Media Nation

The Manhattan Institute’s Heather Mac Donald goes after the New York Times in a big way over the financial-tracking revelations. Writing for the Weekly Standard, she begins:

By now it’s undeniable: The New York Times is a national security threat. So drunk is it on its own power and so antagonistic to the Bush administration that it will expose every classified antiterror program it finds out about, no matter how legal the program, how carefully crafted to safeguard civil liberties, or how vital to protecting American lives.

I’ll give her this: To my layman’s eyes, she seems to make a pretty good case that the program is legal. Mac Donald continues:

The Supreme Court has squarely held that bank records are not constitutionally protected private information. The government may obtain them without seeking a warrant from a court, because the bank depositor has already revealed his transactions to his bank — or, in the case of the present program, to a whole slew of banks that participate in the complicated international wire transfers overseen by the Belgian clearinghouse known as the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or Swift. To get specific information about individual terror suspects, intelligence agents prepare an administrative subpoena, which is issued after extensive internal agency review. The government does not monitor a terror suspect’s international wire transfers in real time; the records of his transactions are delivered weeks later. And Americans’ routine financial transactions, such as ATM withdrawals or domestic banking, lie completely outside of the Swift database.

This strikes me as fairly persuasive, and quite different from the NSA warrantless wiretapping program that the Times exposed last December. On the other hand, Mac Donald’s attack on the Times is so sweeping that I can’t imagine she’s all that troubled by the NSA program, either. So I don’t know.

It does seem that one of Mac Donald’s fellow-travelers on the right, the blogger Captain Ed, undermines her case against the Times at least in part by writing:

The continuing arrogance of Keller and his two reporters has damaged our national security, and in this case on a ridiculously laughable story that tells us absolutely nothing we didn’t already know in concept. They keep pretending to offer news to their readers, but instead all they do is blow our national-security programs for profit.

This is quite an odd assertion, is it not? On the one hand, the idea that this is news is “ridiculously laughable.” On the other, the Times “has damaged our national security.” Well, which is it? (Via “Today’s Blogs” on Slate, which also linked to Media Nation’s item on Times executive editor Bill Keller’s open letter.)

It seems to me that there are several crucial differences between the wiretapping and financial-tracking programs — and perhaps chief in importance is the fact that the financial program depends on subpoenas issued to SWIFT. That would appear to give this a patina of legality that’s utterly lacking from the wiretapping saga.

President Bush, naturally, is calling the Times’ behavior “disgraceful,” which is the same word he used to describe its revelation of the wiretapping program — a program that, on the face of it, violates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires warrants.

Of more interest are the comments of Senate minority leader Harry Reid, who, unlike the president, demonstrates an ability to distinguish between the two programs. A Reid spokesman tells the Times that Reid believes the SWIFT program “does not appear to be based on the same shaky and discredited legal analysis the vice president and his allies invoked to underpin the NSA domestic spying program.”

Meanwhile, U.S. Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., wants to prosecute the Times, and U.S. Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., wants to investigate the White House.

All is murk.

There is much good in New York Times executive editor Bill Keller’s letter to readers explaining why the Times decided to publish details of the anti-terrorism program that tracks financial transactions. More than anything, the mere fact that he believes journalists must explain themselves to the public shows the how deeply the notion of transparency has taken root.

Still, three aspects of his letter strike me as odd. I’ll take them one at a time.

1. Consider how Keller begins his second paragraph:

Some of the incoming mail quotes the angry words of conservative bloggers and TV or radio pundits who say that drawing attention to the government’s anti-terror measures is unpatriotic and dangerous. (I could ask, if that’s the case, why they are drawing so much attention to the story themselves by yelling about it on the airwaves and the Internet.) [My emphasis.]

Did Keller let anyone edit this? It was the Times and other news organizations that revealed the existence and the details of this program — not angry bloggers and pundits. For Keller to try to toss the blame back into the laps of his critics suggests that he himself was pretty angry when he sat down to write. Unseemly.

2. Later on, Keller pulls an old trope out of his hat:

Our default position — our job — is to publish information if we are convinced it is fair and accurate, and our biggest failures have generally been when we failed to dig deep enough or to report fully enough. After The Times played down its advance knowledge of the Bay of Pigs invasion, President Kennedy reportedly said he wished we had published what we knew and perhaps prevented a fiasco. [My emphasis.]

This is accurate but not true. On the eve of the Bay of Pigs invasion, the Times published a front-page story, above the fold, reporting that U.S.-trained Cuban exiles were prepared to invade their homeland at any time. Two details were omitted, neither of which the Times’ editors could be sure about: the role of the CIA and the date of the invasion. (Of course, if the date had been published, the White House simply would have changed it.)

At first Kennedy was furious. But some time later, after the invasion had ended in disaster, he did indeed voice his now-famous regret that the Times hadn’t published all it knew, thus creating a media myth that has endured to this day. Keller, of all people, should know that.

3. Finally, Keller writes:

It’s worth mentioning that the reporters and editors responsible for this story live in two places — New York and the Washington area — that are tragically established targets for terrorist violence. The question of preventing terror is not abstract to us.

Huh? It seems here that he’s trying to say we shouldn’t question his motives because, if there’s a terrorist attack, Times people might be among the victims. Well, gee. So would a lot of other folks.

Sorry to nitpick. I actually find Keller’s argument for publishing fairly compelling. He’s especially persuasive in making the point that SWIFT, the international consortium that administers the data, will continue to cooperate as long as the operation is legal (and shouldn’t if it isn’t), and that the terrorists have long been on notice that we are doing everything we can to track their finances.

But it would have been that much stronger without the self-pitying touches and the ahistorical take on the Bay of Pigs.

You don’t need a subpoena to get the senior senator from Pennsylvania talking. From today’s New York Times:

Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, said that in one strategy session Mr. Bush told the senator he could not be identified as publicly supporting the Senate bill, which sought to tighten border control but also give illegal immigrants a chance to become citizens after paying fines. “Don’t quote me, Arlen,” Mr. Specter recalled the president saying, implying that Mr. Bush had spoken approvingly of the bill.

Pretty sleazy behavior, I’d say. Good thing Specter isn’t a journalist.

How does David Ortiz do it? Why does anyone pitch to him when the game’s on the line — even with Manny on deck? Unbelievable.

I honestly don’t know what to think about this week’s revelation that the Bush administration has been tracking international financial transactions. My first thought was that it seems less abusive than the secret NSA no-warrant wiretapping program, but that there’s much we don’t know. A few observations:

• Surely the terrorists already knew they were being wiretapped. The Bush administration’s only wrinkle with the NSA program was in breaking U.S. law. The financial program, though, strikes me as potentially something that the terrorists didn’t know about. Consequently, I find myself wondering whether the New York Times and other news organizations exercised good judgment by revealing it.
• Financial privacy does not seem to be all that firmly established, and has apparently not been recognized by the Supreme Court — although Congress did pass a law protecting it. Thus it appears that, once again, the White House broke the law when it didn’t really have to.
• The financial program may have actually led to the capture of a significant Al Qaeda terrorist, which is more — a lot more — than can be said for the indiscriminate NSA program.

Given my handwringing, I was interested to see The Opinionator point (sub. req.) to this post at Homeland Security Watch. After making some of the same points I was thinking about, security analyst Christian Beckner writes:

Based on the content of the story, I’m glad that this program exists — and although I usually err on the side of openness and disclosure, this is one program that I would’ve been fine to see remained cloaked in secrecy. This story could cause would-be terror financiers to rethink their money movement activities; and if SWIFT [the international consortium supplying the data] were to pull back from cooperation with the US government because of any controversy generated by this story (it’s still too early to judge the political fallout from it, if any), then that would be a real shame.

Unfortunately, the Bush administration has shown such contempt for civil liberties that it’s possible we can no longer recognize a proper exercise of government authority when we see it. And yes, it’s also possible that the newly revealed program is a lot more abusive of ordinary citizens than it appears at first glance. (Surely the foolishness in Miami can’t be overlooked when assessing the White House’s motives and competence.)

For the moment, we should all learn as much as we can and not get too far out in front of this.

Good grief.

There’s an upside and a downside to the fact that space on the Web is essentially limitless. It’s great that a news site like NYTimes.com can be used to upload supplemental material such as audio, video, extra photos and original documents. But it’s not so great when someone decides that a tightly edited story in the print edition can undergo gasification on the Web.

To wit: This morning I was reading the online edition of the Times — ostensibly the print analogue — when I came across a disclaimer that accompanied a story about a video made just before a deadly protest last May in Uzbekistan: “This is an expanded version of the article that appeared in the print edition.”

Sure enough. I copied and pasted the online version into Microsoft Word, and it clocked in at 3,750 words. According to LexisNexis, the print version is just 2,949 words.

Extra stuff for those with the time and interest to peruse it is great. But please, let me read the basic story without having to plow through an extra 800 words.

I just got off the phone with my friend and former Boston Phoenix colleague Seth Gitell, who wanted to let me know that he was back on Romenesko. Seth is resigning as Mayor Tom Menino’s press secretary in order to research a story about his father’s experiences in the Green Berets. He’s writing it for the Atlantic Monthly.

Seth and I had a great time together at the Phoenix. The highlight was probably our road trips to Philadelphia and Los Angeles for the 2000 national political conventions. We hit Geno’s during our week in Philly; English-language disputes aside, I thought the place was hugely overrated.

No doubt Menino will miss Seth, but I know that his father’s story is one he’s been wanting to tell. Jerry Gitell is a fascinating guy, and was an enormous help to me in writing this 2002 piece (ignore the date at the top of the page) on revelations that former senator Bob Kerrey may have committed war crimes in Vietnam.

Seth: Good luck.

Media Nation’s loving family got me the new Bruce Springsteen CD, “We Shall Overcome,” for Father’s Day — and delivered me into the not-so-loving arms of Sony.

My iBook refused to recognize the CD. I read the fine print on the jacket and saw this: “The audio side of this disc does not conform to CD specifications and therefore will not play on some CD and DVD players.” I flipped it over, and the video side loaded perfectly.

Hmmm. I tried a cheap old CD player in the kitchen — no problem. Next I loaded it, CD-side up, into Mrs. Media Nation’s PowerBook, and got it to play. I ripped it to iTunes, burned a new CD, and then stuck that into my iBook. Problem solved.

So what’s going on here? This Wikipedia post suggests that it’s simply a matter of DualDiscs (CD on one side, DVD on the other) being too thick for some CD players. That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, though, because both my iBook and my wife’s PowerBook have the same slot-loading mechanism. Springsteen’s last album, “Devils & Dust,” is also a DualDisc, and it loads just fine; it’s the music that isn’t much good.

This and this, on the other hand, place the blame squarely on Sony, claiming that its notorious digital-rights-management (DRM) scheme has been installed on “We Shall Overcome.” It seems that on Windows machines, loading the CD might even damage your files.

Now, a question for Apple: The PowerBook that plays “We Shall Overcome” is running OS X 10.2.8, which is several years old. The iBook that won’t is running 10.4.6. Has Apple deliberately messed with its operating system in order to give Sony something to sink its fangs into?

And to think I bought a few shares of Apple this morning.

Update: It doesn’t seem to be a Mac OS issue. That’s good news. But I don’t think it’s just a simple matter of disc thickness, either.

This says it all:

Arroyo (9-3) gave up a run in the first and Carlos Beltran’s 19th homer leading off the ninth. He struck out five and walked one in his third career complete game, second this season.

“He’s a tremendous competitor. He is fearless, and one of the better pitchers in baseball — and I mean pitchers,” Cincinnati manager Jerry Narron said. “It’s a lot of fun to watch. You sometimes think it’s a lost art for guys that know how to pitch. He’s one of those guys.”

After David Wright’s one-out single, Arroyo retired Jose Valentin and Xavier Nady to end it on his 116th pitch.

“I didn’t take a pounding in any inning at all,” Arroyo said. “I had plenty left in the tank.”

But all hail Kyle Snyder.