Free Republic

Because the war on terror is fought in a peacetime atmosphere, treason can be presented as dissent, and you can get away with it. Case in point is the energetic pursuit, and publication, of U.S. intelligence gathering techniques, by the American media. The latest one was the reporting of how the U.S. has been analyzing international bank wire transfers. This apparently led to the capture of several prominent terrorists, especially in Southeast Asia. But to opponents of the war, this is an assault on civil liberties, attacks they consider more dangerous than potential terrorist violence. Earlier scoops revealed to terrorists...

This is a WorldNetDaily printer-friendly version of the article which follows. To view this item online, visit http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=50883 Monday, July 3, 2006 In defense of the New York Times Posted: July 3, 20061:00 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 It is a pompous, outdated media organization that combines a dedication to poisonous ideology with a predilection for mediocre art and faux eurostylism.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...

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) HOWARD KURTZ, HOST (voice-over): Targeting the "Times." George Bush, Dick Cheney and an army of conservative critics rip the "New York Times" for disclosing a secret program for monitoring the banking records of terror suspects. Did editor Bill Keller go too far, or is the White House just bashing the media for political gain? And why have the "Los Angeles Times" and "Wall Street Journal" have been given a pass for publishing similar stories? The co-author of the "New York Times" story, Eric Lichtblau, joins our discussion. Bloggers go mainstream. Hillary Clinton is the latest Democrat to hire...

The top editor of the New York Times remains unrepentant about publishing stories exposing national security intelligence programs, saying he would do it again. "I think it's useful for us to discuss, to know about how our government is waging this war to protect us," said Bill Keller, executive editor of the Times, on CBS' "Face the Nation" program. "This was a case where clearly the terrorists or the people who finance terrorism know quite well, because the Treasury Department and the White House have talked openly about it, that they monitor international banking transactions. It's not news to the...

The top editor of the New York Times said if he had it to do again, he would still publish his newspaper's controversial expose of a secret program monitoring global bank transfers, despite outrage from the Republican White House and members of Congress. Speaking on CBS television's "Face The Nation" program Sunday, Times executive editor Bill Keller said he did not regret his decision to run the story, which was condemned on Thursday in a vote by the Republican-led House of Representatives in a non-binding resolution. "I think it's useful for us to discuss, to know about how our government...

The battle of Midway Island was the turning point of the Pacific War. Victory at Midway was possible because the U.S. had broken the Japanese naval code. The Chicago Tribune spilled the beans in a story that ran under the headline: "NAVY HAD WORD OF JAP PLAN TO STRIKE AT SEA." President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was furious. He knew that if the Japanese read the story, they'd suspect their codes were compromised, and change them. The president "initially was disposed to send in the Marines to shut down Tribune tower," wrote Harry Evans. "He was talked out of that, then...

You could call it “Treason Central,” or “al Qaeda West,” but no matter what you call it, the building housing the once-august New York Times at 229 West 43rd St. in New York City is a beehive of anti-American hostility, where selling out the nation’s secrets has become the newspaper’s stock in trade. This latest episode of the Times revealing information vital to the government’s ability to protect the American people from new 9/11s is just another example of the Times’ contempt for the security of the people of the United States of America in a time of war. To...

You could call it "Treason Central," or "al-Qaida West," but no matter what you call it, the building housing the once-august New York Times at 229 West 43rd Street in New York City is a beehive of anti-American hostility, where selling out the nation's secrets has become the newspaper's stock in trade. This latest episode of the Times revealing information vital to the government's ability to protect the American people from new 9/11s is just another example of the Times' contempt for the security of the people of the United States of America in a time of war. To say...

POLL TO FREEP Do you believe that The New York Times, L.A. Times and The Wall Street Journal SWIFT reports put at risk our national security? Yes 22% No 78%

All the Classified Info That's Fit to Discloseby James LileksIt seems as if The New York Times is revealing all our national security secrets. But relax -- they have their limits. If The Times learned that U.S. troops were force-feeding Gitmo detainees with Coca-Cola, they wouldn't publish Coke's secret formula. They might get sued. If there's a CIA program that uses offensive cartoons of Muhammad to communicate with agents, they'll keep mum, lest they have to publish the images. But secret law-enforcement-type programs as classified as the access code to The Times' top-floor elevator? Fair game. You've got the right...

This is a vanity post. As everyone knows, the NY Times recently published an article describing, in detail, a classified program intended to inhibit terrorist financing. Post your letters to the NY Times (letters@nytimes.com) and Exec. Editor Bill Keller below and we'll get a nice collection going!

Because we don’t know, Jack …* On the Monday, June 26 edition of CNN’s “Situation Room,” hosted by Wolf Blitzer, New York Times editor in chief Bill Keller discussed the newspaper’s decision to publish last week details of a secret U.S. Government program to track terrorist financing. Here’s a part of the exchange: KELLER: To the best of my knowledge, three people outside of the administration were asked by the administration to call us. I spoke to one of them. One of them spoke to our Washington bureau chief. One of them spoke to Jill Abramson, our managing editor. All...

Two prominent former newsman for The New York Times, Max Frankel and Alex Jones, came out in defense of their old employer's recent disclosure of a secret bank monitoring program, saying the continued attacks on the paper are unfair and misplaced. Frankel, who served as executive editor from 1986 to 1994 and held other posts in Washington and Moscow, called the recent criticism an "outburst of Agnewism," while Jones, a onetime press reporter for the paper and current director of the Shorenstein Center at Harvard University, said this was "an important moment for the watchdog press in wartime." <> Today,...

Congress authorized the program. Whereas the defense of other recently disclosed surveillance programs may depend in part on the president's authority to act in the face of congressional silence or disapproval, defense of the TFTP is simplified by Congress's express statutory authorization of the president to conduct this program. The International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA) expressly affords the president power to investigate international financial transactions, including those of non-foreign persons, pursuant to a declared state of emergency. Section 1702(a)(2) empowers the president to compel production of such financial transactions, via administrative subpoenas. The president certainly has satisfied...

A civil liberties group on Wednesday asked 32 national governments to block the release of confidential financial records to U.S. authorities as part of American anti-terrorist probes. London-based watchdog Privacy International demanded a halt to the "completely unacceptable" monitoring of millions of transactions as part of a CIA-U.S. Treasury program. The Treasury has acknowledged that since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks it has tracked millions of financial transactions handled by the Belgium-based Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or SWIFT. Both SWIFT and the U.S. authorities say records were subpoenaed as part of targeted investigations into suspected terrorist activity....

Rights unit challenges U.S. over bank data By Dan Bilefsky International Herald Tribune Published: June 27, 2006 BRUSSELS A human rights group in London said Tuesday that it had lodged complaints in 32 countries against a banking consortium in Brussels, contending that it violated European and Asian data protection rules by providing the United States with confidential information about international money transfers. Simon Davies, director of Privacy International, said the organization filed the complaints with the data protection authorities with the aim of halting what it called "illegal transfers" of private information to the United States by the Society for...

Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt has ordered a probe into whether a Brussels-based banking consortium broke the law when it provided US anti-terror authorities with confidential information about international money transfers. The consortium known as SWIFT – society for worldwide inter-bank financial telecommunications – was brought into the limelight when the New York Times last week reported that officials from the CIA, the FBI and other US agencies had since 2001 been allowed to inspect the transfers. Prime minister Guy Verhofstadt asked the Belgian justice ministry on Monday (26 June) to investigate whether SWIFT acted illegally in allowing US...

Over the last year, The New York Times has twice published reports about secret antiterrorism programs being run by the Bush administration. Both times, critics have claimed that the paper was being unpatriotic or even aiding the terrorists. Some have even suggested that it should be indicted under the Espionage Act. There have been a handful of times in American history when the government has indeed tried to prosecute journalists for publishing things it preferred to keep quiet. None of them turned out well — from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the time when the government tried to enjoin...

House Republican leaders are expected to introduce a resolution today condemning The New York Times for publishing a story last week that exposed government monitoring of banking records. The resolution is expected to condemn the leak and publication of classified documents, said one Republican aide with knowledge of the impending legislation. The resolution comes as Republicans from the president on down condemn media organizations for reporting on the secret government program that tracked financial records overseas through the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT), an international banking cooperative.

Letter to the Editors of The New York Times by Treasury Secretary SnowMr. Bill Keller, Managing EditorThe New York Times229 West 43rd Street New York, NY 10036 Dear Mr. Keller:The New York Times' decision to disclose the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program, a robust and classified effort to map terrorist networks through the use of financial data, was irresponsible and harmful to the security of Americans and freedom-loving people worldwide. In choosing to expose this program, despite repeated pleas from high-level officials on both sides of the aisle, including myself, the Times undermined a highly successful counter-terrorism program and alerted terrorists...