Why no threads about treasonous New York Times revealing national secrets again?

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Should they have decided on the acceptability of the Normandy landings? The atom bomb?

Yes, in the sense of whether or not their country should be at war.

Your country did not want to fight at first, and American made the decision to avoid fighting Germany based on the a wide range of information available to them.

My country looked at that information and decided to join the fight against Nazism.

Each reached a different decision, but the decision was made by the people, not the generals.

In May 1944, most people knew the allies were planning to invade France. It was the details of the invasion that was important, and kept secret. The NYT story does not provide details that allows terrorists to undermine the monitoring program.

What the administration is doing now is effectively saying the NYT are traitors for reporting that the atomic bomb has been developed and used. That's just a ridiculous spin by the White House boys.

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


... just like the terrorists.

You remind me of the doomsbury cartoon where everytime the some one asks the president about anything, he respond: 9/11

Deficit? 9/11. Invasion of privacy? 9/11. Illegal arrests? 9/11.

Get it?

[Kuciwalker]

I answered with the word terrorists! I must be wrong!

Clearly, the fact that "terrorism" is an abused excuse means that it can't ever justify anything...

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Tingkai
Yes, in the sense of whether or not their country should be at war.

We already made the decision about the "War on Terror."

What the administration is doing now is effectively saying the NYT are traitors for reporting that the atomic bomb has been developed and used. That's just a ridiculous spin by the White House boys.

Eh, the difference is that Japan realized that the atom bomb had been used, and in fact we wanted them to know. If we have to use these analogies, it's more like advertising that Enigma has been broken...

Regardless, it's really very simple: the NYT article was newsworthy to the same degree that it was damaging.

[Ramo]

That analogy would be valid if you could demonstrate how this article tells terrorists anything of use that the Bush Admin doesn't already trumpet.

And just because you don't find the particular mechanism interesting, doesn't make it not newsworthy. The world actually does not revolve around you.

[Kuciwalker]

nice strawman. It has nothing to do with how interesting it is (to whom?), it has to do with the information revealed. The information revealed is damaging to the same degree that it is actually news (i.e. not already known by everyone).

[Kuciwalker]

To poke another hole in che's OMG! Republicans! streak:

Earlier this year I interviewed Jonathan Winer, an international law enforcement guy from State (under Clinton; Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Law Enforcement) and this is exactly the sort of program he would approve of (and disapprove of the NYT leaking). Incidentally, he was also Kerry's chief debate coach in '04.

[Ramo]

It's not a strawman. This is really, really simple.

Monitoring of terrorists' international finances is not news to anyone paying attention. Particularly not the folks most affected, i.e. terrorist financiers. Hell, the Bush Admin has been trumpetting it for a while. As I pointed out, in the runup to the '04 election, the Bush Admin bragged that it intercepted almots $150 million in terrorist finances. However, the particular mechanism, SWIFT, is news, but the particular mechanism doesn't give the terrorists any useful information.

You claimed that, then:

"Knowledge of the specific mechanism isn't particularly useful to us, either, then."

As I pointed out in the previous post, the particular mechanism may or may not have legal or privacy issues. Therefore, this news is of use to policy makers and voters, and in this vein I find this news of interest to me.

And more fundamentally, news is about interest to the newsreading public, not necessarily use. To claim that news must be "useful" is inane.

[Ramo]

Stop pussying out, and make an argument. Do you find the leak damaging? And justify yourself.

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
I answered with the word terrorists! I must be wrong!

No, you're just pointless.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
The point is, can you trust anything a Republican says these days? Seriously.

Can we trust Democrats like Lee Hamilton and Johm Murtha who pleaded with the Times to stay quiet then?

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
You keep making this argument and it's equally stupid each time. OMFG A REPUBLICAN SAID IT therefore it must be false!

It probably is. They've cried wolf too many times to be believed.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Ramo
If the terrorists are supposedly too lazy to listen to pay attention Bush bragging about his monitoring of terrorists' financial networks and the vast sums of money that he says that he has intercepted (and presumably word of mouth from their colleagues who notice this happening to their money), why exactly should an NYT article to the same effect make any difference?

Agreed. This is just a game for the right wing to dispaqrage the media. Bush uses it to boost his campaign and it is ok but if the media publishes the same stuff then they are evil, evil, evil. That some people can't figure this out speaks volumes about them.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Then why run it as front page news simultaneously on several national newspapers? By your reasoning, I ought to see "SKY IS BLUE" above the fold on tomorrows WaPo.

You've asked the same question three times as if you don't expect to get the same response. Al Qaeda knew about this years ago because they noticed their money wasn't making it to where they sent it but the general public didn't know about these programs. The people who knew about these programs were the people who really paid attention to the news. Unfortunately the people who pay attention area minority.

The New York Times article and the LA Times article were for the common man who doesn't pay attention.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Ramo
As I pointed out in the previous post, the particular mechanism may or may not have legal or privacy issues. Therefore, this news is of use to policy makers and voters, and in this vein I find this news of interest to me.

First, as a tangent, IIRC there's no privacy issues because it's banking, which isn't protected [from the government] by privacy rules.

Second, is a revalation that the government is doing what you knew it was doing any use to you at all? If revealing the mechanism doesn't give the terrorists any usable information... how would it give any to you?

And more fundamentally, news is about interest to the newsreading public, not necessarily use. To claim that news must be "useful" is inane.

Front page news in major national news organizations tends to be "useful." It's the celebrity crap in the Style section that fits the category you're describing which leads to my last point:

Stop pussying out, and make an argument. Do you find the leak damaging? And justify yourself.

I actually agree with Tingkai - the average American assumes that we are capable of doing this, but isn't sure if we actually are doing it. Since I doubt the terrorists have much in the way of spies in the federal government (except, by proxy, the NYT's), they probably had roughly the same idea. Now they know that we're doing it, and how.

President Merkin Muffley: But this is absolute madness, Ambassador! Why should you *build* such a thing?

Ambassador de Sadesky: There were those of us who fought against it, but in the end we could not keep up with the expense involved in the arms race, the space race, and the peace race. At the same time our people grumbled for more nylons and washing machines. Our doomsday scheme cost us just a small fraction of what we had been spending on defense in a single year. The deciding factor was when we learned that your country was working along similar lines, and we were afraid of a doomsday gap.

President Merkin Muffley: This is preposterous. I've never approved of anything like that.

Ambassador de Sadesky: Our source was the New York Times.