It is becoming harder and harder to avoid the conclusion that the New York Times is at war with America itself. The latest piece of evidence is the New York Times' decision to publicly reveal a completely legal, classified program that has helped America to detect and intercept dangerous terrorists before they kill Americans. That disclosure by the New York Times has served one purpose: to aid the enemy -- who are plotting to kill Americans -- by helping them avoid future detection.
When a building full of people collapses three, five, or ten years from now, or a plane full of innocent men, women and children falls from the sky, or a weapon is detonated by terrorists on American soil, the fingerprints of the New York Times won't be noticed among the rubble and the victims' remains -- but maybe they should be.
Andrew C. McCarthy writes in National Review Online (via Lucianne):
Yet again, the New York Times was presented with a simple choice: help protect American national security or help al Qaeda.
Yet again, it sided with al Qaeda.
Once again, members of the American intelligence community had a simple choice: remain faithful to their oath — the solemn promise the nation requires before entrusting them with the secrets on which our safety depends — or violate that oath and place themselves and their subjective notions of propriety above the law.
Once again, honor was cast aside.
For the second time in seven months, the Times has exposed classified information about a program aimed at protecting the American people against a repeat of the September 11 attacks. On this occasion, it has company in the effort: The Los Angeles Times runs a similar, sensational story. Together, the newspapers disclose the fact that the United States has covertly developed a capability to monitor the nerve center of the international financial network in order to track the movement of funds between terrorists and their facilitators.
The effort, which the government calls the “Terrorist Finance Tracking Program” (TFTP), is entirely legal. There are no conceivable constitutional violations involved. The Supreme Court held in United States v. Miller (1976) that there is no right to privacy in financial-transaction information maintained by third parties. Here, moreover, the focus is narrowed to suspected international terrorists, not Americans, and the financial transactions implicated are international, not domestic. . . . .The TFTP was evidently key to the capture of one of the world’s most formidable terrorists. Riduan bin Isamuddin, better known as “Hambali” — the critical link between al Qaeda and its Indonesian affiliate, Jemaah Islamiya, and thus at the center of the 2002 Bali bombing in which 202 people were slaughtered — is now in U.S. custody rather than wreaking more mayhem. He was apprehended in Thailand in 2003, thanks to the program, which identified a previously unknown financial link to him in Southeast Asia.
In another example, the TFTP led to the discovery that Uzair Paracha, in Brooklyn, might be laundering money for al Qaeda in Pakistan. Paracha was ultimately indicted. Last November, a federal jury in Manhattan convicted him for providing material support to a terrorist organization — specifically, trying to help an al Qaeda operative enter the United States to commit a terrorist act.
It was in view of the TFTP’s palpable value in protecting American lives, its obvious legal propriety, and the plain fact that it was being responsibly conducted that the administration pleaded with the newspapers not to reveal it after government officials despicably leaked it. Exposing the program would tell the public nothing about official misconduct. It would accomplish only the educating of al Qaeda — the nation’s enemy in an ongoing war; an enemy well-known to be feverishly plotting new, massive attacks — about how better to evade our defenses. About how better to kill us.
Appealing to the patriotism of these newspapers proved about as promising as appealing to the humanity of the terrorists they so insouciantly edify — the same monsters who, as we saw again only a few days ago with the torture murder of two American soldiers, continue to define depravity down.
The newspapers, of course, said no. Why? What could outweigh the need to protect a valid effort to shield Americans from additional, barbarous attacks? Bill Keller, executive editor of the New York Times, smugly decreed that the Bush administration’s “access to this vast repository of international financial data” was, in his singularly impeccable judgment, “a matter of public interest.”
And you probably thought George Bush was the imperious one.
The New York Times and its partner in this despicable compromise of America's national security, the Los Angeles Times, are now on the receiving end of long overdue backlash. The New York Times' arrogant and repeated siding with the enemy is bad enough. Its disclosure of legal, classified programs vital to our national security is dangerous and cannot continue. Powerline asks the question why the CIA and New York Times employees responsible for these serious leaks of classified information are not in jail.
Michelle Malkin has called for updated photoshopped posters reminiscent of World War II reminding Americans not to divulge classified information. The response has been overwhelming and there are some excellent posters already that should be spread nationwide. Earlier posters here.
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