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June 28, 2006
Irresponsible Journalism
Re this kerfuffle:
A recent leak to The New York Times and some other newspapers revealed a previously secret program by the Bush administration to examine foreign banking transactions in its pursuit of terrorists with ties to al-Qaida. The banking transactions mostly involve wire transfers and other methods of moving money overseas. This isn't about examining our canceled checks for items that might embarrass us before prying eyes.
As they have with previous secrets of the President's prosecution of the Global War On Terror, the only thing that stands between the safety of Americans in America and encores to the likes of 9/11, the New York Times has again aided and abetted our enemy by publishing classified information leaked to them by treasonous elements of past or present federal employees.
Yes, I say treasonous -- the people who are in a position to possess the sort of information, deemed "need to know" that Bill Keller and the rest of those leftists over at NYT take such pleasure in publishing are betraying not only any oaths of confidentiality they might have taken on accepting the jobs they occupy; worse, they are betraying the American people, those of us whose taxes pay their salaries and will be supporting them through their pensions when they retire.
In my honest opinion, I believe that what the NYT has once again done, despite Keller's lofty protests that his paper was adhering to their 1st Amendment rights and that he had done all kinds of soul searching and moral deliberation before, has been to use information leaked to them by above mentioned traitors to commit treason themselves. What else can you call it when a newspaper prints stories they have to know will alert our enemy, in time of war, to secret methods by which we are fighting that war?
Cal Thomas has it completely right:
This isn't about the privileges guaranteed by the First Amendment. It is about the agenda practiced by the Times and some other newspapers and media outlets that clearly want the administration to fail in Iraq — and in everything else — so that Democrats will retake the reigns of government. The Times' editorial board fears what one more Republican term could do to the left's judicially imposed cultural realignment and wants to blunt the Bush administration's counteroffensive.
Yes, completely right.
Posted by Seth at June 28, 2006 04:04 PM
Comments
Seth, I wrote a post about
There can be no doubt about Title 18, US Code Section 798 having been violated by the leaker(s). If the leaker(s0 passed on the fact that the program was "classified", then the journalists and the NYT are also in violation of the law.
Doubt arises in whether or not the Bush administration has the fortitude to prosecute. If it doesn't, the President Bush will have single handedly trashed the significance of Section 798, by setting precedence. That would be a black eye to any legacy that he has built to this point.
Regardless of the president, the citizens deserve accountability of the NYT. Clearly the NYT belives itself to be the god of "freedom of the press". That's not the case, and they must be made unequivocally aware of that fact.
Great post, Seth. thanks for being out there pressing for accountability.
Posted by: Old Soldier at June 29, 2006 08:41 AM
Obviously, I don't have this html link thing down yet. The post is at this URL...
http://myrepublicanblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/security-classification-long-and-short.html
I guess the old cut and paste is better than nothing. Sorry for the html tag ineptness.
Posted by: Old Soldier at June 29, 2006 08:44 AM
Thanks, Old Soldier.
When the link didn't work, I tracked the post down anyway, LOL.
Great post! You broke down the definitions and legalities in an informative and completely understandable way.
The reactions of the administration have been thankfully, though so far only verbally, aggressive.
It is human nature, when one gets away with something one ought not to get away with, to repeat the action as long as one can continue to evade paying the price. The best way to discourage this is to hammer home the maximum penalties. Not only will this punish the wrongdoers, it will also let any other potential offenders know what they can expect if they get caught.
In times of less liberal political influence, there would be some newspaper people sitting in jail right now (the "prisoners of record"? "All the rocks that are fit to break"?), contemplating a grim future as the Bureau relentlessly tracked down the leakers themselves.
Posted by: Seth at June 29, 2006 10:47 AM
