Loose Lips Sinks Ships
That’s the title of Salena Zito’s latest column. Consider it must reading. Here’s some of Salena’s best zingers:
When is it OK to sacrifice national security for personal gain or political one-upmanship? For the common-sense-challenged, the answer is: “Never.” In the years since Sept. 11, an odd assembly of Capitol Hill-types, their staffers and disgruntled federal employees from myriad intelligence agencies have played the “gotcha game” with the White House’s methods of protecting the citizenry.
The types of things that reporters are getting away with, at least thus far, wouldn’t have been tolerated during WWII. Giving the enemy information that will hurt our national security is unconscienable, of course. The Agenda Media, which has generally hated President Bush from Day One, appears to think there’s two exceptions to that rule: (a) if it’s something that’ll get them an award or (b) if it’ll hurt the Bush Administration. Of course, the likelihood of (a) happening is greatly enhanced if it involves (b).
Enabled by the media (which, by the way, have Ph.D.s in “gotcha”), they have become desensitized to the reasons some things must remain secret. They’re making secret-revealing an extreme sport.
Awhile back, a CNN reporter said that they considered themselves a reporter first and American second. It’s obvious that this contributes to this gotcha game. The bad part is that this ‘gotcha game’ puts American lives at risk.
Let’s not put all of this on the reporters’ shoulders, either. Blame must also be affixed to the editors and publishers, too, for letting this information find its way to print. While it’s true that alot of things that are classified that don’t need to be, it’s obvious that the NSA’s Terrorist Surveillance Program that the NY Times ‘broke’ and the CIA’s black sites story that the Washington Post’s Dana Priest won a Pulitzer for aren’t in the category of needlessly classified.
The CIA story, in particular, put our allies at risk of terrorist attacks. Didn’t Ms. Priest think that that should be the most important consideration? Doesn’t she care that these countries likely won’t help us again?
Have we as a nation forgotten the basics of the art of war? Are we so misguided as to believe that the ACLU will protect us better than the NSA in this era of terrorism? Intel techniques, which never should be made available for public consumption, provide an essential means for preventing new attacks on Americans’ lives. That’s “prevent attacks on Americans’ lives,” not “intrude on Americans’ lives.”
Ms. Zito, like alot of Americans, takes this type of mindset personally. And why shouldn’t she? This type of journalism is putting real people at risk. That fact seems lost on the Eric Lichtblaus, James Risens and Dana Priests of the world. They don’t care because their concern is about the story and the awards. Add in Risen’s book deal and it’s predictable what he’s most likely to care about. Don’t think it coincidence that the NSA story broke a week before Risen’s book was released. Let’s hope that Risen and his reporting compatriots noticed that the book isn’t selling very well.
Some people, in their lust to be dethroners of all things Bush, seem to forget why intel leaks from any government entity hold the potential for harm. Our enemies do learn things from leaks. Thanks to that little thing called the Internet, stories about the NSA can be read in some cave in Afghanistan.
These reporters don’t care if the things they report hurt national security, especially if they think the leaks will hurt President Bush. Let’s hope that the Justice Department cracks down on the reporters that put our nation at risk. If they get court-approved wiretaps to catch the villains, all the better. The irony would be delicious.
The fact is that the Bush Administration’s ratings would probably rise if they took down the reporters that put American lives at risk.
Technorati Tags: NSA, Dana Priest, James Risen, Eric Lichtblau, CIA
Cross-post at LetFreedomRingBlog
May 21st, 2006 at 4:41 pm
[...] Cross-posted at California Conservative Categories: National Security, Beltway Media, Terrorism, CIA | [...]
May 21st, 2006 at 5:13 pm
These reporters assured never a word to hurt the all mightily Slick Willie. How ironic that the democrats get their news from Fox News because they do not trust their own media – all the while denouncing Fox.
May 21st, 2006 at 6:38 pm
Classifying crimes on the part of government to avoid detection/prosecution of those crimes is, itself, a crime. So when the government is wiretapping illegally, committing war crimes and turning prisoners over to other countries to be tortured in violation of both U.S. and international law, don’t come whining to the Internets because some reporter wrote about it.
May 22nd, 2006 at 1:38 am
Let’s not put all of this on the reporters’ shoulders, either. Blame must also be affixed to the editors and publishers, too, for letting this information find its way to print. While it’s true that alot of things that are classified that don’t need to be, it’s obvious that the NSA’s Terrorist Surveillance Program that the NY Times ‘broke’ and the CIA’s black sites story that the Washington Post’s Dana Priest won a Pulitzer for aren’t in the category of needlessly classified.
wow.
the FAR less egregious of the two points above, first.
the “secret” prisons.
off the record (like you can do that on the Internet) I’d visit all the t.v. stations that originally broadcast his tapes, etc, and get the information that we need to get to capture u b l, for example.
But here’s the problem with the prisons. since we don’t really know who is a terrorist, and who is innocent, the torture thing is kind of uncool (also, remember, a lot of the Iraqi insurgents, as hard as this is to understand, and as misguided as they may have been, were not terrorists, but thought they were fighting for their country against aggression).
but more importantly, if it is a policy that the American people would not accept, and it is being done by their government,then they have a right to know.
at least in a free society, the land of the free and home of the brave.
here’s why. in america, our government, under our founding document — and I suggest, very correctly — derives its sole power from the consent of the governed. period. this has to involve consent of its policies, as well.
additionally, people are responsible for their own government, for their own country. This includes its policies (this also applies to other countrie as well, btw, such as mexico).
therefore, it is anti American, to have not reported this information, when it represented policy that was not only (apparently), in violation of international law, and in violation of our own stated policies, but against the will of a majority of Americans as well.
With respect to the NSA wiretap surveillance issue, this is mind boggling.
For the party that is supposedly on the side of freedom, this “give unchecked power to the government in order to ‘protect us’ is also extremely hard to fathom.
First, one needs to have a basic understanding of the legal and constitutional issues. This doesn’t come from reading Alberto Gonzales’ spin, which no less than staunch conservatative constitutional studies fellow Rober Levy called “bizarre,” in testimony before the Senate judiciary committee.
The issues are non partisan, and they are clear cut, and umambigious. The surveillance clause was in plain violation of the Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Act, and as such, flagrantly violated the Constitution’s separation of powers clauses. Read the link.
It also represented the unilateral appointment and usurpation of unchecked government power (no warrant or other basis for review, no record to actually know what the program, good intentions aside, is or might be used for. which is why the Executive Branch’s unconstitutional actions, in the words of Ronald Reagan’s Deputy Attorney General Bruce Fein, would have our founding fathers “rolling over in their graves.”)
But regardless, the program was illegal,under FISA, and the clandestine authorization and exercise of it, therefore, a violation of the Constitution’s First, Second (yes, second, read the whole thing) and third Articles’ separation of powers clauses.
A democracy can not function without proper information. To suggest that the government’s potentially (and in this case flagantly) illegal activity should not otherwise be revealed by the Press to the American people, let alone suggest that they did something against America’s interests, is, in the words of Nixon White House Counself John Dean, “something other than a democracy.”
Am I wasting my time? Because if I am writing to a bunch of totalitarians (and there are people who truly believe this way, they just don’t, being American, tend to recognize it), then I am. Otherwise, I hope that this has offered some reasonable and thoughtful additional perspective on the issue.
December 26th, 2006 at 9:21 am
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January 3rd, 2007 at 9:28 am
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