Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Social Priorities at NYT
In an unsigned editorial today in the NYT, a perverse yet self-serving misordering of social priorities is revealed in the discussion of the Supreme Court (Justice Ginsberg) refusing to stop the issuance of subpoenas duces tecum to NYT reporters for phone records in an effort to discover who tipped off, in 2001, Muslim organizations about an impending search pursuant to warrant. Money quote:
Now the Supreme Court, in refusing to intervene, has effectively allowed the prosecutor to search through the records in hopes he can pinpoint the source of the leak.
This is a bad outcome for the press and for the public. The phone records reveal the identities of lots of sources having nothing to do with the leaks. The appeals court’s disingenuous suggestion that The Times might redact irrelevant records would simply have helped point to possible leakers.
The public will be ill served if this case reduces the willingness of officials to reveal important but sensitive information. The privilege granted to journalists to protect their sources needs to be bolstered with a strong federal shield law that would preserve the public interest in newsgathering and dissemination of information.
We're at war (I know the NYT editorial board refuses to accept this simple fact) and we need to protect our secrets, sources and methods or become completely blind to future attacks. Finding leaks has a greater priority than promoting the willingness of officials to leak, as stated, "to reveal important but sensitive information." The NYT is the primary leaker of sensitive information in the past half decade. Its reporters are being investigated for tipping off the Muslim charities near the end of 2001. One could expect them to support their employees, but finding who leaked is more important than loyalty to employees. In a greater sense, the NYT can of course print what it wants, but it's employees are citizens first and are subject to the laws of this nation. There is no right to protect sources absent a shield law which does not exist at the federal level and I hope never will.
Do the editors really think that tipping off the Muslims to the coming search was a proper thing to do and advanced any social priority? If they do, we Americans are in deeper trouble than I thought.
Now the Supreme Court, in refusing to intervene, has effectively allowed the prosecutor to search through the records in hopes he can pinpoint the source of the leak.
This is a bad outcome for the press and for the public. The phone records reveal the identities of lots of sources having nothing to do with the leaks. The appeals court’s disingenuous suggestion that The Times might redact irrelevant records would simply have helped point to possible leakers.
The public will be ill served if this case reduces the willingness of officials to reveal important but sensitive information. The privilege granted to journalists to protect their sources needs to be bolstered with a strong federal shield law that would preserve the public interest in newsgathering and dissemination of information.
We're at war (I know the NYT editorial board refuses to accept this simple fact) and we need to protect our secrets, sources and methods or become completely blind to future attacks. Finding leaks has a greater priority than promoting the willingness of officials to leak, as stated, "to reveal important but sensitive information." The NYT is the primary leaker of sensitive information in the past half decade. Its reporters are being investigated for tipping off the Muslim charities near the end of 2001. One could expect them to support their employees, but finding who leaked is more important than loyalty to employees. In a greater sense, the NYT can of course print what it wants, but it's employees are citizens first and are subject to the laws of this nation. There is no right to protect sources absent a shield law which does not exist at the federal level and I hope never will.
Do the editors really think that tipping off the Muslims to the coming search was a proper thing to do and advanced any social priority? If they do, we Americans are in deeper trouble than I thought.
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 7:43 AM 
