So for a year the NYT sat on the story of the Presidential authorization permitting the NSA, normally proscribed from domestic intelligence collection, to intercept phone calls to and from suspected al Queda telephone numbers overseas. I guess they weren’t all that concerned about privacy or civil rights. But they finally ran the story yesterday, because, well: A year is a long time. Plus the Patriot Act was up for renewal in Congress, only now it’s not any more, because the NYT ran the story about an NSA and presidential administration run amok, tracing terrorist phone calls, didn’t matter where they came from.
As the President pointed out in today’s radio address though, this was precisely the kind of capability that would have prevented 9/11 from happening, the kind of capability that the 9/11 commission strenuously supported:
In the weeks following the terrorist attacks on our nation, I authorized the National Security Agency, consistent with U.S. law and the Constitution, to intercept the international communications of people with known links to al Qaeda and related terrorist organizations. Before we intercept these communications, the government must have information that establishes a clear link to these terrorist networks.
This is a highly classified program that is crucial to our national security. Its purpose is to detect and prevent terrorist attacks against the United States, our friends and allies. Yesterday the existence of this secret program was revealed in media reports, after being improperly provided to news organizations. As a result, our enemies have learned information they should not have, and the unauthorized disclosure of this effort damages our national security and puts our citizens at risk. Revealing classified information is illegal, alerts our enemies, and endangers our country.
Now, the news media ran circles round themselves flagellating administration officials responsible for revealing the truth about George Wilson’s relationship to Valerie Plame, his wife and a former non-official cover CIA operative who recommended him for his Nigerian boondoggle. By doing so, in response to what was perceived as a political attack on the White House, the leakers may or may not have violated a rather obscure national security provision against revealing names of NOC agents – but no one seriously proposes that outing Valerie really harmed national security.
This leak on the other hand, demonstrably will have done so – this is the real deal. Sources of intelligence will now dry up and terror plots that would have been discovered now have a far higher chance of success, and the leakers will have on their hands the innocent blood of those deaths that such intelligence would have prevented. The leaker or leakers had to know that his access to this kind of technical capability was a highly guarded secret, you don’t get access to this kind of stuff without explicitly acknowledging your statutory responsibility to safeguard it. I anxiously await the full-court media press to discover the source of this latest leak.
Unless of course leaks are only bad when they help the government. But no – that would be a bizzare stand to take in a country still at war, in the city whose innocent citizens were the first and most numerous victims of the enemy’s attack.
Update: Goldstein’s better on this, of course. I like this bit best:
Because it is not quaint to reveal our secrets simply because you don’t believe that we are truly at war. And that is what is happening here?
Well, of course they saved it up to reveal at just the right moment, so that they could spin it in such a way, with a headline of “Bush Authorizes Domestic Spying” or some such trash, so that it could be used to usurp the headlines of the greater events portending progress toward victory in Iraq. I mean the overwhelming support of the Iraqi people for Democracy is much WORSE than a slow news day for the liberal media. No, it was time to break out the “dirt” they’d been saving up just for this occasion, so what if it endangered national security? By the time the full story came out the mission would be accomplished, it would be their agenda on the front page. I do hope the American people see through that.
What about that other story..ho-hum, about the free election in the Middle Eastern country controlled by a dictator for 30 years…I think there was a 70% turnout, too.
Haven’t read much about it, but I’m sure we’re going to hear about this ad naseum for weeks, if not months, ala Valerie Plume and Mrs. Wilson. More confusion for the uncritical masses who watch WWF….
Could it be that the NYT’s is pissed still from that time GW and Cheney were heard off camera describing an approaching Times reporter : “A-hole, big time!”
Nah, they wouldn’t be that petty, would they?
NYT = A-wholes (>1) REAL Big Time!
B2
I find it highly ironic that while embroiled in debate over wiretapping and renderings that anyone would insinuate that it is only the “Dems” and “progressives” who feel that the ends justify the means. It would seem to me that modern politics is rampant with that attitude.
Perhaps it’s ironic, Eric. But while Goldstein is rather more of a partisan than I am myself, I believe he’d argue in return that scope and scale are important, as is intent: It appears to those of us on this side of the war argument that the left and progressives are using ends justifies the means tactics to win elections, while those on the right are using them to win the war.
Yes, scope and means are important because the headlines are screaming “Spying on Americans” as if it was every American in the US when it is plain to see that would be impossible (in a country of 300 million), wasteful (since it would muddy who and what was being tracked) and down right stupid. Anybody reading the actual report would then find out, if the report was honest, that it was limited to a) Americans making or receiving phone calls to international numbers suspected of terrorist ties and possible the numbers of people that the suspect called within the United States which still falls under the “Americans conspiring with foreign powers” clause and probably has amounted to between 100 and 200 people directly effected by the authorization. And, since the number of people arrested and charged for offenses has been extremely limited, I would say that the office has practiced restraint in its efforts.
Great point, Kat. Unless Usama has been crank calling your phone, or Zarqawi has your email address on one of his mass Viagra mailouts, you’re pretty safe.