Friday, June 23, 2006
New York Times Reveals Classified Information, Again
The New York Times reporters Eric Lichtblau and James Risen helped out the enemies of our country today by revealing a legal but classified U.S. program designed to trace al Qaeda banking practices.
Is there a reason we are not enforcing the law against people publishing classified information?
It's not like this is the first time they've done it. Dana Priest does it too. And instead of prison, these guys win prizes.
Here is what secret ruler of the United States and NYT executive editor Bill Keller said: We have listened closely to the administration's arguments for withholding this information, and given them the most serious and respectful consideration. We remain convinced that the administration's extraordinary access to this vast repository of international financial data, however carefully targeted use of it may be, is a matter of public interest.
Prison for Priest.
Lengthy Sentence for Lichtblau.
Rigoruous incarceration for Risen.
Kooler for Keller.
UPDATE: Adrew McCarthy sees this as part of a larger pattern. I'm willing to believe that. Money quotes:
The blunt reality here is that there is a war against the war. It is the jihad of privacy fetishists whose self-absorption knows no bounds. Pleas rooted in the well-being of our community hold no sway.
The anti-warriors know only the language of self-interest. It is the language that tells them the revelation of the nation’s secrets will result, forthwith, in the demand for the revelation of their secrets — which is to say, their sources in the intelligence community — with incarceration the price of resistance. It is the language admonishing that even journalists themselves may be prosecuted when their publication of national secrets violates the law.
Bluntly, officials who leak the classified information with which they have been entrusted can be prosecuted for theft of government property. If the information is especially sensitive, they can be prosecuted for violating the Espionage Act. In either event, the press has no legal right to protect such lawlessness.
That is our simple choice: Strong medicine we will either take or persist in declining … while resigning ourselves to more of the same.
UPDATE II: Heather Mac Donald has a good take as well, here. Money quote:
The bottom line is this: No classified secret necessary to fight terrorism is safe once the Times hears of it, at least as long as the Bush administration is in power. The Times justifies its national security breaches by the mere hypothetical possibility of abuse--without providing any evidence that this financial tracking program, or any other classified antiterror initiative that it has revealed, actually has been abused.
Is there a reason we are not enforcing the law against people publishing classified information?
It's not like this is the first time they've done it. Dana Priest does it too. And instead of prison, these guys win prizes.
Here is what secret ruler of the United States and NYT executive editor Bill Keller said: We have listened closely to the administration's arguments for withholding this information, and given them the most serious and respectful consideration. We remain convinced that the administration's extraordinary access to this vast repository of international financial data, however carefully targeted use of it may be, is a matter of public interest.
Prison for Priest.
Lengthy Sentence for Lichtblau.
Rigoruous incarceration for Risen.
Kooler for Keller.
UPDATE: Adrew McCarthy sees this as part of a larger pattern. I'm willing to believe that. Money quotes:
The blunt reality here is that there is a war against the war. It is the jihad of privacy fetishists whose self-absorption knows no bounds. Pleas rooted in the well-being of our community hold no sway.
The anti-warriors know only the language of self-interest. It is the language that tells them the revelation of the nation’s secrets will result, forthwith, in the demand for the revelation of their secrets — which is to say, their sources in the intelligence community — with incarceration the price of resistance. It is the language admonishing that even journalists themselves may be prosecuted when their publication of national secrets violates the law.
Bluntly, officials who leak the classified information with which they have been entrusted can be prosecuted for theft of government property. If the information is especially sensitive, they can be prosecuted for violating the Espionage Act. In either event, the press has no legal right to protect such lawlessness.
That is our simple choice: Strong medicine we will either take or persist in declining … while resigning ourselves to more of the same.
UPDATE II: Heather Mac Donald has a good take as well, here. Money quote:
The bottom line is this: No classified secret necessary to fight terrorism is safe once the Times hears of it, at least as long as the Bush administration is in power. The Times justifies its national security breaches by the mere hypothetical possibility of abuse--without providing any evidence that this financial tracking program, or any other classified antiterror initiative that it has revealed, actually has been abused.
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 8:30 AM 
