Thanks to the NYT, we may never see headlines like this again: "Alleged Home-Grown Terror Plot Foiled"
In the past few weeks, we've been very successful in our efforts to nab suspected terrorists:
And now, another terror plot has been uncovered in Miami, Florida. According to the FBI, the suspects may have targeted the Sears Tower in Chicago as well as other government offices. Michelle Malkin is reporting that the suspects arrested in Florida are blacks who are converts to radical Islam. The "Beltway Sniper," John Allen Muhammad, was a prison convert to radical Islam as well. Remember him?
Bush-bashers and civil libertarians have angrily questioned the administration's targeting of US citizens in their terror probes. Yet people like John Allen Muhammad are a reminder that even US citizens can become corrupted by radical Islam, and therefore become a grave danger to the rest of us.
But if you're concerned about how far the government can go in order to investigate potential terror suspects, your days of worry may soon be over. Thanks to the New York Times -- which has already published leaked details of the federal government's efforts to mine international phone call data for terror clues -- yet another government program designed to track terrorists has been sandbagged: Bank Data Sifted In Secret by U.S. To Block Terror.
Did the program work?
[The program] has provided clues to money trails and ties between possible terrorists and groups financing them, the officials said. In some instances, they said, the program has pointed them to new suspects, while in others it has buttressed cases already under investigation.
Among the successes was the capture of a Qaeda operative, Riduan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali, believed to be the mastermind of the 2002 bombing of a Bali resort, several officials said. The Swift data identified a previously unknown figure in Southeast Asia who had financial dealings with a person suspected of being a member of Al Qaeda; that link helped locate Hambali in Thailand in 2003, they said.
In the United States, the program has provided financial data in investigations into possible domestic terrorist cells as well as inquiries of Islamic charities with suspected of having links to extremists, the officials said.
The data also helped identify a Brooklyn man who was convicted on terrorism-related charges last year, the officials said. The man, Uzair Paracha, who worked at a New York import business, aided a Qaeda operative in Pakistan by agreeing to launder $200,000 through a Karachi bank, prosecutors said.
And there's also this:
The Bush administration has made no secret of its campaign to disrupt terrorist financing, and President Bush, Treasury officials and others have spoken publicly about those efforts. Administration officials, however, asked The New York Times not to publish this article, saying that disclosure of the Swift program could jeopardize its effectiveness. They also enlisted several current and former officials, both Democrat and Republican, to vouch for its value.
But Pulitzers apparently trump public safety. So the Times blabbed. What's more, The Times never questions the legality of the program; they simply assert that divulging this information is "in the public interest." Incredible. And very, very disturbing.
There is now no question about the fact that newspapers like the NYT believe that the path to journalistic excellence is to expose and destroy as many facets of the Bush Administration as possible. If a Democrat is elected president in 2008, it will be interesting to see if the NYT extends this treasonous discourtesy to that administration as well.
So now we are left with a serious question: Is it more "in the public interest" to use every available means to identify and capture suspected terrorists before they strike, or is it more "in the public interest" to let men like John Allen Muhammad slip through the cracks and hold our cities in a grip of terror.
Obviously the latter option will yield more sensational headlines. But at what cost?
Added: Now the NYT is publishing "classified" troop deployment information. Rep. Peter King isn't amused with the Times, and wants criminal charges filed.
Blogger Jeff Goldstein makes a point worth repeating:
[W]hat is most ironic about these leak stories is that dubious decision-making by today’s “adversarial” media will doubtless create a climate in which it is far more likely that future administrations will take extraordinary measures to keep information secret. All because some in the press have forgotten that with access and freedom comes great responsibility ... And in the long-run, we could find ourselves less informed because of it. Which is a net negative for a truly free society. (emphasis added)
More: Michelle Malkin's roundup, and a collection of angry letters from steamed readers.
UPDATE 6-23-06 - Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff agrees with Jeff Goldstein:
"Not only have these individual releases of classified stuff been damaging, but in the aggregate, it has led to a general impression that nothing is a secret and that causes people to ever more closely hold the information," Chertoff told The Examiner in his Washington office on Friday. "That's having a real damaging effect."
The damage is particularly acute at the White House, Chertoff said.
"You actually deprive the decision makers and the president of the ability to get the full range of advice because - if the president has to worry that talking to people who have important things to say is going to result in something getting out - he's not going to have that conversation.
"And that's going to drive exactly the kind of insularity that the press claims they don't like," he said. (emphasis added)
And make sure you check out Michelle Malkin's gallery of photoshopped WWII propaganda posters.
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