One has to hand it to the big media outlets like the New York Times. They can simultaneously take the position that certain leaks relating to national security must be exposed for public consumption and that others are vital breaks in national security worthy of investigations and prosecutions. And never shall they meet. Yet, it is the Times itself that gets to make that decision, not the government. Curious, but the New York Times isn't mentioned in the Constitution, nor is it one of the branches of government. So, its actions in determining what to tell the public, not to mention when it decided to tell the public, are suspect as to its intentions. One has to wonder whether the leaks, and their subsequent publication has more to do with ideology than any specific program and purported civil liberties or problematic national security operations.
In the first instance, the Times and other big domestic media outlets played up the fact that Valerie Plame's name was somehow leaked to the media, and that this leak was a violation of federal law. It was surmised that the leak had to be someone high up in the Bush Administration, so that the leak would hamstring the Administration going forward. Thus far, the Fitzgerald investigation has turned up no facts substantiating that there was in fact criminal leak - only that Scooter Libby's memory is not only rusty, but contradicts the memories of a journalist and that those contradictions hampered the investigation.
This situation -
the Plame Affair - even included a contempt of court charge against Judy Miller who refused to divulge her sources on the matter, and spent 85 days in jail before finally working with the prosecutor when she received 'permission' from her source to talk (and has since 'retired' from the New York Times).
Never mind the fact that Plame's name was freely available and fungible among the various journalists working the White House and intelligence community beat. Or that Plame's
five year old son spilled the beans to a reporter while heading to a vacation. It just worked into the meme that the Bush Administration was overstepping its bounds and needed to be put in its place.
So, up pops the next set of leaks less than a month ago* [that's when the story was published in the NYT- which apparently sat on the story for about a year, but I'll get to that in a moment]. Only that these ones are far more egregious and serious. Someone leaked word about NSA programs designed to intercept terrorist communications to individuals here in the US to several New York Times writers, including budding author James Risen. The programs were based on work done in earlier Administrations, including a secret program called Echelon. The whole point of the NSA is to monitor conversations around the world and develop intel on those seeking to do harm to US interests worldwide. That means, if they spotted some terrorist talking on a cell phone in Kandahar, Afghanistan to a second individual in Bonn, Germany, who had three-wayed a person in the US, the NSA wants to know this information. It might even be crucial to not only ferreting out a terrorist plot against this country, but potential links to other terrorist operatives, funding and financing, as well as operational details on what and how the terrorists are planning.
Now, the Times pushed this story as one of Bush purposefully evading the law to spy on American citizens, even though the entire purpose of the program was to hone in on those individuals being contacted from overseas by known or suspected terrorists. Most Americans realized that this was an eminently sensible thing to do since the failure to connect all the dots played a role in the intel failures surrounding the 9/11 terrorist attacks, but the Times continues to press on with its story.
Yet, it was only later revealed that the Times sat on this story for more than a year, and that it rushed the story to print after one of the co-authors, James Risen, was launching his book. The Times didn't want to be scooped by its own journalist and ran the story. In turn, Risen launched his book even earlier than first indicated.
Byron Calame, the NYT Public Editor was not happy with the stonewalling about the curious timing of the whole incident, not to mention the fact that no one at the Times wants to discuss the matter or answer any questions relating to the NSA story at all.
Apparently the NYT has better operational security than the NSA when it comes to leaks. Does anyone else think there's something wrong with that picture?
Others noting the discrepancies in how the media is covering leaks, whistleblowers, and classified information include
Michelle Malkin,
Cox and Forkum (who skewers Sen. Schumer whose appearance on the Sunday talk shows was an object lesson in splitting hairs on a bald guy, which is to say that Chuck took the clearly partisan approach instead of the legal, logical, or rational approach), and
Rick Moran.
Reliapundit notes that this situation is one that further exposes the anti-Administration/anti-war bias at the NYT, which has a spillover effect on both the framing of the issues, and what people learn and understand about the issues involved.
Curiously, the Left continues to somehow think that this Administration
is somehow above the law. Thus far, the only folks who appear to be above the law are those individuals leaking classified information to the press.
None of the leakers have apparently engaged in any of the necessary and proper steps to being a whistleblower. There
is federal law on what that entails, and going to the New York Times is clearly
not a part of the process. In fact,
18 USC 798 expressly prohibits leaks of the type of classified information exploited in the New York Times articles. For those unaccustomed to legalese, here's the deal - if you break the law, you've committed a criminal act, and in this case, it's a pretty serious one. The penalty for violating this law is up to 10 years in prison and/or a fine. Not exactly a walk in the park. It's more like Federal 'pound me in the ass prison' for those
Office Space fans out there.
Assuming that you want to overlook the criminal acts involved in leaking this information and instead want to focus on what actually happened, you should get out your copy of the US Constitution. Apparently reading the US Constitution, which clearly gives the President the power to conduct war, is deemed insufficient by the Left to conduct spying that is part and parcel to the prosecution of a war. Somehow taking the actions to protect this country are not part of the Executive Branch's powers under the Constitution, but the rub is that there's nothing in the US Constitution that gives those powers to anyone else either. Congressional oversight, which isn't mandated in the US Constitution was undertaken by the Administration when dealing with the FISA courts and in those cases where the Administration believed that it did not have time to go before the court because of expediency and relevancy of the intel gathering. No where can anyone point out where and how the President
clearly broke the law. It surely isn't a violation of the Constitution to take prudent action to protect and defend the United States from enemies foreign and domestic. After all, on 9/11 the terrorists exploited intel failures to kill more than 3,000 people.
Instead, we're seeing the NYT leading a not-so-whispering campaign to try and persuade people into believing that the Administration lied, exceeded its Constitutional and legal authority by having the NSA doing what is was mandated to do all along (to spy on our enemies). They've called upon some legal experts who say that the Administration broke the law, but if it were so clear cut, every legal expert out there would conclude that this Administration did something wrong, and that it would cross party lines.
That simply isn't the case. Numerous constitutional and legal scholars have come out on
both sides of the controversy, which lends credence to the fact that reasonable minds can differ on the interpretation of the various laws involved, but it isn't so clear cut that there was any actual wrongdoing. Some, like Mark Levin point out that this is clearly part of the President's constitutional powers. Others, like Orin Kerr, think that the President may have run afoul of the FISA statutes, but even there, there's disagreement over who and what was involved. It's a fact specific inquiry, and given that we're dealing with a post 9/11 world, do we really want to side with the group that seeks to purposefully and deliberately limit the nation's ability to spy on terrorists around the world, especially those who contact individuals within the US because of some perceived threat to civil liberties?
