Month: December 2005 Page 3 of 6

Adam Gaffin of Universal Hub takes notice of a fascinating development. The Boston Herald today reports that two men have been picked up for questioning in last week’s murder of four young men in Dorchester. And Boston police spokesman Thomas Sexton used the department blog to insist that the Herald is wrong. Sexton writes:

We urge our partners in the media not to be distracted by the “sources” who could potentially jeopardize such an important investigation with grossly inaccurate information. Such reporting is hurtful and irresponsible. It is particularly unfair to victims’ loved ones who are already devastated by this tragedy.

I don’t suppose we’ll know until tomorrow whether the Herald actually blew it, or if something else is going on. What’s interesting is that the police are discovering they can use technology just as effectively as the media can to get their message out.

When President Bush said yesterday that “[l]eaders in Congress have been briefed more than a dozen times” on the NSA no-warrant spying operation, it sounded — as one Media Nation correspondent pointed out — a bit like his claims that Congress saw the same pre-war intelligence as the administration.

It turns out, though, that it’s true — sort of. How much Congress knew may determine whether Bush can extricate himself from this disaster.

Consider, for instance, this page-one piece in today’s Washington Post. Barton Gellman and Dafna Linzer report:

A high-ranking intelligence official with firsthand knowledge said in an interview yesterday that Vice President Cheney, then-Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet and Michael V. Hayden, then a lieutenant general and director of the National Security Agency, briefed four key members of Congress about the NSA’s new domestic surveillance on Oct. 25, 2001, and Nov. 14, 2001, shortly after Bush signed a highly classified directive that eliminated some restrictions on eavesdropping against U.S. citizens and permanent residents.

In describing the briefings, administration officials made clear that Cheney was announcing a decision, not asking permission from Congress. How much the legislators learned is in dispute.

Former senator Bob Graham (D-Fla.), who chaired the Senate intelligence committee and is the only participant thus far to describe the meetings extensively and on the record, said in interviews Friday night and yesterday that he remembers “no discussion about expanding [NSA eavesdropping] to include conversations of U.S. citizens or conversations that originated or ended in the United States” — and no mention of the president’s intent to bypass the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

Hmmm. That sounds like disclosure of a sort, but hardly full disclosure. But an anonymous White House source tells the Post that Graham is “misremembering the briefings.” And that contention is given some credence by House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, who was also briefed, and who says that she “expressed my strong concerns” about what she was hearing.

David Sanger provides more on Pelosi in today’s New York Times:

In a statement, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic leader, said she was advised of the president’s decision shortly after he made it and had “been provided with updates on several occasions.”

“The Bush administration considered these briefings to be notification, not a request for approval,” Ms. Pelosi said. “As is my practice whenever I am notified about such intelligence activities, I expressed my strong concerns during these briefings.”

This matters — a lot. If Bush was keeping Congress informed about NSA spying, then it will be much easier for him to make the case that he was using the powers granted to him by Congress in its almost-declaration of war following the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

That doesn’t make this any less an affront to civil liberties. And it still doesn’t explain why the White House didn’t simply take the fully legal route of having the FBI request warrants from a secret court under the terms of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. But it does make it a lot less likely that Bush will find himself in any substantial legal or constitutional trouble.

Even if the Democrats controlled one or both branches of Congress — well, what would Speaker Pelosi say?

President Bush talked about the NSA no-warrant domestic wiretaps in his radio address this morning. Here’s a chunk:

In the weeks following the terrorist attacks on our nation, I authorized the National Security Agency, consistent with U.S. law and the Constitution, to intercept the international communications of people with known links to al-Qaida and related terrorist organizations.

Before we intercept these communications, the government must have information that establishes a clear link to these terrorist networks. This is a highly classified program that is crucial to our national security. Its purpose is to detect and prevent terrorist attacks against the United States, our friends and allies.

Yesterday the existence of this secret program was revealed in media reports, after being improperly provided to news organizations. As a result, our enemies have learned information they should not have, and the unauthorized disclosure of this effort damages our national security and puts our citizens at risk. Revealing classified information is illegal, alerts our enemies, and endangers our country.

This is pretty scary, folks. Let’s start with his statement that his actions were “consistent with U.S. law and the Constitution.” The most generous possible interpretation of this is that it might be true — but only if you accept his argument that the almost-declaration of war approved by Congress right after 9/11 allows him to do just about anything he pleases.

Sen. Arlen Specter, chairman of the Judiciary Committee and a Republican, has already called Bush’s NSA actions “inappropriate.” Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, normally no friend of civil liberties and not especially partisan, said the obvious in pointing out that Bush may have broken the law.

Thus the president has taken the position that for the New York Times to have revealed the existence of a possibly illegal spying operation run out of the White House was in and of itself illegal.

We are on new territory today.

Paul Fahri of the Washington Post today sheds a bit of light on the New York Times’ decision to wait a year before publishing yesterday’s blockbuster article that the Bush administration has been using the National Security Agency (“No Such Agency”) to conduct no-warrant wiretapping inside the United States.

Fahri notes that Times executive editor Bill Keller, in a statement, made no reference to the fact that the information will be included in a forthcoming book by James Risen, the lead reporter on yesterday’s story. Drudge was much taken with this, suggesting that the Times was helping to promote Risen’s book, “State of War,” at the expense of national security.

It’s hard to take Drudge seriously. At the same time, I’m sure that Keller didn’t want to be scooped by his own reporter’s book. So it’s not inconceivable that the book had something to do with Keller’s decision to break his paper’s year-long silence.

Here is a key passage in Fahri’s Post article:

The decision to withhold the article caused some friction within the Times’ Washington bureau, according to people close to the paper. Some reporters and editors in New York and in the bureau, including Risen and co-writer Eric Lichtblau, had pushed for earlier publication, according to these people. One described the story’s path to publication as difficult, with much discussion about whether it could have been published earlier.

In a statement yesterday, Times Executive Editor Bill Keller did not mention the book. He wrote that when the Times became aware that the NSA was conducting domestic wiretaps without warrants, “the Administration argued strongly that writing about this eavesdropping program would give terrorists clues about the vulnerability of their communications and would deprive the government of an effective tool for the protection of the country’s security.”

“Officials also assured senior editors of the Times that a variety of legal checks had been imposed that satisfied everyone involved that the program raised no legal questions,” Keller continued. “As we have done before in rare instances when faced with a convincing national security argument, we agreed not to publish at that time.”

In the ensuing months, Keller wrote, two things changed the paper’s thinking. The paper developed a fuller picture of misgivings about the program by some in the government. And the paper satisfied itself through more reporting that it could write the story without exposing “any intelligence-gathering methods or capabilities that are not already on the public record.”

Here are some questions that Keller should answer — like today, on Byron Calame’s rarely updated blog, or tomorrow on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” To wit:

1. You’ve said that you delayed publication out of national-security considerations and to conduct more reporting. Which was more important? If you knew then what you know now, would you have gone to press a year ago?

2. One of the Times’ more shameful historical moments took place in 1961, when it held back on the details of the forthcoming Bay of Pigs invasion. (The Times actually published a lot more at the time than the myth-makers would have it, but never mind.) If the lesson of that episode was that journalists should not hop into bed with the White House, why is this different?

3. Conversely, if you really did have serious national-security concerns about publishing this story a year ago, have things really changed that much? Or were you influenced by the looming publication date of Risen’s book?

Of course, President Bush has a lot more to explain than Keller does. Bush didn’t even begin to do that in his interview with Jim Lehrer last night. Here is one question for Bush that has been bugging me since I read Risen’s story yesterday: As Risen describes it, the administration could have done all the domestic spying it wanted to if it had simply directed the FBI to obtain warrants from a secret court under the terms of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Such warrants are rarely turned down.

Therefore, the White House’s decision to conduct such searches through the NSA rather than the FBI, without a warrant, suggests one of two possibilities: (1) the reasoning behind the spying requests was so dubious that administration officials didn’t dare approach even a normally compliant FISA judge; or (2) as Scott Shane writes in today’s Times, administration officials — and particularly Vice President Dick Cheney — are so obsessed with extending the power of the presidency that they’d rather stretch the law to (or past) the breaking point than follow the rules.

Another fiasco. And judging from the initial reaction, this one isn’t going to get swallowed up in the media miasma.

Admiral Richard Gurnon explains when he realized he was in trouble with Arthur Desrocher, chairman of the board of trustees at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. Sarah Schweitzer reports in today’s Globe:

Gurnon said he knew he was a “dead man walking” after he returned from a business trip to Texas last month. He said no one returned his calls and more ominously, Desrocher had stopped leaving a doughnut on his desk, as he had done routinely every Tuesday. “After Nov. 15,” Gurnon said. “I saw no more doughnuts.”

The state Board of Education yesterday reinstated Gurnon as president of the academy. Let the doughnut-eating resume.

Herald coverage here.

Ben extends his reach, adding a second blog, Healey Is a Fraud, to his longstanding contribution to the civic dialogue known as Romney Is a Fraud. (Via Universal Hub. And yes, Adam, I do know where the name “Ben” comes from. What’s my prize?)

I don’t know about this. Romney’s transparently self-serving approach to governing is hard to take, but I’ve got nothing against Healey. I certainly don’t hold it against her that she occasionally puts her foot in her mouth. I like that in a politician. Don’t you?

Jon Keller, the political reporter for WBZ-TV (Channel 4), broke the story yesterday that Gov. Mitt Romney would not seek re-election in 2006. [D’oh! I originally wrote “2004.”] For a good time, click here, hit “play” and watch Keller ask Romney about Democratic accusations that he’s presided over “the third straight hit-and-run governorship.” Not that the unflappable Romney reacts, but at least it’s the right question.

Globe West reporter Lisa Kocian takes a look at citizen journalism in Greater Boston, focusing on HopNews.com, which covers the town of Hopkinton. Among other things, she quotes me on this burgeoning movement.

Mr. Buzz Machine’s post is here. To which I say, “Jeff! No one is proposing to kill Dan Froomkin’s blog!” This isn’t about the future of journalism — it’s a truth-in-labeling dispute. Sheesh.

Last night I finally had a chance to read Ken Auletta’s nearly-10,000-word New Yorker piece on New York Times Co. chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. The subhead asks, “Can Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., save the Times — and himself?” Unfortunately, Auletta is able only to muster a “maybe.” Still, Auletta does his usual dogged, thorough job of reporting every angle, and his graceful writing makes this a surprisingly quick read.

One complaint: Other than a detailed rehash of Jayson Blair/ Howell Raines/ Judith Miller (including the reappearance of the moose), I didn’t come away from the article with any clearer sense than I had before of what kind of business executive or publisher Sulzberger is. Auletta reports that Sulzberger has a reputation for being disengaged from the business side of his job, and well-intentioned but naive when it comes to journalism. But there’s little here in the way of examples that we don’t already know.

I did find myself feeling — well, not exactly sorry for Judith Miller, but nevertheless appalled by Sulzberger’s treatment of her. By Auletta’s account, Sulzberger morphed from her biggest champion into someone who wanted nothing to do with her without ever having the grace to tell her why.

There are also several telling anecdotes, and this is perhaps the most brutal:

On September 12th, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was invited to a publisher’s luncheon at which various Times editors and reporters were present. Such events are common in the life of the Times and other major newspapers, but this one had an odd start. A security dog that had earlier been sniffing for bombs got sick on the carpet of the room where the lunch was to be held. The mess was cleaned up, but the stench was still noticeable when Rice and her party arrived. The air-conditioning was turned up high to diminish the smell, but it was difficult to hear above the noise. Sulzberger greeted Rice and, according to the transcript posted on the State Department’s Web site, began by asking how she thought the United States was “viewed right now by the United Nations,” and whether it mattered. “And before you answer that question, just so everybody knows,” he said, “it’s pretty loud in this room, so my apologies. The bomb-sniffing dog threw up here.” Everyone laughed, but Sulzberger continued to apologize, and, as some of the reporters present cringed, Rice finally said, “Thank you for sharing that.”

More than anything, Auletta’s story is a cautionary tale of what can happen when a family dynasty is determined to keep things in the family. Obviously there is no way someone with Sulzberger’s flaws could have risen to the top of the Times Co. — and the Times — had he not been the son of Arthur “Punch” Sulzberger. The son’s inadequacies are now being exposed for everyone to see.

Yet surely it’s a good thing that the Times Co. hasn’t passed into the hands of a huge, publicly traded corporation. Sulzberger does seem to know that a relentless focus on the bottom line would ultimately be bad for business, since the excellence of the Times’ journalism is the only real product that he’s got to sell. If only there were more newspaper executives who believed that.