Hewitt Blog

Well, not really. But Kosputin and followers will never give up!

A caller brought to my attention this tribute to the fallen in the war produced by the Rocky Mountain News.

Doyle McManus is the Washington, D.C. bureau chief of the Los Angeles Times.

To his credit, he came on the program for about 15 minutes of Q & A. The transcript is here.

McManus concedes that it is possible that the SWIFT story damaged our counterterrorism efforts and assisted terrorists in eluding capture:

HH: Is it possible, in your view, Doyle McManus, that the story will in fact help terrorists elude capture?

DM: I did...I neither believed it nor disbelieved it. I would believe I took that seriously. It's impossible for me to evaluate independently to what degree...whether the potential assistance to terrorists...I think they actually didn't argue that it would help terrorists. They argued that it would disadvantage, or make more difficult, counter-terrorist programs. But that's probably a distinction without a difference. What...would that be momentous? Would it be marginal? I don't know.

HH: Is it possible, in your view, Doyle McManus, that the story will in fact help terrorists elude capture?

DM: It is conceivable, yeah, although it might be worth noting that in our reporting, officials told us that this would, this disclosure would probably not affect al Qaeda, which figured out long ago that the normal banking system was not how it ought to move its money, and so turned to other unofficial and informal channels.

HH: The terrorist Hambali came up. He was captured in August of '03, mastermind/financier of the Bali bombing. Are you familiar with Hambali?

DM: I am.

HH: And did they alert you to the fact that they believe that Hambali was captured as a result of this SWIFT program?

DM: They did not. The first I knew of that was when I read it in the New York Times.

HH: Is it possible now that whoever was familiar with what Hambali did, those terrorists in Southeast Asia, could just simply reverse engineer his financing, and figure out what they shouldn't do now?

DM: Well, I suppose it's possible, except in effect, what we're talking about here is the simple question of whether international banking transmissions are monitored....

He also conceded --to his great credit, and without equivocation-- that the press enjoys no exemption from the national security laws, as well as the possibility that he or others from the paper would answer questions about the paper's sources before a grand jury:

HH: Sure. Do you agree, Doyle McManus, that the press has no exemption from the national security statutes?

DM: I do agree with that.

HH: And if called before a grand jury, would you reveal the sources in the government that leaked you this information?

DM: That would be a judgment that we would have to make at that time.

HH: So it's possible that you would?

DM: That would depend on the nature of the pledges we made to those sources.

HH: So it's possible that that, in fact, would reveal who it is that's leaking this?

DM: It's hypothetically possible, yeah.

The Los Angeles Times didn't do much agonizing once it was informed that the New York Times was going with the story:

HH: Now what I'm wondering, though, is, how did you balance? What probability did you assign to the terrorist tack that doesn't get stopped because of this story?

DM: Well, I can't give you a mathematical formula on that. And as a matter of fact, when we made our decision to publish our story, the New York Times had already published its. So as a matter of fact, we had not had the set of discussions that we had scheduled on precisely how to balance that. So in a sense, I can't tell you how we balanced it, because we ended up not coming to a final decision. Now I don't mean to be disingenuous. We were certainly leaning in the direction of publishing, but we hadn't finally decided to.

Finally, this exchange went to the abilities of journalists to make these judgments:

HH: Time for just a couple more questions. I hope you'll come back, Mr. McManus. Are you and the folks at the Los Angeles Times qualified to evaluate the terrorist networks, their sophistication in how they respond to information, from classified information?

DM: Well, we are journalists, we're qualified to go ask the smartest people we can find those questions, and that's about the best we can do.

HH: Did anyone who would go on the record tell you this would have no significant damage to the counter-terrorism effort?

DM: I don't believe anyone made that unqualified statement, no.

HH: Given that you couldn't find anyone to tell you that it wouldn't be damaging, wouldn't the necessary conclusion be that it would be?

DM: That's a reasonable inference. But we did...there were people who told us that they believed that the damage, if any, would be minimal.

There's more as well, so read the entire exchange.

Now all we need is the investigation into who the leakers are --before another leak again damages the effort to capture or kill terrorists.

UPDATE: The Wolf Blitzer-Bill Keller transcript is here.

The transcript of my debate with former WaPo ombudsman Geneva Overholser moderated by Wolf Blitzer is here (scroll down.)

UPDATE:

Newsbusters comments.

Mr. Bill Keller, Managing Editor The New York Times 229 West 43rd Street New York, NY 10036

Dear Mr. Keller:

The New York Times' decision to disclose the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program, a robust and classified effort to map terrorist networks through the use of financial data, was irresponsible and harmful to the security of Americans and freedom-loving people worldwide. In choosing to expose this program, despite repeated pleas from high-level officials on both sides of the aisle, including myself, the Times undermined a highly successful counter-terrorism program and alerted terrorists to the methods and sources used to track their money trails.

Your charge that our efforts to convince The New York Times not to publish were "half-hearted" is incorrect and offensive. Nothing could be further from the truth. Over the past two months, Treasury has engaged in a vigorous dialogue with the Times - from the reporters writing the story to the D.C. Bureau Chief and all the way up to you. It should also be noted that the co-chairmen of the bipartisan 9-11 Commission, Governor Tom Kean and Congressman Lee Hamilton, met in person or placed calls to the very highest levels of the Times urging the paper not to publish the story. Members of Congress, senior U.S. Government officials and well-respected legal authorities from both sides of the aisle also asked the paper not to publish or supported the legality and validity of the program.

Indeed, I invited you to my office for the explicit purpose of talking you out of publishing this story. And there was nothing "half-hearted" about that effort. I told you about the true value of the program in defeating terrorism and sought to impress upon you the harm that would occur from its disclosure. I stressed that the program is grounded on solid legal footing, had many built-in safeguards, and has been extremely valuable in the war against terror. Additionally, Treasury Under Secretary Stuart Levey met with the reporters and your senior editors to answer countless questions, laying out the legal framework and diligently outlining the multiple safeguards and protections that are in place.

You have defended your decision to compromise this program by asserting that "terror financiers know" our methods for tracking their funds and have already moved to other methods to send money. The fact that your editors believe themselves to be qualified to assess how terrorists are moving money betrays a breathtaking arrogance and a deep misunderstanding of this program and how it works. While terrorists are relying more heavily than before on cumbersome methods to move money, such as cash couriers, we have continued to see them using the formal financial system, which has made this particular program incredibly valuable.

Lastly, justifying this disclosure by citing the "public interest" in knowing information about this program means the paper has given itself free license to expose any covert activity that it happens to learn of - even those that are legally grounded, responsibly administered, independently overseen, and highly effective. Indeed, you have done so here.

What you've seemed to overlook is that it is also a matter of public interest that we use all means available - lawfully and responsibly - to help protect the American people from the deadly threats of terrorists. I am deeply disappointed in the New York Times.

Sincerely,

[signed]

John W. Snow, Secretary

U.S. Department of the Treasury

HT: NationalReview.com

Stuart Levey, the Treasury's Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, is my first guest today. I just finished recording the interview. He flatly contradicts Bill Keller's assertion that concern over assisting the terrorist was a "secondary argument," made in a "half-hearted way." It was the central argument he and Secretary Snow made to Times' officials, with the Secretary making it to Mr. Keller. The Treasury stands by that assessment, and strongly so.

The papers helped terrorists elude capture. It is that simple and that damning.

The transcript will be up at Radioblogger.com later today.

I was also a guest on CNN's Situation Room, appearing opposite the former ombudsman for the Washington Post, Geneva Overholser, who along with Wolf Blitzer are concerned that investigations into these leaks and possible prosecutions could chill the press. I think it would be a very goiod thing if we could chill the media's publication of national security secrets the release of which aid terrorists. This very narrow restraint on the press in no way fetters its general and robust freedom to investigate and publish. But as Under secretary Levey makes clear in my interview, there remain many other classified programs the details of which --if made public-- would cause significant damage to the war. To protect those secrets the government must pursue not just the leakers, but any media outlet that could lead us to the leakers. At a minimum this seems to mean a grand jury investigation with journalists as witnesses.

As Mr. Levey pointed out, the standard articulated by Bill Keller in his Sunday defense of Friday's story puts out a standard that will, if unchanged, result in the publication of any secret the Times gets its hands on. The government is obliged to do its best within the law to prevent such disastrous disclosures.

And the House and Senate have an obligation to draft, debate and vote on a resolution expressing outrage over leaks of this sort. Before another harmful leak occurs, the Congress should make its voice heard.

UPDATE:

The Vice President made this statement today:

THE VICE PRESIDENT: "In the decade prior to 9/11, we spent more than $2 trillion on national security. Yet we lost nearly 3,000 Americans at the hands of 19 men armed with box cutters and airline tickets. In the case of al Qaeda we are not dealing with large armies that we can track, or uniforms we can see, or men with territory of their own to defend. Their preferred tactic, which they boldly proclaim, is to slip into countries, blend in among the innocent, and kill without mercy and without restraint. They have intelligence and counterintelligence operations of their own. They are using the most sophisticated communications technology they can get their hands on.

"In pursuit of their objectives, they have carried out a number of attacks since 9/11 – in Casablanca, Jakarta, Mombassa, Bali, Riyadh, Baghdad, Istanbul, Madrid, London, Sharm al-Sheikh, and elsewhere. Here in the U.S., we have not had another 9/11. Obviously, no one can guarantee that we won't be hit again. But the relative safety of these past nearly five years now did not come about by accident. We've been protected by sensible policy decisions by the President, by decisive action at home and abroad, and by round-the-clock efforts on the part of the people in our armed forces, law enforcement, intelligence, and homeland security.

"Some in the press, in particular The New York Times, have made the job of defending against further terrorist attacks more difficult by insisting on publishing detailed information about vital national security programs.

"The first was the terrorist surveillance program. Sometimes the press calls it domestic surveillance, it is not domestic surveillance. It's a program aimed at the communications that are international in nature – at least one end of the communication has to be outside the United States, and one end has to be affiliated with or associated with al Qaeda.

"The second program that The New York Times has now disclosed is the terrorist financial tracking program, just within about the last week or so. These are both good programs. They provide valuable intelligence. They are very carefully managed to safeguard the civil liberties of the American people. They have been successful in helping break up terrorist plots. They are done in accordance with the Constitution, and there has in both cases – both programs have been properly notified to the appropriate officials in the United States Congress.

"The New York Times has now twice – two separate occasions – disclosed programs; both times they had been asked not to publish those stories by senior administration officials. They went ahead anyway. The leaks to The New York Times and the publishing of those leaks is very damaging. The ability to intercept al Qaeda communications and to track their sources of financing are essential if we're going to successfully prosecute the global war on terror. Our capabilities in these areas help explain why we have been so successful in preventing further attacks like 9/11. The New York Times has now made it more difficult for us to prevent attacks in the future. Publishing this highly classified information about our sources and methods for collecting intelligence will enable the terrorists to look for ways to defeat our efforts. These kinds of stories also adversely affect our relationships with people who work with us against the terrorists. In the future, they will be less likely to cooperate if they think the United States is incapable of keeping a secret.

"What is doubly disturbing for me is that not only have they gone forward with these stories, but they've been rewarded for it, for example, in the case of the terrorist surveillance program, by being awarded the Pulitzer Prize for outstanding journalism. I think that is a disgrace."

Andrew McCarthy spells it out for everyone.

Our greatest weapon against terror is intelligence. And the New York Times and Los Angeles Times compromised a part of that effort.

Majority Leader Frist and Speaker Hastert need to get the resolutions condemning the papers drafted and scheduled for debate. Call 202-225-3121 and urge our congressman or senator to support such an effort.

Rick Hasen has a great summary of today's decision.

UPDATE: And Allison Hayward has a very entertaining take on the decision. (HT: BenchMemos. Actually, two hat tips as I didn't know the very talented Ms. Hayward even had a blog, which is now safely bookmarked!)

Glenn Reynolds on the NYT's Keller.

And Powerline has a letter from Lt. Cotton to Mr. Keller.

An excellent idea gets underway.

The president this morning:

President Bush on Monday sharply condemned the disclosure of a program to secretly monitor the financial transactions of suspected terrorists. "The disclosure of this program is disgraceful," he said.

"For people to leak that program and for a newspaper to publish it does great harm to the United States of America," Bush said, jabbing his finger for emphasis. He said the disclosure of the program "makes it harder to win this war on terror...."

"Congress was briefed and what we did was fully authorized under the law," Bush said, talking with reporters in the Roosevelt Room after meeting with groups that support U.S. troops in Iraq.

"We're at war with a bunch of people who want to hurt the United States of America," the president said. "What we were doing was the right thing."

"The American people expect this government to protect our constitutional liberties and at the same time make sure we understand what the terrorists are trying to do," Bush said. He said that to figure out what terrorists plan to do, "You try to follow their money. And that's exactly what we're doing and the fact that a newspaper disclosed it makes it harder to win this war on terror."

If you haven't read it yet, visit Sgt. T.F.Boggs' blog and read his letter to the Times.

And Tim Chapman has picked up the call for a set of House and Senate resolutions on the papers' disdain for American lives.

And visit Ray Robison's latest from the Saddam archives.