Continued Hollow Outrage over the Patriotic New York Times
Boy, Dave sure is pissed at the New York Times.
After taking a column off to champion liberal causes, Dave returns, in his latest column, to New York Times-bashing. Using language employed by President Bush, who called the New York Times "disgraceful," Dave calls the Times' disclosure of the Swift program, which secretly tracks millions of international financial transactions, during wartime a "crime."
Boy, Dave and other conservatives really want this Swift controversy to be there version of Plamegate one year later, don't they? Perhpas it's because they feel they can never go wrong with controversies that involve "Swift" in the title, but this is too much. One summer ago, all everyone could talk about was whether or not Karl Rove or other higher-ups in the Bush administration had outed the identity of an undercover CIA agent, Valerie Plame, to Washington Post columnist Robert Novak in political retaliation for Plame's husband, Joe Wilson, for writing a critical 2003 op-ed piece in the New York Times of the Bush administration's case for war in Iraq. Lest anyone forogt, Novak published Valerie's name, and she became the most highly visible undercover CIA agent ever, jeopardizing her efforts to curtail nuclear weapon proliferation in the Middle East, and endangering the lives of CIA agents on the ground during a time of war. But to the Bush apologists, what Rove, Novak, and the indicted Scooter Libby did or didn't do doesn't equal a "crime." Instead, it was Wilson and his wife who were targeted by the right, saying that the White House shouldn't have been discusing that "stripe" of people, and that Joe Wilson had some "'splaining" as to how his wife got into this mess. Indeed, conservatives' cries to trie and execute Times executive editor Bill Keller sounds similar to Wilson's wishes to see Karl Rove "frog-marched" out of the White House in hand-cuffs.
And now the right professes outrage that the New York Times- as well as the Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times- has revealed that the governemnt has been examining millions of Americans' finanical records without any oversight or anyone's knowledge? Oh, what hollow outrage, indeed.
One year later, there's not that much public buzz about these financial transaction revelations. There is no Swiftgate to rival last summer's blockbuster Plamegate. Oh sure, you have the hard-core apologists from Hillsboro and other red parts of the country writing letters to the editor demanding criminal charges be placed against the liberal "elites" at the Times. But then you have Richard A. Clarke and Roger W. Cressey, former counterterrorism officials under Presidents Clinton and Dubya, inform us in a June 30, 2005 New York Times op-ed that the financial transactions were a "secret the terrorists already knew." In that piece, Clarke and Cressey write:
And, for some reason, I would put more stock into the words of two former counterterrorism experts than from some hick from Hillsboro, but that's just me.
So terorrists aren't even using the methods that are being tracked under the Swift program. Oh sure, Dave may point out that the "government started talking about monitoring international banking right after 9/11" and then the Bali bomber was caught in 2003, as well as a Brooklyn man picked up in 2003 and charged with terror charges. However, what Dave doesn't offer any evidence for is that these men were caught with the Swift program. Just having two sentences next to each other doesn't connote a cause-and-effect pattern. Instead it merely offers the flimsiest of cases.
Dave asks, rhetorically: if the terrorists knew about the finanical monitoring because the government talked openly about it, why then did the government urge the Times not to run the story? Obviously because the government wanted continued unfettered access to millions of individuals' financial records with little or no oversight. Ostensibly, it's to "fight terrorists" and if you and I aren't terrorists then we shouldn't worry too much about our finanical records being looked at, right? Well, that's the same thing the government said about the wiretapping revelations- "it's only when one party is overseas" became "its only domestic calls when someone associated with al Qaida is involved" to "okay we have a large databnak of millions of phone records- so what?" And we're supposed to trust these guys with our bank records?
I'll tell you why this is front page news, Dave, since you're so inclined to ask. I, for one, had no idea that the government had unfettered access to my bank records. Though there may not be much there for the government to look at, and I guess I shouldn't be too surprised that they grabbed this authority, the fact that there is no oversight on this program is chilling. It could be argued that in a day of near constant surveillance, with a camera on every block and in every store, we shouldn't be worried about giving up any more privacy. I'd argue the flip side. In such an age, shouldn't we demand to hold onto the last vestige of what amounted to privacy in America? I am not a terrorist. The government should not be allowed to examine mine, or any of my neighbors', financial records unchecked. That's why it's front page news.
In the last half-year, due to various stories broken in the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and, yes, the Wall Street Journal we have learned that our government has done the following: listened in on American's phone calls without a warrant; practiced "extraordinary rendition" sending prisoners, sometimes foreign citizens, to other countries to be tortured; gathered phone record data from nearly every major phone company to compile a large database; and, now, that the government has been examining millions of Americans' financial transactions. All of this has been lacking any oversight whatsoever.
Well, not whatsoever. It's quite clear that the New York Times and the rest of the media has been providing oversight by informing the public of essential information regarding far-reaching programs that infringe on the lives of nearly every American. Its obvious that the media was hood-winked into supporting Dubya's disastrous Iraqi Adventure, and they are now willing to take principled stances by reporting on the excesses of an arrogant administration that is entirely dismisive of the Constitution. Is there anything more patriotic than the New York Times?
After taking a column off to champion liberal causes, Dave returns, in his latest column, to New York Times-bashing. Using language employed by President Bush, who called the New York Times "disgraceful," Dave calls the Times' disclosure of the Swift program, which secretly tracks millions of international financial transactions, during wartime a "crime."
Boy, Dave and other conservatives really want this Swift controversy to be there version of Plamegate one year later, don't they? Perhpas it's because they feel they can never go wrong with controversies that involve "Swift" in the title, but this is too much. One summer ago, all everyone could talk about was whether or not Karl Rove or other higher-ups in the Bush administration had outed the identity of an undercover CIA agent, Valerie Plame, to Washington Post columnist Robert Novak in political retaliation for Plame's husband, Joe Wilson, for writing a critical 2003 op-ed piece in the New York Times of the Bush administration's case for war in Iraq. Lest anyone forogt, Novak published Valerie's name, and she became the most highly visible undercover CIA agent ever, jeopardizing her efforts to curtail nuclear weapon proliferation in the Middle East, and endangering the lives of CIA agents on the ground during a time of war. But to the Bush apologists, what Rove, Novak, and the indicted Scooter Libby did or didn't do doesn't equal a "crime." Instead, it was Wilson and his wife who were targeted by the right, saying that the White House shouldn't have been discusing that "stripe" of people, and that Joe Wilson had some "'splaining" as to how his wife got into this mess. Indeed, conservatives' cries to trie and execute Times executive editor Bill Keller sounds similar to Wilson's wishes to see Karl Rove "frog-marched" out of the White House in hand-cuffs.
And now the right professes outrage that the New York Times- as well as the Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times- has revealed that the governemnt has been examining millions of Americans' finanical records without any oversight or anyone's knowledge? Oh, what hollow outrage, indeed.
One year later, there's not that much public buzz about these financial transaction revelations. There is no Swiftgate to rival last summer's blockbuster Plamegate. Oh sure, you have the hard-core apologists from Hillsboro and other red parts of the country writing letters to the editor demanding criminal charges be placed against the liberal "elites" at the Times. But then you have Richard A. Clarke and Roger W. Cressey, former counterterrorism officials under Presidents Clinton and Dubya, inform us in a June 30, 2005 New York Times op-ed that the financial transactions were a "secret the terrorists already knew." In that piece, Clarke and Cressey write:
Terrorists have for many years employed nontraditional communications and money transfers- including the ancient Middle Eastern hawala system, involving couriers and a loosely linked network of money brokers- precisely because they assume that international calls, e-mail and banking are monitored not only by the United States but by Britain, France, Israel, Russia and even many third-world countries.
And, for some reason, I would put more stock into the words of two former counterterrorism experts than from some hick from Hillsboro, but that's just me.
So terorrists aren't even using the methods that are being tracked under the Swift program. Oh sure, Dave may point out that the "government started talking about monitoring international banking right after 9/11" and then the Bali bomber was caught in 2003, as well as a Brooklyn man picked up in 2003 and charged with terror charges. However, what Dave doesn't offer any evidence for is that these men were caught with the Swift program. Just having two sentences next to each other doesn't connote a cause-and-effect pattern. Instead it merely offers the flimsiest of cases.
Dave asks, rhetorically: if the terrorists knew about the finanical monitoring because the government talked openly about it, why then did the government urge the Times not to run the story? Obviously because the government wanted continued unfettered access to millions of individuals' financial records with little or no oversight. Ostensibly, it's to "fight terrorists" and if you and I aren't terrorists then we shouldn't worry too much about our finanical records being looked at, right? Well, that's the same thing the government said about the wiretapping revelations- "it's only when one party is overseas" became "its only domestic calls when someone associated with al Qaida is involved" to "okay we have a large databnak of millions of phone records- so what?" And we're supposed to trust these guys with our bank records?
I'll tell you why this is front page news, Dave, since you're so inclined to ask. I, for one, had no idea that the government had unfettered access to my bank records. Though there may not be much there for the government to look at, and I guess I shouldn't be too surprised that they grabbed this authority, the fact that there is no oversight on this program is chilling. It could be argued that in a day of near constant surveillance, with a camera on every block and in every store, we shouldn't be worried about giving up any more privacy. I'd argue the flip side. In such an age, shouldn't we demand to hold onto the last vestige of what amounted to privacy in America? I am not a terrorist. The government should not be allowed to examine mine, or any of my neighbors', financial records unchecked. That's why it's front page news.
In the last half-year, due to various stories broken in the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and, yes, the Wall Street Journal we have learned that our government has done the following: listened in on American's phone calls without a warrant; practiced "extraordinary rendition" sending prisoners, sometimes foreign citizens, to other countries to be tortured; gathered phone record data from nearly every major phone company to compile a large database; and, now, that the government has been examining millions of Americans' financial transactions. All of this has been lacking any oversight whatsoever.
Well, not whatsoever. It's quite clear that the New York Times and the rest of the media has been providing oversight by informing the public of essential information regarding far-reaching programs that infringe on the lives of nearly every American. Its obvious that the media was hood-winked into supporting Dubya's disastrous Iraqi Adventure, and they are now willing to take principled stances by reporting on the excesses of an arrogant administration that is entirely dismisive of the Constitution. Is there anything more patriotic than the New York Times?
posted by true_slicky at 6:14 PM
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