Day By Day© by Chris Muir.

June 23, 2006

NY Times Blows Whistle On Yet Another Terrorist Fighting Program

Honestly...what the hell is wrong with the New York Times (or as radio host Mark Levin calls it, the New York Slimes)?

Under a secret Bush administration program initiated weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, counterterrorism officials have gained access to financial records from a vast international database and examined banking transactions involving thousands of Americans and others in the United States, according to
government and industry officials.

Viewed by the Bush administration as a vital tool, the program has played a hidden role in domestic and foreign terrorism investigations since 2001 and helped in the capture of the most wanted Qaeda figure in Southeast Asia, the officials said.

A vital tool, eh? It's no longer a vital tool; the government might as well trash it, thanks to the Times.

According to Michelle Malkin, the LA Times has now jumped on the bandwagon.

The contempt the NYT and its cronies have for our sitting president in a time of war is simply staggering. A legal program, devised to track the activities of Islamofascist terrorists who are doing their very best to blow us to kingdom come, has been outed by reporters Eric Lichtblau and James Risen. Why? It sure isn't in the interest of national security.

I am sure these two fine men have been given a light reporting schedule after this so they will have the time to write their Pulitzer acceptance speeches.

Freedom of speech my fanny! Freedom of speech comes with the responsibility to use it wisely. The NYT has once again shown its true colors, and they sure aren't red, white and blue. Why this paper has not yet been investigated for treason is beyond me.

Another good question to ask: who is giving out this information in the first place? Lichtblau and Risen didn't pull it out of their arses. They have sources, and those sources need to be investigated...then, if laws have been broken, tried for their crimes.

The "leaking" of Valerie Plame's name pales in comparison with the leaking of secret government programs designed to root out terrorists and keep the US from being attacked again.

Don't expect the NYT to apologize. Those of us who are outraged do not register on the Times' radar anyway. They write these articles for those who feel the same way about President Bush and his administration as they do.

And unless they are stopped via legal means, expect to read more of these types of stories in the days to come.

If you can spare the time, drop the Times a line:

E-mail: letters@nytimes.com
Fax: (212)556-3622.

Snail mail:

Letters to the Editor
The New York Times
229 West 43rd Street
New York, NY 10036

UPDATE (1:35): Here's my letter:

To the Editor,

I am curious as to why your paper deems it necessary to publish an article that outlines what was supposed to be a secret program, designed to track terrorists through bank transactions.

Why do you consider it to be in the public interest to know about it? Isn't it more in the public interest to keep such a program secret so that it can continue to be used effectively? Isn't the safety of the American public (which, by the way, includes you whether you like it or not) something you are concerned about? The government may as well start toss this program in the proverbial trash bin and start anew, thanks to your investigative journalism. I hope your quest for another Pulitzer to add to your collection is worth the cost.

While you and other prominent media outlets continue to deny that you harbor any kind of editorial bias in your reporting, articles like this tell the true story. In a time when Islamic terrorists are doing their best to find our weaknesses and use them against us, you are giving them exactly what they need. Your disdain for President George Bush and his administration can be read clearly between the lines in this latest in a long line of articles designed to trip them up at every turn.

Freedom of the press is a sacred tenet in this country, but it comes with a price tag: the ability to know when to use it wisely. If this article was a test of that responsibility, your paper has met with abject failure.

Congratulations.