Behind Bush's Fury, a Vow Made in 2001

New York Times ^ | June 29, 2006 | SCOTT SHANE

[RWR8189]

WASHINGTON, June 28 — Ever since President Bush vowed days after the Sept. 11 attacks to "follow the money as a trail to the terrorists," the government has made no secret of its efforts to hunt down the bank accounts of Al Qaeda and its allies.

But that fact has not muted the fury of Mr. Bush, his top aides and many members of Congress at the decision last week by The New York Times and other newspapers to disclose a centerpiece of that hunt: the Treasury Department's search for clues in a vast database of financial transactions maintained by a Belgium-based banking consortium known as Swift.

Speaking at a fund-raising event in St. Louis for Senator Jim Talent, Mr. Bush made the news reports his central theme.

"This program has been a vital tool in the war on terror," Mr. Bush said. "Last week the details of this program appeared in the press."

Mr. Bush received a prolonged, standing ovation from the Republican crowd when he added, "There can be no excuse for anyone entrusted with vital intelligence to leak it — and no excuse for any newspaper to print it."

On Thursday, the House is expected to take up a Republican resolution supporting the tracking of financial transactions and condemning the publication of the existence of the program and details of how it works. The resolution says Congress "expects the cooperation of all news media organizations in protecting the lives of Americans and the capability of the government to identify, disrupt and capture terrorists by not disclosing classified intelligence programs." Democrats are proposing a variant that expresses support for the treasury program but omits the language about the news media.

[Judith Anne]

Sounds like you want the NYTimes shut down yesterday. I can't fault you for that.

I think citizens' efforts will pay off. I think the Times is going down--not fast enough to suit me, though.

[LibertarianInExile]

"I don't know - but that is what is being reported - that they don't just go through the records of suspected terrorists. Hopefully the reports are wrong - I would like to believe my President would not do that."

What I read isn't that the NSA's going through records of everyone, but that they're tracking certain transactions from known accounts. I'm as nervous about it as you are, but the fact is that there isn't a Constitutional reason to object to these actions through FOREIGN banks.

"I don't see how you can say there is no question about legality -but even if they found a loohole in the law for administrative supoenas (that require notrification and cause) I'm still concerned - this is a big expansion of government power and reach."

The banks aren't in the U.S. and these transactions aren't between American banks and the European banks. I fail to see the 'expansion' when the power is exercised outside the U.S. to begin with. The President has already got almost limitless power to take action outside the boundaries of the U.S., except where specifically limited by statute.

"Because I am very concerned about the erosion of privacy and concerned about increases in Federal government power - and searching records without cause concerns me."

But they aren't searching yours, or to my understanding even random Europeans' accounts, but European central bank records regarding transactions from already suspect accounts. Even if we were to stop American efforts here, European nations could still do the same thing and pass the info to the U.S. This way of revealing the program essentially ends even that possibility.

"It won't legally prevent him. But practically speaking it won't be in his interest to prosecute the Times."

Why not? I'll ask again what Ann Coulter asked: if Julius and Ethel Rosenberg had published the fruits of their spying in the Times, would it be legal? Do you really think the American people are looking at this as some grand inquisition of the press? Of course not--we all know that this is a matter of the press not 'whistleblowing,' but out-and-out selling out our national interests.

[LibertarianInExile]

And believe me, I'd be with you if I thought or had read they were going through every transaction without regard to any suspicious lead-in. That might be the case with NSA phone pattern tracking raised elsewhere, which I'm against, but that is NOT my understanding of the situation here.

[Darkwolf377]

I am not about to go log into the New York Terrorist News to read this article. That is what they want.

Exactly. They print "the other side" of the story and that supposedly makes them look balanced.

As Ann Coulter wrote today, I wish The NY Times would show as much interest in revealing secret Al Qaeda plans as it is in revealing secret US ones. But that doesn't win you Pulitzers.

[Finalapproach29er]

Boob bait for the Bubba's.

Those with blue-blood love the Establishment.

Bush will never prosecute them.

[philman_36]

..."follow the money as a trail to the terrorists,"...

Guess what, water carrier, that dog don't hunt.
The jig is up. It's called "defining the particulars".

[Jaysun]

"Mr. Bush" this and "Mr. Bush" that. I wish I were close enough to backhand these ingrates. Show some respect for the President of the United States for chrissake.

[KDD]

If he's so damn furious why isn't he prosecuting the Times?

Perhaps because it was tried before and the President wants to avoid a repeat of this...

“But out of the gobbledygook, comes a very clear thing: [unclear] you can’t trust the government; you can’t believe what they say; and you can’t rely on their judgment; and the – the implicit infallibility of presidents, which has been an accepted thing in America, is badly hurt by this, because it shows that people do things the President wants to do even though it’s wrong, and the President can be wrong.”
-- H.R. Haldeman to President Nixon, Monday, 14 June 1971, 3:09 p.m. meeting.

Thirty years ago this month, President Nixon picked up his Sunday New York Times on June 13, 1971 to see the wedding picture of his daughter Tricia and himself in the Rose Garden, leading the left-hand side of the front page. Next to that picture, on the right, was the headline over Neil Sheehan’s first story on the Pentagon Papers, “Vietnam Archive: Pentagon Study Traces 3 Decades of Growing U.S. Involvement.”

Nixon did not read the story (so he says on tape in his 12:18 p.m. phone call with Alexander Haig). On Monday evening, June 14, Attorney General John Mitchell warned the Times via phone and telegram against further publication; and on Tuesday June 15, the government sought and won an restraining order against the Times – an injunction subsequently extended to the Washington Post when that paper picked up the cause.

The epic legal battle that ensued culminated on June 30, 1971 in the U.S. Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision to lift the prior restraints – arguably the most important Supreme Court case ever on freedom of the press.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB48/decision.pdf

[AmeriBrit]

If he's so damn furious why isn't he prosecuting the Times?

---

How do YOU know he's not?

Do you have X-ray eyes?
Are you a mind reader?
Are you privy to what the President does or doesn't do behind the scenes?

Anyone with an average IQ should know these things take time. The can't be done with just the click of a finger, even by the President. There are certain formalities that have to be followed and to make sure all the 'i's' are dotted and all the 't's' are crossed takes time.

Try and have a little respect and patience will you and stop second guessing what President Bush will and will not do. He hasn't let us down yet when it's come to the safety of the nation and her citizens so hold your britches and give him a break FGS!

[rvoitier]

Is he prosecuting the NSA leakers?

[John Valentine]

Allowing treason to persist is not doing his job.

We have been allowing treason to persist for far too long, and a lot of damage has been done. Laws against treason, like any laws, must be vigorously and regularly enforced or they become dead letters. We cannot afford to ignore the erosion of a standerd of conduct so essential to our national seccurity, and politics should have nothing to do with it.

It is a matter of honoring the Oath of Office.

[GOPJ]

The New York Times has the right to print whatever - they can slander a private citizen, steal copyrighted material, reveal secrets. No prior restraint is needed. And that's good. I don't want a censor sitting in a newsroom deciding what we can read and what we can't read. Under Clinton, if there had been "prior" restraint we never would have heard of a blue dress. A censor would be sitting with Drudge too. No one wants a censor sitting in a newsroom. That would be wrong.

But that doesn't mean that the Times is above the law. The private citizen who was slandered can sue - and will win. The owner of copywrited material that the Times printed will sue - and win. And, in a saner world, if classified information was printed that helped the enemy in time of war, charges would be brought for treason. Newspapers have the right to print, but not the right to print outside the law.

The Times most likely has a high priced first amendment lawyer - and he's consulted when the Times thinks they might break the law. The Times, like most companies doesn't want to be successfully sued. That attorney would consul them not to slander a private citizen, not to print copywrited material without permission etc. That attorney was probably consulted in this case. We will never know what he said, but the results of that meeting are clear - the decision was made to publish. No legal problems. The Times felt there was less downside to this than printing a freelancers copy without permission.

Publishing classified information was not a legal threat to them. The threat was to the nation - but not to them. And that's wrong. Way out of balance. Publishing classified information that helps the enemy in time of war, should carry the highest concern - not the least.

I imagine Keller laughing saying, "yeah, American men will die because we've printed this - and maybe American citizens will die because of this - but it's no skin off our nose. They can't touch us -- and besides it sticks it to George Bush..." Bush has a right to be angry about his. His job is to protect us - the Times has shown a reckless disregard for the laws dealing with national security.

Our safety, the safety of the American people, received less respect than a young freelance writer would receive. This is wrong.

Any President's team - Republican or Democrat should never have to go, hat in hand during time of war, to beg a newspaper not to publish. That's wrong. The line is in the wrong place.

Here's what's sad -- if the Times lawyer had been asked if it's OK to print some two bit freelancers material without permission, the answer would have been NO. There should be equal concern for printing national secrets. But there's not.

Not that the Times can't "print" them, (freedom of the press matters) but they should know there will be hell to pay for the privilege. My feelings? The FBI should arrest the publisher and editor, allow them to bail out, and have this issue decided in a court of law. Maybe next time the Times attorney will tell them, "yes, you can publish - and if it's crucial you must, but there will be hell to pay - you could be arrested for treason. So think about it long and hard."

That would require soul searching... And that would be right.

[GiovannaNicoletta]

If there is another attack in this country, it will be the sole responsibility of the Democrat party, the dinosaur media that is nothing more than a wing of the Democrat party, and the terrorists, in that order.

[AmeriBrit]

Is he prosecuting the NSA leakers?

---

Neither the President or the AG take me into their confidence and disclose what their plans are. I'm sure if the perpetrators are found and there are enough grounds then we'll see them in front of a judge and jury.

[mo]

When traitors are amongst us in a time of war, the executive branch has its hands full on all fronts. When those in our communities conspire to betray our efforts to our enemies, justice is sometimes our responsibility.

IMHO, each shareholder needs to receive, by certified mail, a copy of Secretary John Snow's letter to Bill Keller (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1656019/posts). Ditto for the president of each advertiser in the NYT, ditto for the director of every mutual fund holding shares in the NYT. The a similar letter should go to each employeee of the NYT-their letter should also have note of each advertiser, shareholder and fund director that has received this as well. This creates a ring of pressure...think of pinching Pinch...around the "leadership" at the NYT

[Beckwith]

[rvoitier]

The panel of Special Report w/Brit Hume, who are taken into confidence by those who know, said he's not.

[backhoe]

They have short- and very selective- memories:

Behold--

NYT Demanded Financial Tracking To Combat Terrorism

June 27th, 2006

Behold this editorial from the Solons of the New York Times, just three days after 9/11:

Finances of Terror

September 24, 2001rganizing the hijacking of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon took significant sums of money. The cost of these plots suggests that putting Osama bin Laden and other international terrorists out of business will require more than diplomatic coalitions and military action. Washington and its allies must also disable the financial networks used by terrorists.

The Bush administration is preparing new laws to help track terrorists through their money-laundering activity and is readying an executive order freezing the assets of known terrorists. Much more is needed, including stricter regulations, the recruitment of specialized investigators and greater cooperation with foreign banking authorities. There must also must be closer coordination among America’s law enforcement, national security and financial regulatory agencies.

Osama bin Laden originally rose to prominence because his inherited fortune allowed him to bankroll Arab volunteers fighting Soviet forces in Afghanistan. Since then, he has acquired funds from a panoply of Islamic charities and illegal and legal businesses, including export-import and commodity trading firms, and is estimated to have as much as $300 million at his disposal.

Some of these businesses move funds through major commercial banks that lack the procedures to monitor such transactions properly. Locally, terrorists can utilize tiny unregulated storefront financial centers, including what are known as hawala banks, which people in South Asian immigrant communities in the United States and other Western countries use to transfer money abroad. Though some smaller financial transactions are likely to slip through undetected even after new rules are in place, much of the financing needed for major attacks could dry up.

Washington should revive international efforts begun during the Clinton administration to pressure countries with dangerously loose banking regulations to adopt and enforce stricter rules. These need to be accompanied by strong sanctions against doing business with financial institutions based in these nations. The Bush administration initially opposed such measures. But after the events of Sept. 11, it appears ready to embrace them.

The Treasury Department also needs new domestic legal weapons to crack down on money laundering by terrorists. The new laws should mandate the identification of all account owners, prohibit transactions with "shell banks" that have no physical premises and require closer monitoring of accounts coming from countries with lax banking laws. Prosecutors, meanwhile, should be able to freeze more easily the assets of suspected terrorists. The Senate Banking Committee plans to hold hearings this week on a bill providing for such measures. It should be approved and signed into law by President Bush.

New regulations requiring money service businesses like the hawala banks to register and imposing criminal penalties on those that do not are scheduled to come into force late next year. The effective date should be moved up to this fall, and rules should be strictly enforced the moment they take effect. If America is going to wage a new kind of war against terrorism, it must act on all fronts, including the financial one.

But that was then.9/11 al qaeda new york times NSA terrorists treason

Related Articles:

• Bush Calls Times Banking Leak "Disgraceful"
• Times Betrays Another National Security Secret
• Times Claims Cheney Wanted To Tap In Country Calls
• White House Goes After Treasonous Leakers
• The Times Sues Pentagon For Classified NSA Material
• Porter Goss Bitch Slaps The Times
• Times To US: Drop Dead!
• Justice Department To Investigate The NYT
• "Read An American Newspaper"

9 Comments »

 

 

But Wait! ( hattip: Ronco )

There's even more!

 

Amazing NYT Hypocrisy

Three days after 9/11, the New York Times published an editorial demanding financial tracking to fight terrorism, and Sweetness & Light dug it up to throw it in their lying faces: link: 37 comments

THE TERRORIST-TIPPING TIMES

By Michelle Malkin   ·   June 28, 2006 12:12 PM

My syndicated column today (now on Yahoo! News) offers a reminder that the blabbermouths at the New York Times have been implicated in terror tip-offs about our financial investigations before:

I remind you of the case of the Treason Times, the Holy Land Foundation, and the Global Relief Foundation. As the New York Post reported last September, the Justice Department charged that "a veteran New York Times foreign correspondent warned an alleged terror-funding Islamic charity that the FBI was about to raid its office -- potentially endangering the lives of federal agents." Times reporter Philip Shenon was accused of blowing the cover on a Dec. 14, 2001, raid of the Global Relief Foundation.

"It has been conclusively established that Global Relief Foundation learned of the search from reporter Philip Shenon of The New York Times," U.S. attorney Patrick Fitzgerald wrote in an Aug. 7, 2002, letter to the Times' legal department.

Shenon's phone tip to the Muslim charity (which occurred one day before the FBI searched the foundation's offices), Fitzgerald said, "seriously compromised the integrity of the investigation and potentially endangered the safety of federal law-enforcement personnel." The Global Relief Foundation (GRF) wasn't some beneficent neighborhood charity sending shoes and Muslim Barbie dolls to poor kids overseas. It was designated a terror-financing organization in October 2002 by the Treasury Department, which reported that GRF "has connections to, has provided support for, and has provided assistance to Usama Bin Ladin, the al Qaida Network, and other known terrorist groups.

"Shenon's then-colleague, Judith Miller, had placed a similar call to another Muslim terrorist-front financier, the Holy Land Foundation, a few weeks before Shenon's call to the GRF. She was supposedly asking for "comment" on an impending freeze of their assets. According to Fitzgerald in court papers, Miller allegedly also warned them that "government action was imminent."  TrackBack <7>

[LibLieSlayer]

In an interview last night with OReilly, Tony Snow made it clear that while government handles these thing quietly and thoroughly, just because you don't hear a drumbeat of prosecutorial war; rest assured that the government is actively investigating these leaks... and has been... and will prosecute the leakers.

LLS

[SE Mom]

Thanks as always bh:)

And from Michelle Malkin we have a list of NYT advertisers:
METLIFE
Corporate Headquarters
Rob Henrickson, CEO
MetLife, Inc.
200 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10166
212-578-2211

PFIZER
Margaret M. Foran, Senior Vice President,
235 East 42nd Street, New York, New York 10017.
leaddirector@pfizer.com
auditchair@pfizer.com
compchair@pfizer.com
corpgovchair@pfizer.com

SPRINT
Corporate Headquarters 2001 Edmund Halley Drive
Reston, VA 20191
703-433-4000
investor.relations@sprint.com
Mark.j.elliott@sprint.com
Kurt.Fawkes@sprint.com

SAMSUNG
Dong-Jin Oh President & CEO
Consumer Electronics
105 Challenger Road
Ridgefield Park, NJ 07660
Tel: 1800-SAMSUNG
Fax: 973-601-6001
kgaynin@mww.com

EXPEDIA
MICROSOFT
AMD (American Micro Devices)
VONAGE
CHARLES SCHWAB
AIR FRANCE
FRANKLIN TEMPLETON
TIFFANY
CARTIER
CHANEL
GUCCI
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SAKS FIFTH
PORSCHE DESIGNS
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