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Monday, July 3, 2006
In defense of the New York Times
Posted: July 3, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern
By Vox Day
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com
I am no fan of the New York Times. It is a pompous, outdated media organization that combines a dedication to poisonous ideology with a predilection for mediocre art and faux eurostylism. Its reporters are columnists who write opinion columns that pass for news stories, while its columnists are talentless divas whose ignorance of politics and economics is only exceeded by their unfamiliarity with world history.
The New York Times is the fever swamp from which a myriad of infectious and debilitating memes spread throughout the mainstream media and into the mind of America. All of this is obvious to even the occasional observer, I merely mention it so that the reader will understand that my defense of the old hag is a reluctant one.
Like many of the commentators who have waxed apoplectic following the New York Times' revelations of the administration's financial spying on the SWIFT system, I was surprised by the breaking news. However, my surprise was due solely to the fact that it passed for news, considering the panoply of data-mining operations in which the U.S. government is already known to be involved.
From Carnivore and Echelon to the giant government database currently being constructed by the credit card companies – in fact, at first glance, I thought that's what the New York Times was reporting – the Clinton and Bush administrations have made great strides at turning America into the Panopticon of dystopian science fiction visions. Indeed, much of what went into Patriot Acts I and II was first conceived by the Clinton administration in 1993, as Al Gore's concept for a Directorate of Central Law Enforcement presaged George Bush's new Department of Homeland Security.
The only significant difference is that the shock of 9-11 enabled the Bush administration to do what its predecessor could not in ramming a giant, pre-prepared assault on American liberties through the Congress. And like the Patriot Acts, the SWIFT program will do nothing to protect national security, despite all of the posturing and ignorant howling on the part of the administration's defendants in the supposedly conservative commentariat.
Arnaud de Borchgrave of the Washington Times reports that the total expenditure for the attacks on the two U.S. embassies, the USS Cole, 9-11, the Madrid train system and the London Underground was $625,000, spent over a period of eight years. SWIFT transfers amount to $6,000,000,000 daily, so this spy program isn't comparable to looking for a needle in a haystack, it is closer to looking for a needle in Nebraska. It defies credibility to argue that this program will locate a single terrorist given the way in which Muslims prefer using the Islamic hawala system to wire transfers, much less that its exposure somehow threatens American national security. And despite all the barking by the media hounds, no one has even tried to argue that this "vital program" has, in fact, done so.
According to the administration's logic, every dollar spent by terrorists justifies subjecting $28 billion to U.S. government oversight. Needless to say, it will not be long before that oversight will be expanded to search for everything from deadbeat dads to tax evaders and to perform industrial espionage in the age-old tradition of expanding government power. Only 100 years ago, federal agents were unarmed and possessed no arrest powers. Now, in the name of protecting us, they are claiming carte blanche to stick their federal noses into every financial transaction in the world.
In fact, the outrage expressed by the administration and its apologists most likely stems from the way in which the exposure of this program eliminates any possibility of European support for the neocons' much-sought war on Iran. Since European banks seldom issue checks, most transactions are done via cash, postal account or bank transfer, and some of those transfers now undergoing U.S. review belong to the very European people and politicians whose support for an Iranian excursion is being sought by the administration. That support, always unlikely, would appear to be nonexistent now given this latest demonstration of the administration's total disregard for their laws and property.
One can only imagine how Americans would shriek in understandable fury if it were the United Nations or the Chinese going through their financial transactions with a fine-toothed comb. The SWIFT program is a useless, ill-conceived and ultimately dangerous abuse of power by a government so heavily dependent upon foreigners financing its gargantuan debts.
International terrorism requires little financing, but a spendthrift government requires an almost unthinkable amount on a daily basis. The New York Times did well to report on how the Bush administration is running the foolish risk of infuriating those who finance its fiscally irresponsible ways in nominal pursuit of terrorists it will never catch.
Vox Day is a novelist and Christian libertarian. He is a member of the SFWA, Mensa and the Southern Baptist church, and has been down with Madden since 1992. Visit his Web log, Vox Popoli, for daily commentary and responses to reader email.
