Bauer: "Let me shoot their knees, their ankles, their elbows, and then their b&lls.
We will find out from Keller and the other fops exactly who the leakers are."
Posted on 06/29/2006 1:54:16 PM PDT by veronica
Dear Bill Keller:
Remember me? We met in the elevator here at The Oregonian recently. Your decision to expose a secret program to track terrorist funding got me to thinking I had better write and apologize. I don't think I was sufficiently deferential on our brief ride together. I treated you like the executive editor of The New York Times who used to work for The Oregonian. I had no idea I was riding with the man who decides what classified programs will be made public during a war on terror. I had no idea the American people had elected you president and commander in chief.
Yes, I'm being sarcastic. What's that they say -- sarcasm is anger's ugly cousin? I'm angry, Bill.
I get angry when a few unauthorized individuals take it upon themselves to undermine an anti-terror program that even your own paper deems legal and successful. I get angry when the same people decide to blow the lid on a secret program designed to keep Islamic terrorists from killing Americans en masse.
"The disclosure of this program," President Bush said Monday, "is disgraceful."
Strong words, but not strong enough, Bill.
Your decision was contemptible, but your Sunday letter explaining the Times' decision only undermined your case for disclosure.
"It's an unusual and powerful thing, this freedom that our founders gave to the press . . .," you wrote. "[T]he people who invented this country saw an aggressive, independent press as a protective measure against the abuse of power in a democracy. . . . They rejected the idea that it is wise, or patriotic, to always take the President at his word, or to surrender to the government important decisions about what to publish."
Too true, but the issue here is your judgment. It would be one thing if you ran this story because the program was illegal, abusive or feckless. Yet your paper established nothing of the kind. In the end, your patronizing and lame letter offered only press-convention bromides ("a matter of public interest").
"Forgive me, I know this is pretty elementary stuff -- but it's the kind of elementary context that sometimes gets lost in the heat of strong disagreements," you write, after providing a tutorial on how the government only wants the press to publish the official line and the press believes "citizens can be entrusted with unpleasant and complicated news."
But this is a false and self-serving choice. The issue is your decision to publish classified information that can only aid our enemies. The founders didn't give the media or unnamed sources a license to expose secret national security operations in wartime. They set up a Congress to pass laws against disclosing state secrets and an executive branch to conduct secret operations so the new nation could actually defend itself from enemies, foreign and domestic.
Forgive me, I know this is pretty elementary stuff -- but it's the kind of elementary stuff that can get lost in the heat of strong disagreements. And get more people killed in the United States or Iraq.
Not to worry, you tell us, terrorists already know we track their funding, and disclosure won't undercut the program. (Contradictory claims, but what the heck.) You at the Times know better. You know better than government officials who said disclosing the program's methods and means would jeopardize a successful enterprise. You know better than the 9/11 Commission chairmen who urged you not to run the story. Better than Republican and Democratic lawmakers who were briefed on the program. Better than the Supreme Court, which has held since 1976 that bank records are not constitutionally protected. Better than Congress, which established the administrative subpoenas used in this program.
Maybe you do. But whether you do or not, there's no accountability. If you're wrong and we fail to stop a terror plot and people die because of your story, who's going to know, much less hold you accountable? No, the government will be blamed -- oh, happy day, maybe Bush's White House! -- for not connecting dots or crippling terror networks. The Times might even run the kind of editorial it ran on Sept. 24, 2001. Remember? The one that said "much more is needed" to track terror loot, including "greater cooperation with foreign banking authorities"?
Keep up the good work -- for al-Qaida.
D@MN!!! The Oregonian?
Are we talking about: 1) the highest leaders in Iran, 2) individual cell leaders who are still alive, 3) recruited teens and disaffected individuals from the slums of Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Pakistan, and elsewhere who live in isolation from one another, or 4) recently elevated leaders to replace killed terrorsts, chosen from group 3?
Which of these groups would you expect to have detail knowledge of international banking practices? Which would not, but do now?
-PJ
I suspect you are taking my comments way too personally. The Times thought it had some important story like the domestic wiretap story. This is not that type of story involving questions of constitutionality, however. The Times is now sitting with egg on its face. So what? Do you think this is the first time a newspaper has published a story that was not what they thought it would be?
The U.S. government has worked with other governments for decades tracing funds for a variety of reasons--to find drug traffickers, thieves, and tax evaders, for example. Due largely to U.S. pressure, the countries that host the international banks known for their secrecy (e.g., Switzerland) long ago changed their laws to prevent their banks from being used by bad guys without any government intrusion. The list of countries that cooperate with the U.S. in international financial investigations is common knowledge. The U.S. ultimately persuaded those countries to cooperate long before al Qaeda even existed. Nothing was changed by that story. And I am certainly not upset with anyone criticising the press. Lord knows, I do it enough myself.
It's generally known that the US has nuclear weapons. Do you know where they are? Would you tell someone where they are? It's generally known that we can take photos from space of enemy positions and equipment. Would you show pictures of just what detail we can make of these photos? If you answer yes to any of these questions then you are a traitor and have compromised government secrets.
We already know what you are.
bttt
Different time, different place.
There has been a continuous theme among some on this forum who believe the President of the United States is some sort of all powerful dictator, that can snap his fingers and get things done his way.
That is not the case (and I do not want to live in a nation where that is the case.
The President has enormous power, but there are also some very powerful restraints on that power.
Once getting elected, the President can govern only with the consent of the people (through the legislature). While he should not plan his day by polls, he must be aware of what the people want and will allow.
For six years there have been some who have been disappointed he did not arrest and toss in jail Bill and Hilary Clinton. Can you imagine what would have occurred in this nation if he had done so (assuming he had rock solid evidence of guilt, it would have been a dangerous path to travel).
The left, and their friends in the Media (along with some “friends” on the right have spent six years trying to bring him down, and he keeps on going, barely acknowledging they exist.
The net result, the left has gone even further in the swamp, dragging the Democrat party in with them. The main stream media has blown whatever credibility they may have had, and each day brings news they have less influence then they had the day before. The Clintons will in the end be deny the one thing they wanted in life, a legacy. Their place in history will be secure but not in the way they wanted.
So President Bush is handling the problems he inherited the best he can, while he is sniped at from both the far left and far right.
Don’t like the way he is doing his job, don’t vote for him in the next election.
I seriously doubt that the people at Treasury and Justice did such a sloppy job on this program that it's in jeopardy simply beause it has been so "dramatically" revealed (though I have less confidence in the Justice Department after they botched the legal end of the domestic wiretapping program). But if the U.S. government did screw it up, maybe we should be complaining about their apparent inability to do their jobs properly. Why should you or I care what "Privacy International" thinks? I've never even heard of that group.
IT IS THE KNOWLEDGE OF WHO IS THE SPY and/or WHAT IS THE ENCRYPTION
which IF revealed is the treason.
You obviously have a 'dog' in this defending the traitors
who should be executed for multiple treason during war.
That was very funny. Apparently you missed Secretary Powell's slide show at the U.N. before the invasion of Iraq?
That was very funny. Apparently you missed the part where the President declassified it for public display.
Big surprise: The U.S. government is spying on al Qaeda, and the U.S. has been tracing funds. By the way, I don't smoke or defend the press. I think the Times looks pretty foolish on their big, front-page non-story. Treason, huh? Want to bet there will not even be an indictment?
Bauer: "Let me shoot their knees, their ankles, their elbows, and then their b&lls.
We will find out from Keller and the other fops exactly who the leakers are."
Okay. Explain exactly what encryption or other unknown information was revealed that was a true "secret?" I have an open mind, but I'm not naive enough to believe something is truly "secret" simply because it is classified.
Okay. Explain exactly what encryption or other unknown information was revealed that was a true "secret?" I have an open mind, but I'm not naive enough to believe something is truly "secret" simply because it is classified.
Cool. Now let's let Jack loose in CIA, the FBI, and the Pentagon.
Yeah? What's the over/under on that one?
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