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December 27, 2005

The N.Y. Post Weighs In On The N.Y. Times

This editorial in yesterday's New York Post is spot on, and points out transgressions on the part of the "newspaper of record" that could only be called treason, the right to freedom of the press notwithstanding.

Certain freedoms do, after all, carry with them a degree of responsibility and the NYT seems to have opted to disregard these responsibilities.

Has The New York Times declared itself to be on the front line in the war against the War on Terror? The self-styled paper of record seems to be trying to reclaim the loyalty of those radical lefties who ludicrously accused it of uncritically reporting on Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.

Yet the paper has done more than merely try to embarrass the Bush administration these last few months.

It has published classified information — and thereby knowingly blown the covers of secret programs and agencies engaged in combating the terrorist threat.

The most notorious example was the paper's disclosure some 10 days ago that, since 9/11, the Bush administration has "secretly" engaged in warrantless eavesdropping on U.S.-based international phone calls and e-mails.

Further,

The Times says it held the story for more than a year, provoking a predictable uproar on the left. So why did it finally go ahead?

According to a Los Angeles Times report, New York Times editors knew that a book by the article's author was to be published in just a few weeks — and they feared losing their "exclusive" to their own reporter's outside work.

But the exact timing is highly suspect. The article appeared on the very day that the Senate was to vote on a Democratic filibuster against renewal of the anti-terrorist Patriot Act — a vote the Bush administration then lost. At least two previously undecided senators said they voted against the act precisely because of the Times piece.

And that's not the half of it:

Last May, the Times similarly "exposed" — in painstaking detail — the fact that the CIA uses its own airline service, posing as a private charter company, as "the discreet bus drivers of the battle against terrorism."

In fact, as the Times itself reported, "the civilian planes can go places American military craft would not be welcome." In an unconventional war, like the one against terrorism, the ability to move personnel around quickly and inconspicuously — or to deliver captured terrorists to a third country — is indispensable.

Thanks to the Times, that ability has been irrevocably compromised — costing Washington yet another vital tool in the War on Terror.

More?

Then, not content to merely sabotage the federal government, the Times last week blew the whistle on the fact that the New York Police Department has been using plainclothes officers during protest demonstrations.

In particular, the cops have been exercising their vigilance on the group called Critical Mass, which the Times refers to benignly as "a monthly bicycle ride."

Not quite. Yes, it began as peaceful, law-abiding rides — orderly protests. But it deteriorated last year into mass disruptions of traffic.

A federal judge unwisely refused the city's demand that the riders obtain a police permit in advance — but still admitted that the monthly protests were "spawning potential dangers."

All along, the NYPD has not been trying to shut the Critical Mass protests down or abridge anyone's First Amendment rights. It has only insisted on safeguards — like permits — to guarantee that no laws are broken and traffic disruptions are held to a minimum.

Unable to get the courts to agree, the cops instead used plainclothes cops "to prevent and respond to acts of violence and other unlawful activity."

In other words, to protect the people of New York.

Now, the Times has "exposed" this police work — and not just in words, but by splashing the pictures of these undercover officers across the pages of the newspaper, without making even the slightest effort to protect their identities.

And make no mistake: The result will be to compromise the ability of the NYPD to work undercover at a time of increasing danger to the city from back-pack-toting terrorists — a la Madrid and London.

Does The New York Times consider it self a law unto itself — free to subversively undercut basic efforts by any government to protect and defend its citizens?

The Times, it appears, is less concerned with promoting its dubious views on civil liberties than with undercutting the Bush administration. The end result of the paper's flagrant irresponsibility: Lives have been put in danger on the international, national and local levels.

Al-Qaeda couldn't ask for better saboteurs in the U.S., people they presumeably don't even have to compensate, than the bunch of bald faced traitors over at the New York Times.

Posted by Seth at December 27, 2005 11:23 PM