Posted on 07/18/2008 5:04:08 PM PDT by Laverne
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has sent a letter to the New York Times, protesting the paper's naming of a former CIA anti-terrorism interrogator. The CIA had objected to revealing of the man's name, but the Times decided to go ahead anyway. There was a case a while back in which many on the left became very upset about the revelation of a CIA employee's name. So far, that does not seem to be happening in this case.
In any event, this is the letter from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to the Times:
In late June, The Times ran a story about a former Central Intelligence Agency interrogator who, in the words of its public editor, “used shrewd psychology, not rough stuff, to get Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, to talk” (“Weighing the Risk,” Clark Hoyt, July 6, 2008). The Times published the interrogator’s name over the objections of his lawyers and the CIA, who fear for his safety.
In supporting this decision, The Times’ public editor invoked “the public’s right to know.” But this was a conclusion, not a premise. Unfortunately neither The Times nor its public editor has examined this asserted public interest with the same appetite they displayed for examining and discounting the interrogator’s interest in his own safety. So let’s correct the balance.
The public editor cited two reasons to publish the name. First, the reporter said that “using the name was necessary for credibility.” Really? Great stories are often told using pseudonyms, and The Times frequently withholds attributions from its stories. It generally does so for good reasons that its readers understand.
What The Times may have meant is that by using the man’s real name, the story would be a better read. I doubt it. But if so, The Times was weighing the man’s safety against a literary interest, not the public interest. The second asserted reason for publishing the man’s real name, tossed off in the last sentence of the public editor’s four-column piece, was to avoid hobbling news organizations “when trying to tell the public about some of the government’s most important and controversial actions.” This is nonsense. The Times was going to tell the public about these interrogations whether the interrogator’s name was used or not.
On the other side of the balance, the public editor cited the case of another interrogator who, when his name was made public, suffered more than a dozen death threats, had his house put under police guard, and was told to take his family out of the country till the affair blew over. In the public editor’s own words, he also “lost his job with a major accounting firm because executives expressed fear that Al Qaeda could attack its offices to get him ...”
These are substantial prices to pay for outing an identity. By publishing this interrogator’s real name, The Times put him at risk for similar treatment – and worse.
Journalists face difficult decisions every day about the prudence of publishing private information. But in this case the decision to out the individual had nothing to do with the media’s responsibility to inform the public about important government policies or actions.
The Times also trivialized the risk to the man by putting him to the impossible burden of showing with near certainty that he would be harmed. This was morally confused. This man and many others like him undertake difficult, dangerous, and lawful missions on behalf of their country, and they deserve better from The Times.
The very same NY Times that had menopausal hyper-hystrionics over the utterly fake Vallary Flame hoax.
The dishonesty and treason of the NY Times reaches a new low.
When, oh when, will this rag close its doors for good?
Yup; soon I think it will be all over for them; there should have been by now a rebellion of the stock holders and there should have been an abandonment of all advertisers after the NYTimes gave our secrets to the enemy. They are killing themselves slowly....
A newspaper that once had a good reputation is now in the pits by its own hand. It has earned the disrespect of all americans.
I understand the reason is to give credibility to partisans who would undermine the story if their names were used.
Rough night at the gay bars.
The NYSlimes is little more than the propaganda wing of the DNC.
20 million would be a good settlement..
Great post.
This is NOT news.
1. They do this EVERY week.
2. Nobody in the present gov’t cares.
3. goto number 1
Why isn't someone at the Times prosecuted like Scooter Libby (wrongfully) was ?
Until we start holding them accountable for aiding and abbeting the enemy, we are not serious about winning.
We need the name and addresses of all NY Times reporters and editors posted on the internet also!
This is especially true of reporters who leak Top Secret Info!
I would love to see that.
And why not, doesn’t the public have a “right to know” the names of traitors? Especially the names of traitors?
Absolutely!
Especially Traitors! Let them worry about their safety too!
And when someone revealed the name of a CIA employee who drove through the front gate of Langley every day, suggested a bogus trip to Niger to undermine the Bush administration, and was mentioned in Who’s Who as the wife of the person making the bogus trip, the NYT had a fit and demanded federal prosecution.
Exactly what I was going to post.
direct link to the article:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZjU1ODhlNDYzNDg4NGI4ODYzMmE3NDRhMjc1ODQ2MTU=
Should be “know a lot more about...”
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