The Discerning Texan
All that is necessary for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing.
-- Edmund Burke
-- Edmund Burke
Sunday, January 29, 2006
NYT continues unrealistic skewed coverage of NSA
Paul Johnson of Power Line points out that the capacity of the New York Times to gerrymander its way around the truth in this NSA non-scandal has become simply pathetic; not only are they wrong in asserting that Bush does not have the constitutional authority to conduct surveillance of the enemy during wartime (he clearly does...), but the "Grey Tramp" (my adaptation of Sinatra's "The Lady is a Tramp"...) is also completely ignoring that the Times itself has violated multiple Federal laws and put our citizens MORE at risk of horrible terror attacks by leaking the story in the first place (bold emphases are mine):
Last night at the end of his long post "Ahabs everywhere," John took a look at the New York Times article by Eric Lichtblau and Adam Liptak purporting to assess the Bush administration's argument for the legality of the NSA surveillance program. John notes the article's failure to come to terms with the case law unanimously recognizing the president's inherent constitutional authority to conduct warrantless domestic surveillance for foreign intelligence purposes, let alone the international surveillance at issue in the NSA program.
John notes that the article acknowledges the 2002 decision of the FISA appellate court stating:
We take for granted that the President does have that authority and, assuming that is so, FISA could not encroach on the President’s constitutional power.
The Times, however, misrepresents the FISA appellate court's statement and simply omits the court's recognition that "FISA could not encroach on the President's constitutional authority." In other words, if FISA infringed on the president's constitutional authority to ordeer warrantless surveillance, FISA would be unconstitutional.
Like John, I think that the administration's NSA surveillance program as described by the president, the vice president, the Attorney General, and General Hayden is legal. I don't think it's a close question, though I think reasonable people can disagree on that point. What is clearly illegal, however, in my view and the view of everyone involved in the Times story disclosing the existence of the NSA surveillance program, are the leaks that led to the story. The illegality of the leaks is precisely why the "nearly a dozen current and former government officials" who leaked the story to James Risen and Eric Lichtblau in connection with the original December 16 story demanded and received anonymity from the Times.
By the same token, however, and to the same extent, James Risen, Eric Lichtblau and everyone else at the Times involved in the publication of the NSA surveillance story have engaged in conduct violative of the federal espionage laws. Yet the Times has never even acknowledged its own legal jeopardy. John concludes with a point close to my heart:
[I]t is worth mentioning that Lichtblau and Liptak purport to sit in judgment on the legality of the administration's conduct, without ever noting the fact that Lichtblau and the Times itself unquestionably violated federal law by publishing leaks about the NSA program. In the world of the antique media, illegality requires no explanation if it is directed against the Bush administration. Every word the Times now publishes about the NSA surveillance story is deeply compromised by a conflict of interest that the Times has yet to acknowledge.
Last night at the end of his long post "Ahabs everywhere," John took a look at the New York Times article by Eric Lichtblau and Adam Liptak purporting to assess the Bush administration's argument for the legality of the NSA surveillance program. John notes the article's failure to come to terms with the case law unanimously recognizing the president's inherent constitutional authority to conduct warrantless domestic surveillance for foreign intelligence purposes, let alone the international surveillance at issue in the NSA program.
John notes that the article acknowledges the 2002 decision of the FISA appellate court stating:
We take for granted that the President does have that authority and, assuming that is so, FISA could not encroach on the President’s constitutional power.
The Times, however, misrepresents the FISA appellate court's statement and simply omits the court's recognition that "FISA could not encroach on the President's constitutional authority." In other words, if FISA infringed on the president's constitutional authority to ordeer warrantless surveillance, FISA would be unconstitutional.
Like John, I think that the administration's NSA surveillance program as described by the president, the vice president, the Attorney General, and General Hayden is legal. I don't think it's a close question, though I think reasonable people can disagree on that point. What is clearly illegal, however, in my view and the view of everyone involved in the Times story disclosing the existence of the NSA surveillance program, are the leaks that led to the story. The illegality of the leaks is precisely why the "nearly a dozen current and former government officials" who leaked the story to James Risen and Eric Lichtblau in connection with the original December 16 story demanded and received anonymity from the Times.
By the same token, however, and to the same extent, James Risen, Eric Lichtblau and everyone else at the Times involved in the publication of the NSA surveillance story have engaged in conduct violative of the federal espionage laws. Yet the Times has never even acknowledged its own legal jeopardy. John concludes with a point close to my heart:
[I]t is worth mentioning that Lichtblau and Liptak purport to sit in judgment on the legality of the administration's conduct, without ever noting the fact that Lichtblau and the Times itself unquestionably violated federal law by publishing leaks about the NSA program. In the world of the antique media, illegality requires no explanation if it is directed against the Bush administration. Every word the Times now publishes about the NSA surveillance story is deeply compromised by a conflict of interest that the Times has yet to acknowledge.
