Posted on 06/24/2006 8:47:03 PM PDT by neverdem
Once more the spoiler. Despite the earnest persuasion of the White House to preserve a useful weapon in the war against the terrorists, the New York Times has revealed the workings of a covert surveillance program, indisputably within the law, to use administrative subpoenas to examine, through a Belgian financial consortium known by the acronym SWIFT, the financing of international terrorism. Once the story was out, the Los Angeles Times and Wall Street Journal covered it as well. Now the program is damaged, perhaps severely so, and the financing of terror is harder to track. This is another unnecessary leak, six months after the New York Times revealed a secret National Security Agency terrorist surveillance program.
In its earlier scoop, the New York Times could reasonably argue legal uncertainty. Not this time. The Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Miller in 1976 that no right to privacy attaches to the type of third-party financial-transaction information SWIFT has provided to the Treasury Department. The Right to Financial Privacy Act, enacted by Congress in 1978 in the wake of United States v. Miller, allows just the administrative subpoenas Treasury has been using. So does the Patriot Act. The SWIFT transactions that Treasury has been examining are international in nature. The searches are specifically targeted at suspected or known terrorists, a "sharp harpoon aimed at the heart of terrorist activity," as Treasury Secretary John Snow puts it. The claim that the rights of American citizens are infringed is irrational, unduly partisan, or both.
The program clearly works. Treasury pointed immediately to the capture of the terrorist known as "Hambali." Hambali, or Riduan Isamuddin, masterminded the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 innocent men and women. He has been in U.S. custody since his arrest in 2003 in Thailand, and the SWIFT...
(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...
Of course you are. You defend them from consequences of their actions. You're defending their "right" to publish this information. That's support.
Considering how hard the Bush Administration tried to stop this, don't you think they would already be pushing criminal prosecution if it were [illegal]?
No. You know there's more to the decision than that. It's political. If there was, as should be, a public outcry at their treasonous work, then prosecution would have happened. Unfortunately, there's folks who see it as more nuanced.
I'm just responding to calls to punish them for something that was legal.
Willingly and knowingly helping the enemy isn't legal. They were told it would help the enemy if they published. There was, they admit, no reason to publish now for any other reason than to beat their competition. They published anyway. To sell papers.
There isn't some great principle involved here. No scandal of government spying. Just selling newspapers and serving a political agenda at the expense of American lives.
You are over-thinking it. Our people and our freedoms die when we have to think about simple treason.
Hey, Young Liberal Scholar! As I posted on another thread, during the early 1980s, I worked for Lockheed on the F-117 Stealth Fighter program. This was long before the F-117 was disclosed to the American people. I held a DoD Secret Security Clearance and when hired we were firmly warned about speaking about what we were working on when we were outside of the plant. We were also warned that if we exited the facility with any sketches, documents or blueprints that we could expect a very quick visit from the FBI. I couldn't even imagine that any member of the press(even those with knowledge of the F-117 program) would ever disclose any info with to public regarding the F-117. Now, you're saying that the NY Times is guilty of breaking no law in disclosing Secret National Security information? National security programs trump the public's right to know. Oh, BTW, we were not in a time of war when the F-117 was being developed and tested. IMHO, the NY Times is guilty of espionage and treason. They are making the lives of American citizens less safe. You may be young and you may be scholarly, but you are not living in reality. GROW UP!!
That is not sufficient grounds to make an act illegal, or the Administration (or any administration) could claim that any number of things it dislikes "help the enemy" in some indirect way and ban them. For an action to be banned, it would generally have to directly endanger American lives (e.g., compromise encryption codes, allowing the enemy to discover American agents).
If the New York Time's giving comfort to our foes, with full knowledge of their actions, and the consequences to our defense, isn't consorting with the enemy, what is?
Legally, there is a difference between stealing/distributing American technology and disclosing the existence of a program.
I loathe the NY Times. I don't like their staff. They are the voice of most of what's wrong with the US. They are liberal/socialist shills.
Their actions on this matter are reprehensible.
But what the NY Times has done is perfectly legal. And constitutionally protected. They are afforded the same right to free speech as the rest of us.
The people that need to be dealt with are those that are apparently compromising classified information for political means (and yes, it's purely political). There are moles in the government and they do need to be prosecuted.
I second everything you said (except I do like their crossword puzzle).
And any media could say it doesn't. You wanna argue while citizens die? Who says what's secret? The government. That's why you have elections.
No illegalilty, no value to the public to publish, no government scandal, just your elected officials saying, "Don't help the enemy." and a newspaper not caring.
Primae facia treason.
The 1st Ammendment has something to say here. We don't live in a democracy.
And if the NYT found out the president would be completely unprotected next Thursday from noon to midnight? Or they found out you could decimate U.S. soldiers in the Green Zone if you drove a truck through backroad X at dawn? No problems for you?
Free speech? It has limits. You betray your country and help its enemies, then you - and your helpers - are traitors.
the same right to free speech as the rest of us.
Yes. If I published what the NYT published on this I would deserve to be punished for it.
The first amendment does not protect traitors.
Because I know how some dissemble, let me rephrase:
The first amendment does not protect treasonous speech.
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