Comments on: The ailing NY Times: the watchdog has rabies

By: Robin

Robin — Mon, 03 Jul 2006 21:21:43 +0000

I think the NYT is seeking relevency in a world where they are becoming incresingly irrelevant. Like children needing attention, their behavior becomes more outrageous as they look for new ways to be validated. What to do? We need to boycott their advertisers.

By: confusedforeigner

confusedforeigner — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 17:18:00 +0000

To posit that the terrorists already knew all about this is ludicrous given that high ranking government officials had little or no detailed knowledge about the program-

We are talking about the Bush administration aren't we?

No surprize there either. For chrissakes, did anyone on the planet NOT know about this tracking? Jeeeezus.

By: douglas

douglas — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 17:18:00 +0000

Well, if we're just cutting and pasting- here's a post I left elsewhere, so it'll be referenceing someone else, but that's o.k.- the facts remain the same-

From the original NYT piece:

“The idea for the Swift program, several officials recalled, grew out of a suggestion by a Wall Street executive, who told a senior Bush administration official about Swift's database. Few government officials knew much about the consortium, which is led by a Brooklyn native, Leonard H. Schrank, but they quickly discovered it offered unparalleled access to international transactions. Swift, a former government official said, was "the mother lode, the Rosetta stone" for financial data.”

To posit that the terrorists already knew all about this is ludicrous given that high ranking government officials had little or no detailed knowledge about the program- it took someone in the know. There is no question that terrorists were put on notice that we would attack their funding, we made that very clear immediately after 9/11. I don’t think you can argue that all the terrorists would’ve been fully aware of all the risks they took making money transfers prior to the NYT leak.

The counterterrorismblog link is interesting, but obviously, Hambali and his group of operatives didn’t know about it, or even if they did, they didn’t realize how it could be used to trace back to them. Now that they know about it, and that it caught Hambali, they’ll reverse-engineer what happened to figure out how they got caught, and won’t make that mistake again. The fact that experts in the field were aware of some interest in SWIFT by the US, and that it was in a report on the UN website doesn’t prove your point at all. See above.

Consider also the Chicago Tribune, in 1943, had published information that inplied that we had broken the Japanese Codes. Did you know that? Fortunately, since there was no internet in WWII, the Japanese did not discover the leak. From Wiki:
“Public notice had actually been served that Japanese cryptography was dangerously inadequate by the Chicago Tribune, which published a series of stories just after Midway in 1942 directly claiming – correctly, of course – that the victory was due in large part to US breaks into Japanese crypto systems (in this case, the JN-25 cypher, though which system(s) had been broken was not mentioned in the newspaper stories). Fortunately, neither the Japanese nor anyone who might have told them seem to have noticed either the Tribune coverage, or the stories based on the Tribune account published in other US papers. Nor did they notice announcements made on the floor of the US Congress to the same effect. There were no changes in Japanese cryptography which could, then or now, be connected with those newspaper accounts or Congressional disclosures.”

Roosevelt nearly raided the Trib Tower because of this incident.
Japanese intelligence agents and spies whose careers were about gathering information didn’t pick this up. Lesson: Don’t assume they know something just because the info is out there somewhere.
What’s different today is that when the NYT puts a story like this on A-1, everyone else will be on it as well, and there’s no missing it. The Trib got lucky in 1943, the NYT doesn’t have that escape valve today.

Let’s also ask you this:
If it was so plainly old news, why column one, above the fold, A-1? I think that’s fair indication that the NYT didn’t think everyone knew about it already, don’t you?

As for “the public interest”, posting a link to a definition is nice I suppose, but perhaps you could work up an actual argument as to how this article was specifically in the public interest.

You’re having a nice go at it, but even Keller isn’t making the arguments you are. Maybe you should ask yourself “why not?”

Of course, it is entirely possible you are more intelligent than Keller. Neither he nor Baquet are very bright, apparently. Baquet didn’t even bother to consult with his Washington Bureau chief, Doyle McManus to get their stories straight. Info here.
You might note that McManus, one of the authors of the LAT piece on the SWIFT program admits that it is possible that the article might help terrorists evade capture:

“HH: Is it possible, in your view, Doyle McManus, that the story will in fact help terrorists elude capture?
DM: It is conceivable, yeah....”

comment:” Read the article and tell me if the violations of privacy that could or have resulted from this program are worth the two arrests.”

Absolutely. Hambali was a leader, perhaps one of the biggest fish in SE Asia for AQ. His capture matters. A lot. Or are you saying that a few hundred foreigners here, a few hundred Aussies on vacation there, no big deal to us? I didn't think so.

You’ll also have to bear the burden of proof that there was any significant (i.e. more than in the government having personal information, like the IRS) risk of misuse of this program to be serious about a concern for violations of privacy. You might also want to go back and read the original NYT piece and make note where they actually describe the program getting MORE restrictive and protected WITHOUT the ‘watchdog’ NYT sticking their nose in.

Of course, I’ve also got to point out that the “two arrests” you mention [probligo mentioned "only one"] are actually at least five [I’ve added numbers in brackets in the following quote] plus whatever could or has come from the domestic terror cells and terrorist funding ‘charity’ groups:

“Among the successes was the capture of a Qaeda operative, [1] Riduan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali, believed to be the mastermind of the 2002 bombing of a Bali resort, several officials said. The Swift data identified a [2] previously unknown figure in Southeast Asia who had financial dealings with a [3] person suspected of being a member of Al Qaeda; that link helped locate Hambali in Thailand in 2003, they said.
In the United States, the program has provided financial data in investigations into possible domestic terrorist cells as well as inquiries of Islamic charities with suspected of having links to extremists, the officials said.
The data also helped identify a Brooklyn man who was convicted on terrorism-related charges last year, the officials said. The man, [4] Uzair Paracha, who worked at a New York import business, aided a [5]Qaeda operative in Pakistan by agreeing to launder $200,000 through a Karachi bank, prosecutors said.”

He was playing off the same script you are, so it works well enough.

Oh, and as for terrorists tending toward using 'non-traditional' means of transferring funds- cash (gold,diamonds) and couriers are the traditional way of business in the ME. But they sometimes use technology, and when they do, either out of lazyness, sloppiness, or ignorance, we were hoping we could catch them. It'll be a lot tougher now.

By: The probligo

The probligo — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 17:18:00 +0000

I know I posted this on another thread...

OK, so I will troll this for y'all
...
Falsehood: Times article tipped off terrorists to U.S. bank-tracking efforts

In the wake of the June 23 Times article, Bush administration officials and numerous conservative media figures claimed that the newspaper had informed terrorists that their international transactions were being monitored. Vice President Dick Cheney said that the story "will enable the terrorists to look for ways to defeat our efforts." Treasury Secretary John W. Snow wrote that the article had "alerted terrorists to the methods and sources used to track their money trails." Meanwhile, right-wing pundit Michelle Malkin claimed that the Times had "tipped off terrorists to America's efforts to track their financial activities." Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby alleged that the reports on the program "sabotaged" and "deliberately compromised a crucial counterterrorism tool." And the editors of National Review warned, "The terrorists will now adapt. They will find new ways of transferring funds, and precious lines of intelligence will be lost."

But long before June 23, Bush and other administration officials acknowledged that terrorists were increasingly using other methods of transferring money to evade detection.

So, it is as I had said, that the terrorists were already using other methods of transferring funds BEFORE July 21.

BUSH said so...

Again -

That terrorist organizations would be aware of international efforts to track their finances is not surprising, as Bush administration officials have publicly touted the government's capability to do so for years. For instance, shortly after 9-11, Bush heralded the establishment of a "foreign terrorist asset tracking center at the Department of the Treasury to identify and investigate the financial infrastructure of the international terrorist networks." On November 7, 2001, then-Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill announced that the United States, along with an "international coalition," had begun "to block assets, to seize books, records and evidence, and to follow audit trails to track terrorist cells poised to do violence to our common interests." In a September 10, 2004, statement, the Treasury Department disclosed "some of the many weapons used against terrorist networks," which included "following money trails to previously unknown terrorist cells." An April 2006 Treasury Department report similarly noted that the department "follows the terrorists' money trails aggressively, exploits them for intelligence, and severs links where we can."

Next point -

Falsehood: Nobody has questioned the legality of the Treasury Dept. program

Conservative media figures such as Fox News host Bill O'Reilly and right-wing pundit Ann Coulter have claimed that "no one thinks" the bank-tracking program "violates any laws." But as Media Matters noted, various legal experts and politicians have publicly questioned the legality of the newly disclosed program.

And again...

Falsehood: Times' justification for bank-tracking story opens the door to disclosure of any classified information

Appearing on the June 27 edition of Fox News' Special Report, attorney David B. Rivkin Jr. claimed that the Times' justification for publishing the June 23 article -- that the story is a matter of "public interest" -- would allow the media to print details of a hypothetical upcoming attack on Osama bin Laden. "Under this standard, nothing is safe," Rivkin said. "I can see a headline which says, 'Tomorrow, United States Closing on bin Laden.' You know, he is two hours away, in a cave."

...

in the 1931 case Near v. Minnesota, the Supreme Court stated the government could prevent newspapers and magazines from publishing select matters, including upcoming troop movements in a time of war: "No one would question but that a government might prevent actual obstruction to its recruiting service or the publication of the sailing dates of transports or the number and location of troops."

...

in his concurrence in the 1971 case New York Times v. United States, Justice William Brennan cited this passage from Near to describe the "single, extremely narrow class of cases in which the First Amendment's ban on prior judicial restraint may be overridden." Justice Potter Stewart, in another concurrence, argued that publication should be prevented only if "disclosure of any of them [the documents at issue] will surely result in direct, immediate, and irreparable damage to our Nation or its people" -- a standard that the administration evidently thought the bank-tracking story did not meet, as there is no indication that the administration asked a court to enjoin publication.

From another article...

the United Nations Al Qaeda and Taliban Monitoring Group learned of the SWIFT program years ago -- a fact the group incorporated into its December 2002 report to the U.N. Security Council:

The settlement of international transactions is usually handled through correspondent banking relationships or large-value message and payment systems, such as the SWIFT, Fedwire or CHIPS systems in the United States of America. Such international clearance centres are critical to processing international banking transactions and are rich with payment information. The United States has begun to apply new monitoring techniques to spot and verify suspicious transactions. The Group recommends the adoption of similar mechanisms by other countries.

Nonetheless, Tony Snow asserted during his June 27 press briefing, "I am absolutely sure they [the terrorists] didn't know about SWIFT."

The claim that the Times notified terrorists that their financial transactions might be under surveillance also overlooks numerous reports that Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations shifted to nontraditional money flows shortly after 9-11. For instance, Treasury Department undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence Stuart A. Levey testified before Congress on September 22, 2004, that the government had begun "working closely" with FATF to interdict terrorist organizations' increased use of cash. Levey said, "As the formal and informal financial sectors become increasingly inhospitable to financiers of terrorism, we have witnessed an increasing reliance by Al Qaida and terrorist groups on cash couriers. The movement of money via cash couriers is now one of the principal methods that terrorists use to move funds."

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) has repeatedly highlighted the terrorists' new financial methods as well. In a December 6, 2002, report, CRS noted that "al Qaeda is relying increasingly on non-bank mechanisms to move and store funds, such as converting assets to untraceable commodities, including gold and diamonds, or moving funds via informal value transfer ['hawala'] systems that leave virtually no paper trail." In a November 2003 report, CRS further documented these "alternative financing mechanisms" and noted the failure on the part of the government to produce corresponding strategies.

A December 14, 2003, Washington Post article quoted Comras making a similar point:

Victor Comras, a former State Department official who helped write the U.N. report, said that, in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist strikes, the United States and other countries effectively froze some terrorist assets, but that the success was largely limited to halting money in the banking system.

Once al Qaeda understood the weaknesses and loopholes in the sanctions regime, Comras said, "money was quickly moved out of harm's way" by taking it out of banks and putting it into commodities, such as diamonds and gold, or into front companies.

"Al Qaeda had assets, and those assets are still around," Comras said. "They had a number of different ways to handle the problem, and they are using all of them."

An October 14, 2005, Economist article also noted the ongoing adaptation on the part of terrorist organizations:

Indeed, the terrorists have shown an ability to keep changing their money flows. "The bad guys are definitely getting smarter," says a European expert on financial crime. "The banking system is so well patrolled they're resorting to more primitive means." Counter-terror experts say some groups have simply switched to using more cash, slipping across borders undetected. Authorities say they recognise the changing money flows, but cutting them off is no simple matter, particularly in cash-based economies with loose border controls.

Further, an April 4, 2006, backgrounder on terrorist financing produced by the Council of Foreign Relations highlighted terrorists' efforts to leave "less of a paper trail":

The greatest difficulty is that terrorist networks have stayed aware of governments' efforts to stymie their activities and adjust their operations accordingly. [Terrorism expert Loretta] Napoleoni says "terrorist financing mutates continuously," which generally keeps terrorists a step ahead of the authorities.

Terrorists have increasingly relied on illegal activities, like smuggling or counterfeiting, to generate revenue that is difficult to track through the financial system. Terrorists have also begun to rely more on cash, leaving less of a paper trail. According to Napoleoni, much of the funding for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's al-Qaeda organization in Iraq is brought into the country by couriers carrying cash. The July 2005 attacks in London were also funded entirely by cash, which Napoleoni says is untraceable.

OK, so have at it.

And thanks MediaMatters.

By: Ariel

Ariel — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 17:18:00 +0000

How could the NYT be for it and now, once found that it had actually been implemented, be against it?

Oh, wait a minute, it's an election year....

By: douglas

douglas — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 17:18:00 +0000

"Y'see, the whole of your position seems to be based upon the premise that terrorists would be too stupid to work out the possibilities for themselves and act accordingly.

Well, Hambali was a leader and planner, and if he was caught, I guess the particulars weren't quite so glaringly obvious.

"I am saying "Open your eyes. The terrorists (the ones that matter, the ones behind the machinery) would have worked out the possibilities and set their financing processes to minimise those risks". Otherwise, why have there only been one terrorist caught through this process"

Even if it was "only one", which you of course cannot possibly know, unless the NYT just leaked again, that one was a major planner responsible for at least 202 deaths. Perhaps that's not enough for you to justify this program? I could say that makes you a "cheerleader for death", but that would be crass. You don't and can't know how much damage has been done by this revelation, but it was certainly needless, and so why risk it at all? Besides, the NYT on their own editorial page, soon after 9/11, advocated such programs- why then publicize details? Well, some of us have ideas as to why...

By: J. Peden

J. Peden — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 17:18:00 +0000

"What does Probligo believe? Is he willing to kill and die for his beliefs?"

Probligo is not willing to kill, but claims s/he is willing to die in order not to kill, which Probligo thinks is the only thing which makes his/her beliefs good - his/her own death while not defending either him/herself and not defending you or me, or anyone's child. Probligo is a despicable death worshipper who wants us to die while s/he does not defend us concurrently so that his/her beliefs therefore become "good". Somehow Probligo thinks this is noble, but it's a death worship which rivals that of the Islamofascists.

[I dealt with Probligo's self-serving sanctimony once before on this exact question. Probligo as a slow learner, or else is inherently evil.]

By: Ymarsakar

Ymarsakar — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 17:18:00 +0000

Bill Whittle describes some of the reasons for why people believe in the United States Constitution.

Link

By: Ymarsakar

Ymarsakar — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 17:18:00 +0000

Two clarifications I want to make. You can't stop true believers from doing what they believe to be right, other than well, killing them. Therefore Bush nor I have any power over the patriots in the military, we can't (and won't) tell them to stay at home and be safe, cuddled and caged like a beautiful bird in a gilded cage. What women once were you know. Ooo, men cared so much for women, that women had no freedoms and no ability to risk themselves in combat as men could.

Nobody's going to put the true believers in a cage successfully.

The second clarification is that because I believe in the Constitution, I could not approve or favor the execution of any President, regardless of my personal wishes. This is the difference those who believe in the Constitution, and those who don't believe in anything except hate of Bush and America.

What does Probligo believe? Is he willing to kill and die for his beliefs?

By: Ymarsakar

Ymarsakar — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 17:18:00 +0000

SO, line GWB up and have at it.

I would, but Bush is too compassionate a guy for me to favor executing. While I disagree with his policies and soft hearted actions that are contributing to America's downfall, I cannot truly see him as an agent provocateur working in the employ of the enemy nor do I see him as a domestic enemy that threatens the US Constitution. The NYTimes seeks to supplant the legitimacy of the US Constitution, and I believe that execution is a favorable means to eliminate ALL Domestic AND Foreign enemies to the US Constitution. People who want to convince me otherwise, has to show me that there are benefits to life in prisonment that outweight the costs or detriments of execution. I'm a reasonable person, I know not everyone gets everything in all things. Horse trading is endemic because it is necessary.

Waddaryawaitinfor?

If New Zealand wants to assassinate the President or kidnap him for war crimes. Go ahead. We'll be parking 6 to 7 Aircraft Battlegroups near your shores soon enough.

Try getting off your little island when our submarines are conducting Full Unrestricted Submarine Warfare and when our air cordone has orders to shoot down any and all aircraft, civilian or military, that tries to escape. You think you can grow enough food on that little island to feed everyone for 10 years? If you do, go ahead, kill the President or kidnap him for war crimes. I double dog dare ya. I'm waiting the 2 years until someone more ruthless than Bush gets into office, a chance for America to wage something close to total war. If you get rid of Bush, that's fortunate, but you'll be paying the price, not me. So Thanks, and go ahead. Do it.

he is NOT putting the lives of US servicemen at risk?

Maybe you didn't understand this before, when I first said. I'm a believer in the US Constitution, and that means other people who believe in it will risk their lives and kill people to safeguard it. It isn't about one man or woman, one sergeant or officer. This is bigger than that, than the personal prejudices of "individuals". Everyone says America's power comes from "individualism", and while that is true, it ignores the potent force that accrues when individuals work together for the Greater Good. As powerful as individual Americans are, in terms of hardcore civic virtues ala Flight 93, Americans working in concert as free individuals is a force unseen in the history of the Earth. Neither Germany, the Romans, the Russians, or the Chinese has seen anything like it.