Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Bush and Cheney Assault the Gray Lady

As of late Monday, young Mister Bush, Dick Cheney and White House Press Secretary Tony Snow had pilloried the "liberal media" for revealing the existence of the Treasury Department/CIA covert monitoring of the SWIFT monetary transfer system.

The administration's anointed echo chamberlains were swift to pick their drumsticks. This from a National Review Online editorial titled "Stop the Leaks."

Every passing week, it becomes more apparent that disgruntled leftists in the intelligence community and antiwar crusaders in the mainstream media, annealed in their disdain for the Bush administration, are undermining our ability to win the War on Terror. Their latest body blow to the war effort is the exposure, principally by the New York Times, of the Treasury Department’s top-secret program to monitor terror funding.

It's pretty funny how anybody who objects to government intrusion on privacy is a disgruntled leftist or an antiwar crusader, and how any effort to check the power rapacious Bush administration is a "body blow to the war effort."

But this NRO vituperative gets even funnier.
President Bush…must demand that the New York Times pay a price for its costly, arrogant defiance. The administration should withdraw the newspaper’s White House press credentials because this privilege has been so egregiously abused, and an aggressive investigation should be undertaken to identify and prosecute, at a minimum, the government officials who have leaked national-defense information.

I'll let the Ann Coulter-like style of this passage go for the time being and jump to its core absurdity. If the administration yanks the NYT's White House press credentials, how will it leak classified disinformation through the Gray Lady via the next Judith Miller?

Speaking absurdity and Ann Coulter, on Joe Scarborough's program last night she compared the Times to Jane Fonda sitting on a North Vietnamese tank. I love how these far right types use their freedom of speech to attack freedom of speech.

Here's where it all stops being funny.

House Homeland Security Chairman Pete King (R New York) wants Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to prosecute the New York Times for running the SWIFT story.

This is scary stuff, kids, because we're talking about a potential major league legal battle, and as deep as the Times' pockets may be, they're nowhere near as deep as the pockets of the United States Treasury.

Here's something else I don't find terribly funny. Cheney tells us that all the administration's secret monitoring programs are consistent with Mister Bush's constitutional authority. And a lot of people are willing to take his word for it.

I am not a scholar of constitutional law, but I've spent quite a bit of time studying the document. I know precisely where it guarantees freedom of speech and personal privacy (Amendments I and IV), but I have yet to find a single passage in the Constitution that discusses the government's right to keep secrets.

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Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Retired) writes from Virginia Beach, Virginia. Read his weekday commentaries at ePluribus Media and Pen and Sword.

Also see Smoke, Mirrors and War Powers.

10 comments:

  1. Anyone with 2 functioning brain cells should know financial transfers are being closely monitored, especially in this post-9/11 world.

    This seems to be: 1) the White House making noise just for the sake of it (otherwise there might be bad news leaking through), and 2) taking the opportunity to lean on the NYT in particular, and the "liberal" news media by extension.

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  2. Bingo, Jeff. Somebody somewhere said everybody knew about it but us in the US.

    Yeah, make cover noise and bash the media. SOP.

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  3. Yeah, Mus. Some secret.

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  4. if a case agaist the NYT were to go to trial at all, it could possible have quite a chilling effect on the media. Even if the NYT wins, other media outlets could become afraid of being the next target and there goes the 1st amendment right out the window. Its a scary time in america for our basic rights & freedoms these days.

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  5. Just the threat is scary enough. I mentioned about the NYT's pockets versus the Treasury's. But NYT has a lot of sway over public opinion which the treasury doesn't.

    Now if you're a smaller outlet with smaller pockets and smaller audience, do you want to put yourself in the crosshairs?

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  6. Anonymous5:07 PM

    The whole thing is ridiculous. As stated before, the information was already out there, it's nothing new. With freedom of press being attacked, how much longer until freedom of speech gets a reprimand. I can't help but think of 1984.

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  7. But middle Americans won't know, they live in hobbit land and will think oh gosh and golly gee..them leftists liberal good for nothings are undermining the war on terror!
    As with anything, it's the ol' follow the money and as mentioned by my esteemed previous commenters, nothing new under the sun. I had a Hungarian friend who moved to the US shortly after I did ('98)(having lived in Canada for a good ten years prior) and she was always paranoid (?!) about being listened into when we'd talk on the phone. Things most likely happened before 9/11 as well so.. I have become distrustful all around..unfortunately
    Ingrid

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  8. Anonymous3:00 PM

    I look at this illegal spying a couple of ways.

    First, it is nothing new, as has already been mentioned.

    Second, does the government really do anything without totally giving it the FUBAR treatment?

    What does concern me is that they will (have?) use it as a political/economic/corporate weapon. Hence, taking away our freedoms in a revolution without having to fire a shot.

    Bush and his boys, have already made it perfectly clear that they have the arrogance and audacity to disreguard laws when they see fit.

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  9. Anything they do is "legal."

    The most ridiculous part of this story is that, as I see it so far, the NYT didn't actually reveal anything that hadn't already been in the public domain for years. They just asked if it was legal.

    So they should be charged with treason for asking if something already known about is legal?

    That, perhaps, is the most frightening thing of all.

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  10. I do hope Bill Keller is tried for treason. I guess you Moonbats are invulnerable, hey "Jo Fish" aka Jeff Huber? If the terrorists set off more bombs in New York they won't harm you guys because assholes are impervious to such things, right?

    So yes, undermine the war effort, give aid and comfort to the enemy.

    Ann Coulter was right: The Democratic Party IS "the Party of Treason" and it is past time to make some examples of you.

    As for you Jeff Jo Fish Huber, you are a disgrace to the uniform.

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