Cheney, Others Want Their Secrets Kept!
Vice President Dick Cheney and a powerful New York Republican want the Bush administration to prosecute the press for printing stories about secret government strategies in the war on terror. Rep. Pete King, R-NY, is fired up after The New York Times and several other newspapers ran stories Friday about a program the Bush administration says it uses to monitor thousands of foreign financial transactions. "The New York Times clearly broke the law," said King, the House Homeland Security Committee chairman, Sunday, attacking the paper and government leakers for revealing a program he says has helped capture a number of al Qaida leaders. But one Republican who has been critical of the White House's clandestine surveillance programs, Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, R-PA, said The Times deserves a little slack. "We have seen the newspapers in this country act as effective watchdogs," Specter said on "Fox News Sunday.""I think it's premature to call for a prosecution of The New York Times," added Specter.
King disagrees. "The terrorists did not know that we had access to foreign transactions. This has definitely compromised our security in a time of war." King said he was especially angered by The Times because the paper earlier revealed the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping of terror-linked phone calls from abroad, the legality of which is still under review, and defended its latest stories. "No one elected The New York Times to do anything. They're breaking the law to satisfy their own arrogant, liberal agenda."
Times editor Bill Keller has said he listened to an administration appeal to keep the lid on the program but decided the "extraordinary access" was a "matter of public interest."
The government has covertly tracked thousands of international money transactions for nearly five years as part of its so-called war on terror. Vice President Cheney said also leaking the program played into the enemy's hands. Speaking in Chicago, Cheney said the leaks and the stories, which went ahead despite appeals from the White House, would make it more difficult for the administration to prevent future attacks. The operation uses a huge financial database in Belgium, known as Swift, to track private money transfers around the world.
But civil liberty groups have raised concerns that the program, which began soon after the 9/11 attacks in the US, may infringe individual rights to privacy. "These are good, solid sound programs," said Cheney. "They are conducted in accordance with the laws of the land." Cheney added that he was most disturbed by "...the fact that some in the media take it upon themselves to disclose vital national security programs, thereby making it more difficult for us to prevent future attacks against the American people."
The program had earlier also been defended by Treasury Secretary John Snow, who called it an "effective weapon in the larger war on terror." The treasury says the program is strictly confined to the records of suspected foreign terrorists.
The government had devised Swift, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, which links about 7,800 financial institutions around the world, to open their records using subpoenas.
Times Executive Editor Bill Keller defended the newspaper's position. "We remain convinced that the administration's extraordinary access to this vast repository of international financial data, however carefully targeted use of it may be, is a matter of public interest."
- June 26, 2006
This item is closed, it's not possible to add new comments to it or to vote on it
Click here to manage subscription