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How The Times Handled the Surveillance Story
by noteworthy at 10:35 am EST, Jan 8, 2006 |
From a selection of letters to the public editor regarding NYT's handling of the domestic surveillance story, here's an interesting if somewhat contrived legal question for you to consider: It is sweetly ironic to hear the editors' claim that information cannot be shared with you (and us) lest the reporters' sources and methods be compromised and leakers be revealed for possible negative repercussions, in this case prosecutions. Isn't that the same basic explanation given by the administration for its secrecy? How is it acceptable for the paper to keep certain information secret, especially if obtained illegally, to protect sources and methods, but for the government to do so is somehow un-American?
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RE: How The Times Handled the Surveillance Story
by Decius at 2:17 pm EST, Jan 8, 2006 |
noteworthy wrote:
From a selection of letters to the public editor regarding NYT's handling of the domestic surveillance story, here's an interesting if somewhat contrived legal question for you to consider:
I'll take the fact that the reporter went to jail as evidence that the "point" here is moot. But, for the sake of playing devil's advocate, there is a general need to allow people to blow the whistle on things using the press, and of course the press is going to defend that to the point of failing. As the Plame case is not a whistleblowing case the point is weak. The administration is using the "sources and methods" argument to argue that their activities should not be criticised. Their argument is also weak. Details of how the NSA operates have been a matter of public discourse for decades, and have been detailed in numerous publications. If A'Q wasn't aware that their were being monitored they were made aware when we turned over the embassy bombing intercepts to the Taliban back in '99. The only new information that has been revealed here is that the administration may have been doing it without proper legal authorization. The argument sounds a lot like a contrived excuse to avoid criticism by calling the dialog a national security problem. On the other hand, front page news about this does serve as a reminder to terrorists not to use the phone. It serves as a marketing campaign. This sucks, but it should have been handled in a different way. The administration shouldn't have subverted Congress. The Congress people, like Rockafeller, who got to look at the program shouldn't have dealt with the issue by squirrling away CYA letters. The buck had every opportunity to stop somewhere else and it didn't. The inevitable result is it became a public issue. If the Republicans had there way and these things could be prevented from being discussed by the general public we would ultimately be a lot less democratic. |
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RE: How The Times Handled the Surveillance Story
by Dagmar at 6:17 am EST, Jan 9, 2006 |
noteworthy wrote:
How is it acceptable for the paper to keep certain information secret, especially if obtained illegally, to protect sources and methods, but for the government to do so is somehow un-American?
This is too easy. The paper got that information with their money. The gov't gets their information with my money and one of the "rules of the game" is that they don't get to rewrite those rules at will to suit their whims without oversight and accountability... Oversight and accountability is rather obviously what Bush was attempting to avoid by refusing to comply with the very relaxed rules that FISA puts on warrantless searches. The claim that getting approval for the searches would slow them down is a lie. All they had to do was go to one of their secret judges up to 72 hours after doing the search and tell them it was done, which provides at least a little oversight and accountability. Arguments that any of these 12 secret judges would in some way be considered compromised and a leak risk to terrorists is downright laughable. |
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