All the energy in the right-wing blogosphere is currently aimed at Bill Keller, editor of the New York Times. Sheryl Gay Stolberg runs down the controversy on the front-page of the Gray Lady. I think there are a few important lessons that we should take from this controversy. Number one, the banking espionage is not the same as the NSA espionage. There are important distinctions, and we shouldn’t be sloppy and equate the two programs as equally offensive. But, this isn’t a post about the wisdom or legality of the banking program. It’s about how the media and the government interact in order decide what information the public deserves to know.
From former Treasury Secretary John Snow’s letter to Bill Keller:
Over the past two months, Treasury has engaged in a vigorous dialogue with the Times – from the reporters writing the story to the D.C. Bureau Chief and all the way up to you. It should also be noted that the co-chairmen of the bipartisan 9-11 Commission, Governor Tom Kean and Congressman Lee Hamilton, met in person or placed calls to the very highest levels of the Times urging the paper not to publish the story. Members of Congress, senior U.S. Government officials and well-respected legal authorities from both sides of the aisle also asked the paper not to publish or supported the legality and validity of the program.
Indeed, I invited you to my office for the explicit purpose of talking you out of publishing this story. And there was nothing “half-hearted” about that effort. I told you about the true value of the program in defeating terrorism and sought to impress upon you the harm that would occur from its disclosure. I stressed that the program is grounded on solid legal footing, had many built-in safeguards, and has been extremely valuable in the war against terror. Additionally, Treasury Under Secretary Stuart Levey met with the reporters and your senior editors to answer countless questions, laying out the legal framework and diligently outlining the multiple safeguards and protections that are in place.
So, once a New York Times reporter gets a leak or series of leaks, outlining a covert operation that is of questionable legality, they still have many hurdles before they can publish it. They are subjected to repeated and sustained bullying, their editors get bullied, the owner of the paper probably gets bullied, and all the while the government is crafting a counterspin in case the information ever sees the light of day.
Whether or not the program is legal, effective, or will be undermined by exposure are irrelevant to whether the reporter (and their paper) will have to go through this process.
I suppose there is no avoiding this process, since the New York Times must ask the government to respond to allegations raised in the leaks. And every administration is going to discourage the publishing of politically embarassing national security information. What’s important to understand is just how hard it is to expose governmental wrong doing. It’s also important to read between the lines of these big scoop articles to see all the ass-covering and bullshit nuance that is already built into the stories before we ever see them.
The administration is much different from prior administrations. They do not operate along the same assumptions about the public’s right to have information about what their government is doing.
”The New York Times and other news organizations ought to think long and hard about whether a public’s right to know, in some cases, might overwrite somebody’s right to live, and whether, in fact, the publications of these could place in jeopardy the safety of fellow Americans,” the press secretary said.
But, even so, the priciple applies to all administrations. They all engage in this type of behavior, just to a lesser degree. We should be grateful that large organizations like the New York Times have the resources and the balls to stand up to this kind of pressure and publish anyway. But, we should also be clear that they spike a lot of stories under this kind of pressure.
I’ll give Keller his props for doing the right thing here. He made his judgment that the public’s right to know outweighed any potential threat to the public safety. That’s his call, and he should not back down.
We need to get this government back under control and have Congress doing its job on oversight. Until Congress shows a willingness to perform their duties, people like Keller have little choice but to take the facts right to the electorate, and let us decide.
