, uh, whether this story had an effect in either direction — whether the story actually did have any negative effect on counterterrorist efforts.

    And how, Mr. McManus, are you going to know about the future transactions that don’t happen? Your “real test” is absurd.

    And if the “people’s right to know” is so compelling, the I think I have a right to know who is revealing classified information to the media..now that’s a good story!

    JeanneB (911a77)

  54. […] Your Washington Bureau Chief has said that the key factors he looked at in making the decision to publish were: “Is this legal? Are there safeguards?” […]

    Patterico’s Pontifications » Dean Baquet Publishes Letter Attempting to Justify the L.A. Times’s Exposure of a Classified and Successful Counterterrorism Program (421107)

  55. sharon: funny you should mention WWII, have a read up on what techniques Hitler used to galvanise a nation to support his global ambitions.

    Also: if you think that “if you’ve nothing to hide then you’ve nothing to fear” is a valid argument then you won’t mind me putting video cameras in your bathroom, bedroom and other personal space will you? By your rationale you won’t mind checkpoints on every street, police/military stopping you in the street to search your bags/pockets/rubber glove treatment. Because “if you’ve nothing to hide, you’ve nothing to fear”.

    If you think that “the war on terror” can be won by force/spying/torturing then you’re sorely mistaken. Doing all of the above simply produces MORE terrorists and gives those with a gripe MORE of a reason to be an enemy. Even the US government has admitted that the world is less safe than it was prior to the war on terror.

    If you stop to think about it the only thing that the war on terror does is gets people scared. Thus providing a victory for those who would like people to be fearful.

    I stick by my comment that you’d be better off worrying about lightning and the US would be better off spending the money on helping the 3rd world, increasing education, fighting AIDS (and not via stupid bloody abstinence programs instead of condoms/sensible advice), fighting obesity/cancer/smoking (much more likely to kill you).

    Nathan (99c3b5)

  56. […] Your Washington Bureau Chief has said that the key factors he looked at in making the decision to publish were: “Is this legal? Are there safeguards?” […]

    FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » Global War on Terror Watch: Dean Baquet - Why the Los Angeles Times Published the Secret Details of SWIFT Bank Data Anti-Terrorism Program (baa0b4)

  57. Nathan, if you think the war on terror (no sneer quotes needed) can be won without clandestine operations, you need to have your head checked. These guys don’t want to kill us because we monitor international phone calls, because we track large international banking transactions, or because we do anything else that offends the ACLU. They want to kill us because they hate us. The only way to stop someone like that from harming you is to render him incapable of doing so.

    As to “sticking by” your uncommonly silly lightning analogy, let’s just say that “sticking by” an argument has never converted a stupid argument into a strong one, or even into a less stupid one. It was a stupid comparison to draw the first time, and digging in your heels now only makes you look like an even bigger idiot, and a more obstinate one, to boot. For one thing, the very idea of comparing a war effort against a human enemy to natural events is inherently lame, as fighting terror will have no impact on the risk of being struck by lightning, one way or the other. For another, even if there were any point in comparing the two, how do you get off saying people should be more worried about a phenomenon that average 82 deaths per year than about one that managed to polish off 3,000 of us in a single day?!

    Xrlq (f52b4f)

  58. I would just like to know exactly what “details” were provided that Al Qaeda already wouldn’t have assumed was going on?

    Do you think Al Qaeda didn’t think the U.S. was capable of and willing to go through U.S. citizens private info?

    We in America might’ve been deluding ourselves, but I doubt Al Qaeda had such a naive trust in the Bush Admin.

    Please, this doesn’t hurt the war on terror. That’s bullcrap.

    It mearly exposed how this admin is willing to avoid/break the law and throw American freedoms, civil rights and ideals down the drain with no oversight. It mearly exposes their belief in their own dictatorship style of governing.

    It mearly exposed how little respect Bushco has for the Constitution.

    [I explained how we know the program was effective in a post from last night. — Patterico]

    LG (35e6e7)

  59. Patterico — Love the blog, man, but you’ve certainly got the market cornered on the most malingering strain of moronic trolls I’ve seen in a while. Dumbass, thy name is a lefty troll.

    Monsoon

    Monsoon (001e7b)

  60. Great blog. As to the Two Times, why hasn’t anyone fought fire with fire and listed their 3-4 largest advertisers on their blog? This info would go around the world sso fast it’d make Keller’s head spin. And it’s all he understands. The bottom line.
    Tom Kubitz
    Freeport, IL

    Tom Kubitz (edd63e)


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