Eric Lichtblau and James Risen’s story, Bank Data Is Sifted by U.S. in Secret to Block Terror, has exploded across the blogosphere. Michelle Malkin, Glenn Reynolds, and Pajamas Media have excellent roundups.
Jeff Goldstein’s analysis is excellent:
I wonder if the crew at “Townhouse” is busy cobbling together a new civil liberties OUTRAGE narrative in order to distract us from the real violation of trust here—namely, that leakers within our intelligence agencies are jeopardizing national security, and that both the leakers and those publishing the leaks (whose aim, clearly, is to gin up whatever outrage they can with the hope of undermining this Administration’s tactics for conducting a war they don’t believe truly exists), are doing so with impunity. After all, Townhouse has, evidently, secured the services of maverick “conservative-civil libertarian” Glenn Greenwald.That aside, though, what 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. That the NYT is willing to trade that responsibility for a “scoop” it pretends is in the “public interest” is, frankly, embarrassing—and one of the reasons Americans are increasingly unhappy with the mainstream press
And what do we learn today?:
The Bush administration is becoming more secretive in response to press disclosures about the tracking of global financial transfers and other counter-terrorism measures, said Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff.
In an exclusive interview with The Examiner, Chertoff criticized newspapers that revealed the financial tracking program on Friday. President Bush earlier complained that some of the same newspapers damaged national security by disclosing a classified terrorist surveillance program.
“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.”
Related:
Blogs of War Gallery
Blabbermouth Posters
I will be updating this post throughout the weekend…
Related Content by Sphere
More Blogs of War:
Photoshopping The New York Times
Times Square Military Recruiting Station Bombed
World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz to Resign
The New York Times Runs to Ruth Ginsburg
Freakinstupid: Freakonomics Blogger Wants Your Terror Tips
Filed Under:
Terrorism, Politics, Intelligence, Media
