You say: “Actually Andrew, my greatest angst at this stage is the refusal of intelligent progressives (if I might apply that term to you) to recognize not only the reality but also the gravity of the war we are engaged in.”

I think you are correct about the lack of consensus you decry — and it is not only “intelligent progressives” (as you so kindly put it) that fail to recognize the same reality that you do. The disagreement may stretch to the majority of the population.

If so, blame must lie with President Bush — for his sloppy rhetoric, his bait-and-switch leadership, his compulsive secrecy, his pseudo-imperial style and his exploitation of his War on Terrorism to score points in partisan domestic politics.

As long as White House political operatives treat this “global war” so cynically and trivially — as a set of talking points to win yet another midterm election rather than a crisis around which all points of the political spectrum must rally — it should come as no surprise that so many disagree with your assessment of its gravity.

Happy Fourth of July.

Regards — Andrew

In my view war IS – all too ’self-evidently’ – the “correct literal term for that conflict”. It is the Islamofascists themselves who pronounce loudly and often their intentions regarding jihad on a global scale.

And they make good on their promises across the world daily.

You know as well as I do that Madrid and London aren’t the only attacks I speak of. Nor, obviously, was 9/11 their first attack against the U.S. or U.S. interests. Again, I don’t plan to list all of them as I don’t have time – particularly today. I doubt that Jeff would wish to pay for the bandwidth it would take to provide a thorough list either. There are many web sites which track them, country by country, on a daily basis.

Do you think the jihadists have agreed to abide by the terms of the Geneva convention? If not, why should the U.S. treat them as if they have? It is they who hide behind masks, don’t wear uniforms, send their children to intentionally blow up innocent civilians, commit genocide, and wage barbaric warfare across the globe from Thailand to Indonesia to Bali to Darfur to Palestine to the U.S., Britain, France, Spain, and too many other COuntries to even list.

Actually Andrew, my greatest angst at this stage is the refusal of intelligent progressives (if I might apply that term to you) to recognize not only the reality but also the gravity of the war we are engaged in.

I was completely uneducated regarding Islam before 9/11. Unfortunately, for five years now I’ve been learning about our foe…and the more I learn, the more I’ve had to face unpleasant truths regarding what we’re up against.

When the uneducated (and I do not imply that is you) further try to hamstring or even sabotage (cf. the NYT) the U.S.’ efforts to protect us from the Religion of Death – and I DO mean to use that term in no uncertain terms – my patience wears thin.

We NEED the left to recognize the enemy is not our own administration. The ACTUAL enemy is Islamofascism and it needs to be stated clearly and often. I do not see us losing any civil liberties as we wage this ACtual war. The only ‘inconvenience’ I’ve experienced is taking off my shoes at the airport. It is a small price to pay.

I trust our system of government and the checks and balances provided by the Constitution. The NSA program is being challenged in the courts as we speak. It is my expectation that this critically important program will continue…notwithstanding the fact that the terrorists have been educated regarding specific methods we’re using to track them by the Slimes/spit, and therefore its efficacy has been sorely undermined.

The adage ‘with friends like these, who needs enemies?’ applies. Unfortunately, those ‘friends’ are no longer friends of mine.

Soldier Dad,

The law provides for the protection of our national security and military secrets on many levels…from the Constitution to U.S. and military statutes/regs…via the ’state secrets privilege’ – see U.S. v. Reynolds, 1953, and etc. I invite you to google or dogpile or whatever to your heart’s content.

thedude,

Read up, dude, on who the terrorists REally are. Hint: it isn’t me, dude. Your neck is on the line. It would behoove you to get educated. [Another hint: the NSA program relates to INTERNATIONAL, not domestic data mining.]

Now I’ve got to do some work before I enjoy spectacular fireworks to celebrate our independence from people like jihadis, who are intent on seeing us either dhimmi or dead.

Have a good one, All.

No, you do not have to “list all the attacks here.” The fact that bombs have gone off in Madrid and London since September 11th is not in dispute.

The question at stake is whether those attacks amount to a real, not metaphorical, “war.”

The fact that the Bush Administration refuses to regard the perpetrators of those attacks, or those of September 11th itself, as governed by the Geneva Conventions, which lays down the rules of “war”, seems to indicate that it does not see the attackers as warriors and their activity as warfare, whatever their rhetoric.

You cite the existence of “Islamofascism” as evidence that we are at war. Liberal western society can be in conflict with that ideology without it being self-evident that “war” is the correct literal term for that conflict.

Does the government have the right to keep secrets. If such a right exists then it is up to either courts or congress to determine what can and can not be kept secret.

The idea that a “self appointed arbiter” should have the ultimate authority is foolhardy at best.

The idea that the media needs to self censor its self in a global environment to protect states it happens to do business in is pathetic. If the NYT won’t print illegal acts against the constitution then the public will go to a source that will, be it the guardian, or some blog.

The term ‘war’ on terror/ism is about as far from being metaphorical as I can imagine.

You stated: “Neither of these “wars” have anything whatsoever to do with monitoring of electronic funds transfers or the analysis of aggregated telephone data or the wiretapping of international telephone calls.”

I see. And you know this, how? Further, the Bush administration Neither explicitly Nor implicitly “concedes that the “war on terrorism” is not an actual war.” Your examples don’t prove your point; nor do I have time to rebut why with respect to each of them. Furthermore, in my view that assertion is purely preposterous.

You see, this is the problem. The left and it’s mouthpieces like the NYT want everyone to just pretend that we ARen’t at war with Islamofascism on a global scale. I don’t need to list all the attacks here do I? I ‘guess’ the logic goes this way: if there’s no REAL war on terror, there are no Constitutionally Provided War Powers available to the administration. Consequently the TSM/terrorist supporting media can throw more dung on the wall – particularly via the intentional public disclosure and dissemination of DEtails of classified programs – and hope something ~ ANything sticks.

Sorry guys. Even the Slimes is backpeddaling as fast as they can at this point.

I’ll stick to my intentionally chosen phrase, “particularly in time of war”.

Jersey,

I might not disagree with you *except* that no one – not anyone – has proven that any of the leaked programs are ILLEGAL. In fact the converse is true. With respect to the NSA program, even former FISA judges testified before Congress confirming the legality of the program. As for the latest treasonous piece of dung disclosure, even the NYT never made the claim that it is illegal.

If disclosing details of LEgal, CLassified intelligence operations during time of war designed to identify and locate our enemy ISn’t giving aid and comfort to the ENemy, then Senators wouldn’t be invoking USC Title 18, Part 1, Chapter 115, paragraph 2381, as they identify the New York Slimes’ dung for what it actually is: treason. But it doesn’t even take a Senator to figure that one out..

I’ve got work to do.

Have a great 4th, All.

So if a government agency puts together an illegal, destructive program, but does so in a way where revealing that program would endanger its agents, it should be effectively immune from criticism / exposure?

You were so absolutely correct until you inserted that ultimatum.

An important feature of “the law” regarding the promulgation of classified material is that it is not intended to protect lawbreakers in government themselves. If the Bush administration behaved unlawfully in ordering surveillance activities not sanctioned by the powers granted to him (even in time of war), then our highest courts have recognized a valid and competing public interest in the press reporting on those activities.

If the Constitution is “not a suicide pact” then the U.S. Code is not a firing squad either. Regardless of what the brain trust at Little Green Footballs likes to think, breaking the law to unmask illegal activity is a far cry from providing aid and comfort to the enemy, and fortunately the Supreme Court has affirmed this truth on multiple occasions in the past.

Please do not feel as though I am singling you out, because you are certainly not alone, but, please, can we all agree to restrain ourselves when throwing around that imprecise phrase “particularly in time of war.”

The United States is, indeed, engaged in two wars at the moment: one in alliance with the Karzai regime in Afghanistan against the resurgent Taliban; the second in support of the al-Maliki regime in Baghdad.

Neither of these “wars” have anything whatsoever to do with monitoring of electronic funds transfers or the analysis of aggregated telephone data or the wiretapping of international telephone calls.

The “war” that is invoked around those activities is used metaphorically. We are in a time of “war on terrorism” under this President Bush just as we were in a “war on drugs” under his father, or a “war on cancer” under Nixon or a “war on poverty” under Johnson.

The Bush Administration itself implicitly concedes that the “war on terrorism” is not an actual war. It refuses to designate those it detains as “Prisoners of War” and it treats Zacarias Moussaoui, the self-confessed plotter of September 11th, as a common criminal not a soldier.

Reporting on the monitoring of SWIFT may have been overhyped, or ill-considered, or counterproductive to the CIA’s espionage efforts — but it had nothing to do with the actual wars the US military is fighting.

If the Bush Administration really wanted to be productive in “time of war” it might raise the minimum wage to help LBJ’s “war on poverty,” which is still not won. Now that is a long war for you, to quote Jesus Christ: “The poor will be always with us.”

Well said, Charles Johnson of littlegreenfootballs.com.

As for standards, perhaps the New York Slimes and their brethren at the Post, etc., should take note of ‘the law’ with respect to disclosure of classified information, particularly in time of war.

And perhaps the leakers at State or the CIA should take note of same as well.

Waiting for the DOJ and Alberto to educate them.

My guess is within two weeks.

btw, it’s “In Nomine Publico.”

Brett:

Did Jefferson make a special exception to his dedication towards a free and uncensored press for state secrets and national security? Surely the 18th and early 19th centuries had its covert actions and governmental functionaries who preferred to do their work unfettered by public scrutiny. As far as I’ve read in the historical evidence, Jefferson’s only concern with the newspapers was whether what they printed was true or false — legal censure was something that he endorsed for those found guilty of spreading falsehoods, not printing the truth.

If a covert operation can’t keep a lid on its secrecy, that’s its own damned fault. Expecting no one to report on it — or worse, expecting both new and old media to somehow agree on some arbitrary set of guidelines for not reporting on it (can you actually be serious about this?) — is just so much silliness. Okay, for the sake of argument let’s say that the American press did refrain from breaking the story. How do we stop the Brits from running it? The Europeans? The rest of the world?

1. The program wasn’t secret.

That must be why the headline was “Bank Data Sifted in Secret by U.S. to Block Terror.” They were being sarcastic.

Until then, I’m content knowing that there are people out there with reasonably good judgment who will do their best to make the right decision.

And let’s hope that someday they get hired by the NYT.

“In the law there is a variant of the tort of invasion of privacy and defamation called FALSE LIGHT…….“

Couldn’t pass up your partial quote of Jefferson. Yep – the man loved the free expression of the opinions of people. But note: you’re out of context. Writing our opinions and watching closely our governors doesn’t equate with disclosing state secrets that can kill those who live in a free society by informing our enemy. Did Jefferson embrace informing the Barbary Pirates on how to succeed and elude capture via newspapers? Nope. You draw a false parallel.

But I have to admire John Harwood of WSJ on Meet the Press disavowing the WSJ editorial calling the Times’ release of the program ‘not in good faith’, saying that the news staff of WSJ knows that is not true. Now there is a real exhibit of courage, badly needed in these times [pun intended].

“The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and 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. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them.” –Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, 1787. ME 6:57

Mind you, Jefferson as President would endure vicious attacks from those very same newspapers that he championed, but even this did not shake his absolute belief in a free press.

And for those of you who think that “9/11 changed everything” and that the Founding Fathers could never have predicted an enemy as vicious and implacable as Al-Qaeda, try reading about the Barbary Pirates sometime.

I thought too that their readership was declining, but I read this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/02/AR2005050201457.html

True? I don’t know. It’s all a shell game when it comes to readership numbers, but numbers are going down overall because there’s more competition. So when it’s harder to get noticed in a larger crowd, sensationalism will bring you attention. Is it worth it? Is it smart business? No. But then neither is Times Select and they did that too.

“Scoops” like this bring Pulitzers and nominations for Pulitzers – deserved or not – which only brings more attention and “prestige.”

I do know that Jeff works with the Times. I’m still going with greed.