Friday, June 23, 2006

The MSM Above the Law

The survelliance program is legal, successful, and highly classified. Yet this morning the NYT (along with the LA Times and the WSJ) decided to tell the world about it.

Stephen Spruiell of The Media Blog writes::

According to the NYT's own reporting, the program is legal. The program is helping us catch terrorists. The administration has briefed the appropriate members of Congress. The program has built-in safeguards to prevent abuse. And yet, with nothing more than a vague appeal to the "public interest" (which apparently is not outweighed in this case by the public's interest in apprehending terrorists), the NYT disregards all that and publishes intimate, classified details about the program. Keller and his team really do believe they are above the law. When it comes to national security, it isn't the government that should decide when secrecy is essential to a program's effectiveness. It is the New York Times.

National security be damned. There are Pulitzers to be won.