Excellent Letter to the Editor of the NYT
I would like to highlight this excellent letter to the editor of the New York Times:
To the Editor:
I don’t believe for a moment that editors should “surrender to the government” the decision of whether to publish information stamped “classified” — only that the decision made by The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times in this instance was reckless and irresponsible.
The Swift program to monitor international banking transactions was by all accounts highly effective. No credible suggestion has been made that it was illegal.
The best that Bill Keller of The New York Times has been able to do in suggesting a public interest in knowing about the program has been to cite abstract “concerns” about its breadth expressed by some officials.
The other major defense of publication that these editors have made — that the terrorists already knew that we were trying to track their financial transactions — is nonsense.
The terrorists might know what we are trying to do without having realized how effective we are in doing it, and may now avoid the types of transactions that led to the capture of the Qaeda terrorist mastermind Hambali.
The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times have done a serious disservice to our country.
Howard F. Jaeckel
New York, July 1, 2006
Man. Mr. Jaeckel sounds like he has been reading Patterico.
Beautifully stated, Mr. Jaeckel.
On a hunch, I Googled Mr. Jaeckel and a couple of letters with a related viewpoint turned up.
A previous Times letter
NY Daily News
Jim C. (d8e20a) — 7/3/2006 @ 10:22 pmThe reporters for the NYT have claimed their territory and agenda.
Perhaps they may not be looking for journalistic recognition, but instead be positioning themselves for future diplomatic positions.
After all, they have declared the war on terror so yesterday and advocating unilateral disarmament.
My goodness, maybe the Supreme Court can address this expansive power grab of the MSM.
Observer (ea6549) — 7/4/2006 @ 6:56 amI read in a NYT editorial that they have restrained themselves in the past, not publishing information that they regarded as too sensitive at the time. Maybe they found in their archives the routes and sailing times of American World War II Liberty Ship Convoys that didn’t get published and now it’s too late to use them. A sense of regret has caused them not to lose oppotunities in the future to inform the public. Oh, by the way I was curious about those infamous cartoons that caused the Islamic world to explode (the ones the NYT refused to publish)so I went to the internet. My goodness! How grateful I am for the NYT’s vaunted principal restraint for publishing sensitive materails.
Ralph Woods (d8da01) — 7/4/2006 @ 7:33 amThat is an excellent letter. You have to laugh how NYT picks this letter which conspicuously mentions LAT too. I personally blame NYT a whole bunch more on this.
Wesson (c20d28) — 7/5/2006 @ 10:03 amMe too, but now that you mention it, the selection does make sense. The more blame there is to go around, the less gets pinned on the one paper most deserving of it.
Xrlq (d7b415) — 7/5/2006 @ 11:02 amMr Jaeckel wrote:
The terrorists might know what we are trying to do without having realized how effective we are in doing it, and may now avoid the types of transactions that led to the capture of the Qaeda terrorist mastermind Hambali.
He might have been more right than he knew. From the pseudonymous “Prowler” at The American Spectator (a web-zine I’m not familiar with):
AMac (b6037f) — 7/5/2006 @ 11:08 amIs it possible that this Howard F. Jaeckel works for CBS!?
Go here:
http://www.google.com/search?as_q=&num=100&hl=en&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=Howard+F.+Jaeckel&as_oq=&as_eq=&lr=&as_ft=i&as_filetype=&as_qdr=all&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&as_occt=any&as_dt=i&as_sitesearch=&as_rights=&safe=images
RK (460a22) — 7/5/2006 @ 11:14 am