Global War on Terror,  Media,  Media Bias

Global War on Terror Watch: Dean Baquet – Why the Los Angeles Times Published the Secret Details of SWIFT Bank Data Anti-Terrorism Program

June 27, 2006 /


Los Angeles Times: Why we ran the bank story

MANY READERS have been sharply critical of our decision to publish an article Friday on the U.S. Treasury Department’s program to secretly monitor worldwide money transfers in an effort to track terrorist financing.

They have sent me sincere and powerful expressions of their disappointment in our newspaper, and they deserve an equally thoughtful and honest response.

The decision to publish this article was not one we took lightly. We considered very seriously the government’s assertion that these disclosures could cause difficulties for counterterrorism programs. And we weighed that assertion against the fact that there is an intense and ongoing public debate about whether surveillance programs like these pose a serious threat to civil liberties.

We sometimes withhold information when we believe that reporting it would threaten a life. In this case, we believed, based on our talks with many people in the government and on our own reporting, that the information on the Treasury Department’s program did not pose that
threat. Nor did the government give us any strong evidence that the information would thwart true terrorism inquiries. In fact, a close read of the article shows that some in the government believe that the program is ineffective in fighting terrorism.

In the end, we felt that the legitimate public interest in this program outweighed the potential cost to counterterrorism efforts.

Some readers have seen our decision to publish this story as an attack on the Bush administration and an attempt to undermine the war on terror.

We are not out to get the president. This newspaper has done much hard-hitting reporting on terrorism, from around the world, often at substantial risk to our reporters. We have exposed terrorist cells and led the way in exposing the work of terrorists. We devoted a reporter to covering Al Qaeda’s role in world terrorism in the months before 9/11. I know, because I made the assignment.

But we also have an obligation to cover the government, with its tremendous power, and to offer information about its activities so citizens can make their own decisions. That’s the role of the press in our democracy.

The founders of the nation actually gave us that role, and instructed us to follow it, no matter the cost or how much we are criticized. Thomas Jefferson said, “Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.” That’s the edict we followed.

This was a tough call for me, as I’m sure it was for the editors of other papers that chose to publish articles on the subject. But history tells us over and over that the nation’s founders were right in pushing the press into this role. President Kennedy persuaded the press not to report the Bay of Pigs planning. He later said he regretted this, that he might have called it off had someone exposed it.

History has taught us that the government is not always being honest when it cites secrecy as a reason not to publish. No one believes, in retrospect, that there was any true reason to withhold the Pentagon Papers, although the government fought vigorously to keep them from being published by the New York Times and the Washington Post. As Justice Hugo Black put it in that case: “The guarding of military and diplomatic secrets at the expense of informed representative government provides no real security for our Republic.”

I don’t expect all of our readers to agree with my call. But understand that it was one taken with serious reflection and supported by much history.

Flap promised the links to the interview of Doyle McManus, Washington Bureau Chief of the Los Angeles Times yesterday.

Listen here.

The Transcript is here and read it all.

It is obvious from Baquet’s and McManus’s statements that neither appreciated or understood the seriousness of printing this story. National security experts they are not and both are barely able successful journalists (notwithstanding the declining circulation of the Los Angeles Times).

Simply said: They printed the story because the New York Times did and they were “scooped.”

Hugh Hewitt has an analysis here.

But the reactions of Americans across the country is one of disgust. The media elite crossed a line, and its indifference to the threat of terrorism defined it in a way that a thousand columns will not undo.

Patterico has his analysis here.

Notably missing from your piece, Mr. Baquet, is any true justification for printing the article. We learn that you supposedly agonized over the decision, and that the Founding Fathers loved a free press, and that you really, really aren’t out to get Bush.

But what is the affirmative argument for publication? Surely you see that publishing such sensitive details requires one. But I don’t see it.

Your Washington Bureau Chief has said that the key factors he looked at in making the decision to publish were: “Is this legal? Are there safeguards?”

Yet, as I have demonstrated, the evidence in all the articles suggests that the program is legal, that it does have adequate safeguards, and that key Congressional committees were briefed.

Given these facts, where is the compelling public interest in revealing classified details of a legal and effective anti-terror program?

If this is the best you have to offer as a justification, Mr. Baquet, then you have made a terrible mistake, that may have tragic consequences for our country.

And Flap will ask Dean Baquet as he asked Bill Keller, how many Americans have to die?

Dean and Bill, you made a poor call and America will suffer from your mistakes.

Disgraceful conduct by the American Press.

Previous:

Global War on Terror Watch: United States Treasury Secretary Snow Responds to Bill Keller of the New York Times

Global War on Terror Watch: President Bush Condemns Disclosure and Publishing Details of SWIFT Anti-Terrorism Finance Program

Los Angeles Times Watch: Patterico and Danziger Dump the Los Angeles Dog Trainer

Global War on Terror Watch: Dear Mr. Keller – Why?

Global War on Terror Watch: New York Times Publishes Secret Details of SWIFT Bank Data Anti-Terrorism Program

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4 Comments

  • M.A.

    June 27, 2006 at 10:51 am

    “The Wall Street Journal received no request to withhold the story.”

    Until you, Hugh Hewitt and the Powerline Boys start condemning the Wall Street Journal as strongly as the “Two Times,” I’ll believe you’re serious about this, since if the New York Times hates America and wants to help terrorists, clearly the WSJ does too. As it is, and since the WSJ published the story at the same time as the “Two Times,” it’s clear you just want to bash newspapers with not-entirely-Bush-friendly editorial pages.

    As for the purpose of publishing it, it’s pretty simple. It was already known — because Bush had said so — that they were tracking terrorists’ financial records. What was not known was that their way of doing it was one that was completely removed from oversight by Congress or the courts, and thereby removed from any protection against abuse. This fits a pattern of oversight-free conduct by the administration, conduct that is dangerously similar to the conduct of the Johnson and Nixon administrations (two administrations that massively abused surveillance programs). Hence, the story is of interest, and since Bush had already talked about this kind of surveillance, it is of no conceivable harm to national security. And until the WSJ gets hauled into court, I’ll assume the Bush administration knows that.

  • Flap

    June 27, 2006 at 11:31 am

    Flap answers your question by directing you to Patterico’s piece: Direct Your Anger at the NYT and LAT, Not the WSJ, for Leaking Classified Information About a Successful Anti-Terror Program

    Some commenters and bloggers have suggested that the Wall Street Journal is equally culpable as the New York Times and Los Angeles Times for leaking classified information about a successful anti-terror program. Now that I have had a chance to read the full Wall Street Journal piece, I disagree.

    Based on my reading of the relevant articles, the responsible parties here are only the New York Times and the L.A. Times. The Wall Street Journal simply printed a story using on-the-record interviews with named government officials who knew the East and West Coast Timeses were going to print the story anyway.

    The key questions are: 1) which papers were conducting an investigation by speaking with anonymous officials about classified information? and 2) which papers were asked by the government not to print the stories? The answer to both questions, based upon reading the stories, is: the New York Times and the L.A. Times — not the Wall Street Journal.

    It sounds to me like the Wall Street Journal, like the Washington Post, printed on-the-record reactions from government officials who knew that the N.Y. Times and L.A. Times were going to publish articles anyway — because these officials had pleaded with the editors of those papers not to print the stories, to no avail.

    Direct your anger at the New York Times and Los Angeles Times. Leave the Wall Street Journal alone.

    Flap concurs………