Homeland Security goes after The Times

Started by TehBorken, Jun 26 06 09:45

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TehBorken

 [h1]Homeland Security chairman wants charges against Times[/h1][span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"]Newspaper reported on secret U.S. program that tracks terrorists' banking transactions    [/span]      [div class="date"]By Faye Fiore

[/div][span class="story-dateline"]WASHINGTON // [/span]The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee called yesterday for criminal prosecution of The New York Times, saying that its report Friday on U.S. government surveillance of confidential banking records "compromised America's anti-terrorist policies."  Interviewed on Fox News Sunday, Rep. Peter T. King, a New York Republican, accused the newspaper of compromising national security when it exposed a Treasury Department program that attempts to track terrorist financing by secretly monitoring worldwide money transfers. The program, instituted after the Sept. 11 attacks, bypasses safeguards put in place to ensure against government abuse. [/p]    [/p]Similar reports were published the same day by the Los Angeles Times and other news outlets.  "By disclosing this in time of war, they have compromised America's anti-terrorist policies," said King. "Nobody elected The New York Times to do anything. And The New York Times is putting its own arrogant, elitist, left-wing agenda before the interests of the American people." [/p] Calling the report "absolutely disgraceful," King said he would call on Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales to begin a criminal investigation of the newspaper. [/p] The Bush administration pressed The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times to refrain from publishing their reports, but editors at each newspaper concluded that it was in the public interest to go forward. [/p] "One of the most hotly debated issues in the country right now is the conduct of the war on terror," Dean Baquet, editor of the Los Angeles Times, said yesterday. "It is our job to publish what we know about the government's role, to offer the public what it needs to know to participate in that debate." [/p] Officials at The New York Times had no immediate comment. [/p] Senators from both parties declined to join the Long Island congressman's call for an investigation and defended the role of newspapers as guardians against government abuses. [/p] "We have seen the newspapers in this country act as effective watchdogs," Sen. Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican and chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said on Fox News Sunday. "I don't think that the newspapers can have a totally free hand. But ... I think it's premature to call for a prosecution of The New York Times, just like I think it's premature to say that the administration is entirely correct." [/p] On CNN's Late Edition, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., a Delaware Democrat, said that while he would have preferred that The New York Times not publish the information, "the truth of the matter is, they've uncovered an awful lot of things that the government has been doing that [don't] make sense as well." [/p] Both senators noted Thomas Jefferson's maxim: "Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter." [/p] According to the reports in both newspapers, the program was part of an effort to gain intelligence data by tapping into bank transfers from the world's largest financial communications network. The network - run by the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or SWIFT - carries up to 12.7 million messages a day. Those messages typically include names and account numbers of bank customers - private citizens and huge corporations alike - that are sending or receiving funds. [/p] To gain access to the information, the Bush administration used an obscure power known as "administrative subpoenas," which are not subject to independent governmental reviews. [/p] The program is part of the administration's broad expansion of intelligence-gathering methods, which includes warrantless surveillance in suspected terrorism cases of international phone calls and e-mail of U.S. residents. The New York Times first reported on that program, run by the National Security Agency, late last year. [/p] Yesterday, Specter indicated that Congress and the White House were nearing agreement on a proposal to submit all such eavesdropping to a secretive federal court that considers intelligence matters. "We're getting close with the discussions ... to having the wiretapping issue submitted to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court," he said. "That would be a big step forward for the protection of constitutional rights and civil liberties." [/p] The White House had initially argued that the president could approve warrantless surveillance in terrorism cases under his powers as commander in chief, but critics contended that the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act, passed in 1978, requires that requests to monitor communications in the United States be considered by the intelligence court. [/p]  
The real trouble with reality is that there's no background music.

Some Chick

QuoteSenators from both parties declined to join the Long Island congressman's call for an investigation and defended the role of newspapers as guardians against government abuses.  

  ________________________________________________________________

  Let's not forget that they were recently found to be recording the phone calls of private US citizens as well.

Having worked years for a newspaper, and being fully aware of the lengths to which advertisers and government agencies will try to use bullying tactics to force us to their ideal editorial content, this rings home for me.

  As the advertising rep, I faced immediate repercussions as my paychecks were obviously affected.  However, I stood behind my paper.  I wouldn't let them use me to whine to my editor because they didn't like a story.  You wanna pull your ad?  Fine.  Kiss my ass when you've got something that absolutely needs to be made public.

  They always came back.  We were the biggest game in town and they could not afford to boycott us.

  And where Rep Peter T. King said that no one elected the newspaper?  He is quite wrong.  They elect them every day by purchasing it.    

Sportsdude

Someone needs to break up CanWest and there choke hold on Canadian newspapers!

  Peter King is a raving loon, don't pay attention to him.  He's missing a few.
"We can't stop here. This is bat country."

Some Chick

The chain I worked for was David Black's (Black Press, no relation to Conrad).

Sportsdude

Ah I see that Black Press owns all the little papers in BC.

I don't like that either but do they all have a common editorial line like CanWest?
"We can't stop here. This is bat country."

Some Chick

As long as papers are owned privately, there will be editorial guidelines from the owner.  Black is no different.  

Sportsdude

What about columns? Are they all AP, CP, Reuters stuff or are they in house.  I'm saying this because the St. Louis Post Dispatch was bought by some country hill billy company fired all the news staff, replaced them with regional editors who work in Des Moines Iowa.  So now all the columns are mostly wire reports. Pretty sad considering the paper was started by Pulitzer himself.

  I don't care if CanWest papers are owned privately. Its a disgrace to Canada and disgrace to the news world when BOTH major papers in Vancouver are owned under the same company.  Monopoly for sure. Plus don't tell me all CanWest papers are independent because they obviously aren't. They all tilt to the right.  

  The only papers in Canada that actually are any good now are The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star and La Presse.  CanWest papers are just clones of each other. Go to Canada.com look through all the stories at every paper, they are all the same either wire reports or done by a regional editor. Sad.
"We can't stop here. This is bat country."

Some Chick

I can't speak for them because I didn't work for them.  At the chain I worked for there is a lot of editorial freedom, but the owner has the final right to dictate editorial.

  Our columns came from individual editors who ran them by the publisher pre-press.  Other (non editorial) columns in the papers come from freelancers who may be published in multiple papers in that chain, as was the case with my ex-husband who never ran his column by anyone.

  I know there's a monopoly here.  Black Press has tried to break it all over the country by taking the little papers and putting them up against the big boys.  Fortunately for me, from a financial standpoint, the paper that I worked for WAS the big boy in the city I lived in.  The competition was always slagging us as they tried to compete.

  THAT competition, owned locally, now has an owner pushing his own political agenda and there is not a week that goes by that he does not make sure his photo/name/kid/dog/dead parrot make it into print.

Sportsdude

What paper did you work for? I have an ax to grind with the Post here, quality has gone to the shitter and a lady I row with used to be the sunday editor but got fired without a notice after the buy out.
"We can't stop here. This is bat country."

Some Chick

It was the first newspaper in Black's chain...

  *Giving away too much info*  ;)

Sportsdude

I'm from Missouri wouldn't know what paper that is anyway.
"We can't stop here. This is bat country."

Some Chick

It's not hard to find out.  Just do me a favour and don't print the name here.  I'm fairly well known in certain circles and I don't want anyone to know that sometimes on Friday nights I watch free porn on local television.

  ;)

jeffbc

" I don't want anyone to know that sometimes on Friday nights I watch free porn on local television."
 It shouldn't be a problem as long as your name's not in the credits ;).
I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me.
Hunter S. Thompson

Some Chick

LOL

  If my name were on the credits, it would be a home video I produced and an ex would have to die.