Media Double Standard

[Divinus Arma]

Media on Bush Administration: "How dare you try to stop the freedom of press with your threats! This is America we will print anything we want to, including legitimate secret programs against terror!"

New York Times on Muslim Cartoons: "We refuse to publish the cartoons out of respect. The Media has an obligation of restraint."




WHAT THE HECK?!?!?!?!?!?!

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Not a fair comparison, Eclectic. The Bush administration has been a media free-fire zone since before it's inauguration, once a proper media-centric leader like McCain or Obama gets in you can look for more balance.

Note:

[Papewaio]

Bit of a difference.

One is having the government place restrictions on a free press. A government that tries to censor or push its own agenda would transform the press from being free to being state controlled.

The other is a free press being just that. Free to publish or not what it sees fit.

[Divinus Arma]

Bit of a difference.

One is having the government place restrictions on a free press. A government that tries to censor or push its own agenda would transform the press from being free to being state controlled.

The other is a free press being just that. Free to publish or not what it sees fit.

Can you imagine the New York Times publishing that the U.S. had broken the Japanese and German code in WWII? Of Course not! Back then, they had restraint when it same to national security against foreign elements trying to destroy us.

In the current era, The New York Times has chosen an anti-Bush political agenda over the security of the United States. It has no right to publish classified LEGAL secrets and should be prosecuted as seditious to the interests of the country.

This is not a question of free speech. I cannot legally yell "bomb" in a crowded theatre, nor can the press print information that places lives in danger. There are sensibilites one must refrain from breaching in the interest of saving lives.

[Lemur]

The lesson I've drawn from western media's cowardice about the Mohammed cartoons is this: "We want total freedom of the press, and we want the freedom to be cowards about it."

It's a lot bigger than the NY Times. The rank cowardice and hypocrisy shown by most of the western media has been telling. As one radio host put it recently, "My courage ends with the words 'credible death threat.' "

Eclectic may try to spin this into yet another isn't-our-president-treated-unfairly thread, but that's a partisan and partial look at the issue. Every major media outlet has knuckled under to the fear of mobs and death threats. That's the real story.

[Divinus Arma]

Eclectic may try to spin this into yet another isn't-our-president-treated-unfairly thread, but that's a partisan and partial look at the issue.

Because the NY Times has a partisan politcal agenda. And my point is not how Bush is treated, but how the NY Times has played politics and is basically a self-serving liberal elite paper that is willing to sacrifice American security for political points. They were clearly trying to capitalize on the NSA story and show how evil and imperialistic the big scary Bush war machine is.

When threatned by Muslim Radical fundamentalists the media (all of em) did not say, we will not publish the story because we do not want to be bombed. They said, in essence: Media has a responsibility to be selective and sensitive to culture differences, and therefore we have chosen restraint.

But yet when it comes to restraint and sensitivity towards national secrets, they scream that they will not be intimidated? Come on man! That's double talk BS as plain as day. If media services said, we do not want to be bombed, at least they would be honest in that respect. There is no integrity in today's journalism. They publish what they want based on a political agenda and nothing more. If you can't see that, then I can't see the bias in Clear Channel.

Every major media outlet has knuckled under to the fear of mobs and death threats. That's the real story.

Yep. But they claim something else entirely. Who's a chicken hawk now? What we have hear are free speech chicken hawks, thank you very much. Big cajones, all of 'em.

I hope the leaker goes to jail for years. I hope the NY Times gets nailed. The Media needs a slap in the face to say "Hey. Wake up. This is a war. Quit giving secrets to the enemy."


And Cube, as for a transparent society, how about this: Let's publish all of our nuclear silo sites? Let's provide nuclear know-how online and explain where our security forces are staioned. Let's explain all of our secret operations, how we gather information, where get information, who our secret allies are, how our nuclear submarines work and where they are via GPS. Lets publish announcements of when we plan to knock on a terrorists door.

By your logic, all of these things are free game. I have no problem with being a transparent society, but there are some things that need to be kept secret in order to ****ING STAY ALIVE.


If you hope to win a war, you do not explain to your enemy how you plan on defeating him.

Pretty basic trash that goes back to the earliest concepts of warfare, don't 'cha think?


Sorry, but this whole thing is absurd.

[Papewaio]

"As we have done before in rare instances when faced with a convincing national security argument, we agreed not to publish at that time.

"We also continued reporting, and in the ensuing months two things happened that changed our thinking.

"First, we developed a fuller picture of the concerns and misgivings that had been expressed during the life of the program.

"It is not our place to pass judgment on the legal or civil liberties questions involved in such a program, but it became clear those questions loomed larger within the government than we had previously understood.

"Second, in the course of subsequent reporting we satisfied ourselves that we could write about this program -- withholding a number of technical details -- in a way that would not expose any intelligence-gathering methods or capabilities that are not already on the public record.

"The fact that the government eavesdrops on those suspected of terrorist connections is well-known. The fact that the NSA can legally monitor communications within the United States with a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is also public information.

"What is new is that the NSA has for the past three years had the authority to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States without a warrant.

"It is that expansion of authority -- not the need for a robust anti-terror intelligence operation -- that prompted debate within the government, and that is the subject of the article."

It wasn't about how they did it, or whom they eavesdropped on. It was about the change of policy to allow any American to be eavesdropped on without a warrant. It would seem pretty evident that the FISC would give a warrant rather easily to listen to a suspected terrorist. This seems to be a political policy change that went by unannouced. How on earth is a citizen to stay informed and hence vote if they aren't given access to the full spectrum of policies that the government is using.

There is a gross difference between policies being changed (and hidden) and then revealed by the press and one of the press giving away operational details.

It is the difference between the press stating that the US was intending a pre-emptive strike on Iraq if it did not comply vs the press stating which targets, flight plans and time of attack for a pre-emptive strike.

It is a hollow victory if a nation of the free have to use the methods of the East German police to stay alive. And as I have already pointed out it is a feeble security blanket, a definite loss of freedom and liberties in an attempt to protect against something that isn't even in the top ten causes of death.

“Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.”

[Aenlic]

Because the NY Times has a partisan politcal agenda. And my point is not how Bush is treated, but how the NY Times has played politics and is basically a self-serving liberal elite paper that is willing to sacrifice American security for political points. They were clearly trying to capitalize on the NSA story and show how evil and imperialistic the big scary Bush war machine is.

So...

The New York Times with it's "partisan political agenda" "sacrifices American security" by publishing a story called "Bank Data Is Sifted by U.S. in Secret to Block Terror" about SWIFT on June 22, 2006. How dare they!

Interestingly, that very same day, the Wall Street Journal published a similar article called "U.S. Treasury Tracks Financial Data In Secret Program" about the very same program with almost exactly the same details.

The Los Angeles Times published a story called "Secret U.S. Program Tracks Global Bank Transfers" about the exact same program on the same day as well.

Oddly, I don't see any calls for the Wall Street Journal or the LA Times to be prosecuted for revealing "secrets" of national security. I don't see the Wall Street Journal being accused of partisan politics, even though they published the same story on the same day as the NYT.

Oh, and the financial tracking program? This so-called top secret national security program? All it does is access the database of SWIFT - the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication. It's based in Belgium. SWIFT is no secret. They have a nice informative web site, detailing exactly how they track financial information. They publish a magazine! There have been stories in the media about how we were using SWIFT to track terrorists financial data going all the way back to 2001, not long after 9/11. In fact, the person who has talked, in public, about the program the most - is none other than George W. Bush himself.

But, oh no, the New York Times "violated" national security talking about a program which is neither secret, nor in part even a US program! And they "violated" that national security on the same day as two other newspapers including the oh so liberal Bush-Hating Wall Street Journal ran nearly identical stories. Hmm...

Kind of makes me wonder just exactly who is playing partisan politics.

[Keba]

New York Times on Muslim Cartoons: "We refuse to publish the cartoons out of respect. The Media has an obligation of restraint."

I do believe that the problem with those ... Muslim Cartoons ... was that some of them were (and are) violating a taboo, namely they depicted something that the religions says 'do not depict'. It is difficult to comprehend, western society has more-or-less lost all forms of taboo behaviour, namely, things are talked about, forbidden, despised, but we do not have the mindset anymore that allows us not to even think about a certain subject.

Otherwise ... I'm going to say this ... if those things really threatened national security ... there's laws designed to stop them. Some of them go, releasing of classified information, releasing of information vital to the security of the state and it's citizens. Now, if the goverment had been serious about it, they would have, you know, like ... done something about them. Hell, they probably released the stuff to the press to look less incompetent or something.

[Lemur]

I hope the NY Times gets nailed. The Media needs a slap in the face to say "Hey. Wake up. This is a war. Quit giving secrets to the enemy."

Something I don't understand -- wasn't there a second paper that published the finance story? Wasn't it the Washington Post? Why do we never hear any calls for their blood? Seriously, I'm just wondering.

[solypsist]

when the u.s. has a gov't that:
has its own [secret] partisan reporters
pays mainstream media writers for favorable reportage
releases prepackaged news fakes

i thank god there are newspapers like the New York Times.

I hope the NY Times gets nailed.

[Divinus Arma]

*sigh*


I seem to be the lone ranger on the opposite side of each of these debates nowadays.

Oh woah is me.

Luckily I like a good argument.


RE: Cube's comments on Transparency. I too agree that transparency in government is important. However, I acknowledge the legitimate need to retain national secrets so long as the program is legal and the secrecy is currently necessary. When neither applies, then the people, including the press, have the right and obligation to revoke the privlege of secrecy. Congressional oversight is an important component of the checks and balances within our system to prevent abuses of the executive branch. That said, and someone may correct me if I am wrong, but the NY Times has acknowledged that this program was determined to be in full compliance with the law and has congressional oversight, but still decided to publish the information anyway.

RE: Pape's comments on NSA wiretapping. The quotes you posted refer to the NSA program, not the financial tracking. I won't argue over the NSA taps, because an expeditious secret warrant program was already in place, making the administration's choice to 'skip' judicial oversight inappropriate in my view.

RE: Aenlic's comments on Multiple media sources reporting this story. Again, correct me if I am wrong, but the NY Times actually broke the story. The rest followed suit with articles stating that "The NY Times is reporting that...". I think that the press, and I mean any outlet regardless of political affiliation, has the obligation of restraint where legality, oversight, and necessity are all verified as components of the U.S. secret. Otherwise, this is nothing more than exposing secrets simply to expose secrets.

RE: Cube's comments on U.S. Foreign Policy. The primary component of your comments I would address is on the projection of force abroad. There are instances where U.S. policy should be enforced in order to preserve stability in specific regions or to promote interests vital to national security. Now before you jump all over me, allow me to explain and provide examples. During the cold war, the United States was faced with a critical event that nearly resulted in nuclear war- the cuban missile crisis. As you well know, U.S. naval forces established a naval blockade outside of U.S. waters to prevent the nuclear arming of Cuba. The U.S. armed deterent in Cuban waters prevented nuclear proliferation in central and southern America, and reduced the strategic advantage of the Soviet Union in our region. Later in the Cold War, Reagan's policy of "Peace through Strength" caused the bankruptcy of the Soviet Union, resulting in its decline, breakup, and transition to Democratic capitalism. The previous period of U.S. isolationism following World War I contributed to the near destruction and conquest of our friends in Europe by a truly imperialist enemy. It was only when the enemies of western freedom saw an opportunity to exploit a critical vulnerability that they exposed themselves to the risk of a full engagement. The modern era of warfare is defined by a few charactersitics unique from previous periods of warfare that contribute to the need for an active American foreign policy. In essence, we are continuously enagaging in an "Offense as Defense", militarily, economically, and politically. As a transparent society, the objective and methods of such a strategy are outlined clearly for all to see in the National Security Strategy of the United States of America. The document summarizes the intent of U.S. Policy as such:

• Champion Aspirations for Human Dignity.
• Strengthen Alliances to Defeat Global Terrorism and Work to Prevent Attacks Against Us and Our Friends.
• Work with others to Defuse Regional Conflicts.
• Prevent Our Enemies from Threatening Us, Our Allies, and Our Friends with Weapons of Mass Destruction
• Ignite a New Era of Global Economic Growth through Free Markets and Free Trade
• Expand the Circle of Development by Opening Societies and Building the Infrastructure of Democracy
• Develop Agendas for Cooperative Action with the Other Main Centers of Global Power
• Transform America's National Security Institutions to Meet the Challenges and Opportunities of the Twenty-First Century

I would only recommend that you entertain yourself with its contents, so that we can be in a position to better debate the merits of such an internationally active foreign policy. I fail to see a policy failure in encouraging global trade, supporting emerging democracies, and maintaining intercontinental alliances against threats from totalitarian or fundamentalist movements.

[Aenlic]

Something I don't understand -- wasn't there a second paper that published the finance story? Wasn't it the Washington Post? Why do we never hear any calls for their blood? Seriously, I'm just wondering.

Please look up a few posts, Lemur. I spelled it all out. On the same day, let me repeat that for clarity... on the same day that the NY Times published their story, both the Wall Street Journal and the LA Times published similar stories with the same basic content but different headlines. The WSJ even titled their story "U.S. Treasury Tracks Financial Data In Secret Program" and yet, only the NYT is called traitorous and accused of playing partisan political games. It would be funny if it weren't so disgusting. Clearly the partisan political games are coming from the other direction, when one paper gets singled out and a paper which published the same thing on the exact same day, but which happens to mostly support Bush and is seen as conservative, is just given a pass. It couldn't possibly be any more blatantly partisan - on the part of the Bush adminstration and their lockstep political toadies, that is.

[Aenlic]

RE: Aenlic's comments on Multiple media sources reporting this story. Again, correct me if I am wrong, but the NY Times actually broke the story. The rest followed suit with articles stating that "The NY Times is reporting that...". I think that the press, and I mean any outlet regardless of political affiliation, has the obligation of restraint where legality, oversight, and necessity are all verified as components of the U.S. secret. Otherwise, this is nothing more than exposing secrets simply to expose secrets.

OK, you're wrong. Stories came out the same day. The other two (actually it was three - looking further into it, I found a similar article in the Washington Post on that same day - June 22nd) papers found out the Times was running the story; so they ran their own versions in order to not get "scooped" by the NYT. And it wasn't the NYT or the Wall Street Journal or the LA Times that "broke" the story. The Washington Post ran an article all the way back in 1998 (!) about how the CIA and the Treasury Department were working with the Federal Reserve and SWIFT and another system called CHIPS to track terrorist finances, and they even mentioned bin Laden! This was in 1998! An article about SWIFT and the supposedly "secret" program to mine its database for terrorist financial data appeared in the Baltimore Sun back in 2001. Bush made repeated references to the program from November of 2001 onwards, in many speeches.

But somehow, the NYT, which is perceived as being anti-Bush and liberal because of its editorial pages, is the only one guilty of publishing "secrets" essential to national security? I don't think so.

[Divinus Arma]

Please look up a few posts, Lemur. I spelled it all out. On the same day, let me repeat that for clarity... on the same day that the NY Times published their story, both the Wall Street Journal and the LA Times published similar stories with the same basic content but different headlines. The WSJ even titled their story "U.S. Treasury Tracks Financial Data In Secret Program" and yet, only the NYT is called traitorous and accused of playing partisan political games. It would be funny if it weren't so disgusting. Clearly the partisan political games are coming from the other direction, when one paper gets singled out and a paper which published the same thing on the exact same day, but which happens to mostly support Bush and is seen as conservative, is just given a pass. It couldn't possibly be any more blatantly partisan - on the part of the Bush adminstration and their lockstep political toadies, that is.

I made it quite clear that a dissaprove of any media source releasing legal and necessary United States secrets. If there are additional media sources that have published this information simultaneously, then they hold the same obligations regardless of party affiliation. However, if right-wing elements released the information simultaneously as you claim, then I suspect an error in the specificity of your claim here. Why? If right-wing media were leaked to simulataneously, and the administrations pursues only the NY Times, then that would indicate a absolutely fool-hardy political error: it would show that that administration approved the leak but is attempting to burn only the NY Times. This would be too obvious and thus too politically dangerous if it were true.

[Lemur]

I suspect an error in the specificity of your claim here. Why? If right-wing media were leaked to simulataneously, and the administrations pursues only the NY Times, then that would indicate a absolutely fool-hardy political error: it would show that that administration approved the leak but is attempting to burn only the NY Times. This would be too obvious and thus too politically dangerous if it were true.

Hello fool-hardy, politically dangerous land:

It is interesting that in the current flap, of the three newspapers that reported on the administration's global money-tracking program, only the New York Times is being vilified as a patriotic miscreant. The conservative Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times have taken hardly any heat.

FYI, here are links to all three papers' coverage, all dated from June 22nd.

New York Times
Los Angeles Times
Wall Street Journal

[Divinus Arma]

How do you determine what is necesarrily legal, when these programs are never given to the American People to decide on in the first place. Do you think most Americans would have approved of a Nuclear Program? Probably, come to think of it, but they were never asked, were they? Indeed, you might argue that congress is consulted, but then Congress is never allowed to go back and tell the people what they've done. So in essence, you can't vote a congressment in or out based on this--which means the element of democracy is left out entirely with secret programs.

The United States is a representative Republic, not a pure Democracy. We approve of the people who put policy into place. If we do not agree with their policy we can remove them through primary elections or in the general election.

I think we agree in Spirit, but the deciding line here is when the need to project our influence overrides the freedom of Americans in any way what-so-ever.

If by this you mean that citizens have the freedom to reveal U.S. secrets, then I must respectfully disagree. Even washington employed spies, and their status as such was necessary and relevant to the casue of independance. (And don't you liberals jump out here and scream Valeria Plame since she wasn't in an undercover status protected by law; besides we shall see where that unravels and I may very well agree with you in some respects.)

As far as our foreign policy is concerned, the life of one American should be worth more than the existance of any of our allies. The freedom of one American should be worth more than the rest of the world.

This is open to ethical debate, though I agree with you in essence. As a human, I value all life equally. As an American and as a service member, I value the lives of Americans more. However, this does not mean that I do not highly value the lives of allies, as I would be willing to die or kill for British lives almost equally to that of Americans. Almost.

I once believed that the life of one American is not worth the country of our enemy. I have now abandoned that view in one that favors American values first. Whgen America loses her soul, then it is no longer America, and I am obligated to stand for the constitution and against those that have abandoned the constitution. Some say that this already happened 140 years ago. I again argue that American socialist autocracy is almost inevitable.

So when projecting our power becomes more important than the fundamental freedom and liberty of our citizens, we have reached a very serious problem.

I fail to see where a policy of active defense interferes with our fundamental freedoms and liberties as you wrote here. Can you clarify your statement and provide specific examples?

[Kralizec]

I don't agree with your vision that "the government knows what's good for us" and that we can trust them to act responsibly and with respect to our rights even when acting in complete secrecy.

Your comparison with nuke silos is ridiculous. If the American people know that they are there that's enough. Knowing their exact location doesn't add anything and would only help potential saboteurs. But if the government had the power to wipe entire nations of the face of the Earth without the public knowing, that would indeed be outrageous.

Since I disagree with your premise, there isn't much room for discussion.

Have a cookie

[Xiahou]

Hello fool-hardy, politically dangerous land:

It is interesting that in the current flap, of the three newspapers that reported on the administration's global money-tracking program, only the New York Times is being vilified as a patriotic miscreant. The conservative Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times have taken hardly any heat.

FYI, here are links to all three papers' coverage, all dated from June 22nd.

New York Times
Los Angeles Times
Wall Street Journal

The LA Times article you linked talks about the reaction of the Press Secretary to the program's exposure. If they broke the story at the same time as the others, what was Snow reacting to? The WSJ article requires a subscription.

[Spetulhu]

Your comparison with nuke silos is ridiculous. If the American people know that they are there that's enough. Knowing their exact location doesn't add anything and would only help potential saboteurs. But if the government had the power to wipe entire nations of the face of the Earth without the public knowing, that would indeed be outrageous.

The silos aren't exactly secret. The amount of concrete and heavy equipment needed to build them means they are by necessity somewhere close to the US road network. Drive through the right parts of a nuke state, you can't miss them. The only "secret" about their location is which number each silo has.

[Aenlic]

The LA Times article you linked talks about the reaction of the Press Secretary to the program's exposure. If they broke the story at the same time as the others, what was Snow reacting to? The WSJ article requires a subscription.

The articles posted on the web were posted the following day and are updated with current information. All three papers published stories on June, 22nd. All three papers then put the stories, with updates, on the web the next day. The web article linked to by Lemur is the June 23rd updated article, which includes reactions from the press conference held on the 22nd, which had many questions from reporters about the articles.

[Divinus Arma]

DA, you skirted around my point entirely. That was a pindar-esque move. Good one.

Twas never my intent. I do not seek to dodge, I rather prefer to brawl.

Read my post again. There's no way to apply democracy in any form to these kinds of secrets. How do you know what kinds of secret projects your congressman has voted for? You don't. So you can't kick him out of office for voting for projects you don't like.

Thank you for clarifying your point. You are exactly correct and it is a very difficult situation to deal with. If we are completely transparent, we will cede strategic advantage to those that seek to destroy us. If we keep secrets, we risk our freedoms.

I think we have a pretty good middle ground. And on this point, I wil yield my argument against the NY Times. The obligation of secrecy rests with the government, not the press.

I mean things like secret CIA prisons. The contra affair. Secret intervensionist crap that costs millions (billions?) of tax-payer dollars on things that many would find dispicable.

All are sucky. Some are sucki-er. Few are the sucki-est.

America is in the unique position to be able to prosecute any worthwhile war while maintaining transparency and a public conscience regarding the use of tax dollars. Unfortunately, the self-perpetuating anti-democtratic "Secrecy" business doesn't seem to be going away.

I disagree. Transparency and secrecy are counterbalancing forces. We cannot have both, but yet we require both. I yield my point on the NY Times as I see their purpose as a natural Adam Smith invisible hand that ensures government responsibility.

See? I'm not a partisan hack after all, now am I?

[Divinus Arma]

My conclusions on the matter:

The Media: Transparency v. Secrecy
Using the NY Times publication of financial tracking secrets, a focus on the obligations of the media in an open society.


Unless you live in a cave, you have been exposed in one capacity or another to the release of a classified government program to track international financial records as a tool in the War on Terror. There has been recent speculation that the Federal Government may choose to pursue prosecutorial action against the NY Times for the release of this information.

In a free and open society such as ours we must commit ourselves to a careful balancing act between transparency and secrecy. If we are completely transparent, we will cede strategic advantage to those that seek to destroy us. If we keep secrets, we risk our freedoms. The question is: On whom does the obligation fall?

Can you imagine the New York Times publishing that the U.S. had broken the Japanese and German code in WWII? Of Course not. Back then, they had restraint when it came to national security against foreign elements.

There can be no doubt that agenda journalism exists today. The U.S. electorate is a spectrum of diverse political affiliations and ideologies, but those who are politically tuned-in will be able to tell you which outlets service the opposing ends of the spectrum. Most Democrats will readily identify which team Fox News pitches for. And likewise who Clear Channel plays for. Alternatively, there can be no doubt as to the political leanings of NewsWeek, the NY Times, the LA Times, and a host of others. To deny that agenda journalism or political influence in press editing exists, you must either be naive or blindly partisan- and claiming your own favored outlet as "non-partisan".

And with this, there can be no doubt as to the political motivations behind the editors of the NY Times: They sought to capitalize off of concerns over NSA wiretapping with another big secret of potential intrusion. But this was different. Even the NY Times admitted that "...the program helps catch and prosecute financers of terror, and we have not identified any serious abuses of privacy so far." All of us should remember the Muslim cartoon debacle. The NY Times, and other media outlets to be fair, chose not to publish the offensive images, essentially claiming respect for cultural differences. They choose restraint in that case, why not now when lives are at risk? The motivations could only then be partisan or sensationalist- publishing secrets simply because they are secret.

In response to administration condemnation of the NY Times article, some are openly calling for the prosecution of the NY Times under Criminal Code Section 798 of Title 18:

Whoever knowingly and willfully communicates, furnishes, transmits, or otherwise makes available to an unauthorized person, or publishes, or uses in any manner prejudicial to the safety or interest of the United States or for the benefit of any foreign government to the detriment of the United States any classified information . . . concerning the communication intelligence activities of the United States . . . shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.

Many Americans rightfully believe that the press has an obligation of restraint where national security interests are at stake. The fear is that the press will continue to gain access to more secret programs and publish them for partisan or capital gain. After all, even George Washington employed spies in pursuit of the cause of independence. Their status was considered not only secret, but directly contributory to the cause of American liberty. The concepts of secrecy in strategy are as old as history, with military minds such as Vegetius and Sun Tzu citing its necessity. How can one fight a war if the enemy knows our every move?

For those Americans advocating transparency we must consider where the line should be drawn. There are those advocates who say that there are no limitations and that a free and open society has an obligation to make available all information relevant to the public interest. We are not a direct democracy, but a representative republic and thus we are utterly incapable of holding our representatives to account based on their classified voting records. When it comes to secret programs, members of Congress are unable to publish how they have voted because the existence and content of the programs themselves are classified. Truly, democracy is left at the door and our representatives are left unaccountable.

Transparency and secrecy are counterbalancing forces. We cannot have both, but yet we require both. Secrecy is a privilege of government only when secrecy is both legal and currently justifiable for the purposes of national security. Clearly, when neither condition applies, the people, and the press, have a duty to revoke the privilege of secrecy.

When secrecy is justified legally and currently, the obligation of this secrecy rests not with the press but with the government. The media, for all its political and capital motivations, provides a free and open society with an Adam Smith capitalist-style "invisible hand" that naturally balances secrecy against transparency. Where transparency is required, political motivations will exploit the opportunity to show illegality or lack of necessity. Where secrecy is gravely required, bi-partisan elements within public government will act to ensure that the press will not have inappropriate access. This invisible hand does not obviate signatories to classified information-sharing agreements from responsibility. It only protects the freedom and independence of our press.

[Aenlic]

Technicality? How about completely ignoring the fact that the Wall Street Journal also published the same story, and then going on about media bias and liberal media agendas. Where, exactly, does the Wall Street Journal's decidedly non-liberal bias fit into this absurdity?

[Lemur]

It goes back to a question I asked early in the thread -- if three newspapers published the same information on the same day, why has the NY Times been the sole recipient of criticism? It's a valid question, and I don't feel it has been answered.

[Major Robert Dump]

Must be nice for the executive to engage in a perpetual war, so that the national security card can be played every hand. Convenient, indeed. States and cities could easily follow suit. Personally, I blame the liberal press on Osmama never being caught for alerting him that we were looking for him in the first place. Gosh darned liberal press, Osama was about to start shopping in malls again before he read those articles!

[Divinus Arma]

I made it pretty clear that the press is off the hook. There is a clear strategic reason for limited secrecy and the press acts as the "invisible hand" to balance what should be secret and what should be transparent. It's not that I trust the government to do the right thing; I trust the politicians to do the politically motivated thing- and this is what gets the leaks out.

Cube, do you honestly think that absolutely every single document and other bit of information in government should be open to the public and the world?

[yesdachi]

Hehee.. There was a depiction of Mohammad on South Park last night. On Fox, no less. The "Super Best Friends" episode from Season 5.

The "Super Best Friends" episode is my favorite episode of South Park!!


IMO the major media are… rant deleted… lame. If you ever work in or near the industry you will probably start rolling your eyes more often when ever you watch, listen or read the news.

I know of a few writers and reporters who I would trust with sensitive information but I know more who are more than willing to stretch the truth and slack on research just to be able to take a long lunch. Journalistic integrity is just a badge worn to get into places for free.

Lazy, opportunistic, greedy and protected by a misused force field called the constitution is the best way I can describe most “media” people.

[Divinus Arma]

Yep. We shouldn't have anything to hide. We're in the morally right, remember?

Morality aside, I'm simply talking practicality.

How about Social Security Numbers? Those are issued by the government. Why don't we make all of those public? How about Medical records? Military medical care keeps thos eecret. How about our secret deals with allies who are trying to use sercecy to be protected from their belligerent regional neighbors? Should we have spy programs at all?

Aside from practicality like medical records and SSNs, a large part of our strategic power stems from secrecy. If we eliminated national sercets entirely then every nation on earth would have our sercets, but we wouldn't have any of theirs. That would make them powerful and us very weak.

[Divinus Arma]

Nukes alone do not an army make.

Russia has just as many nukes as we, but does not have the strategic power that we do. We are the worlds only remaining "super"power in part because of our national secrets.

I guess I can't convince you on this one, but you haven't exactly presented a solid argument against secrecy aside from: it places additional power into the hands of the few representatives which we can not hold as accountable as we would like.

Your arguments that we can operate from a position of military strength without secrecy are rendered erroneous by every military strategist from Sun Tzu and after.