Update (7/7): Patterico chronicles his ongoing tussle with LA Times editor Dean Baquet.
Update (7/4): Michelle responds to critics: “This blog says spokespeople for Rumsfeld and Cheney are denying any security threat from the publication of the article…But none of this answers the question I posed to the Times’ editors repeatedly in my original post…”
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Alright. I’ll take them at their word.
I can’t seem to write short posts anymore like normal bloggers. What’s going on? Once I get started… 
The man on the left is Thomas Paine, an American Revolution-era political philosopher, journalist, and pamphleteer who openly advocated America’s independence from King George III. He published his most well-known work, Common Sense, anonymously, and helped spark the Revolutionary War.
I like to think of bloggers as modern-day pamphleteers, independently publishing our rabble-rousing views and complaints against the government. Although some bloggers may call for open revolt, which is unlikely to happen, it’s good to know we have freedom to express even extreme views. It’s never been easier for the “common man” to influence so many people at so little cost.
Over the years I’ve devoted quite a bit of bandwidth to ragging on left-leaning journalists. I may complain about what I perceive is a liberal agenda behind their every word, but I wholeheartedly support their constitutional right to report. More so than us pamphleteering bloggers, journalists, or legacy media, are seen as trusted sources of news. Yeah, you may trust a few bloggers, but we’re not “the press.”
A free press is vital to a free country. That’s why I’m sort of sitting on the fence about the New York Time‘s recent story on a formerly secret government program.
Here’s some background:
1) On June 23, 2006, the New York Times ran a story (now behind a subscription wall) titled, Bank Data Sifted In Secret By U.S. To Block Terror, which provided details from anonymous government officials about a classified program conducted through the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), a Belgium-based cooperative that serves as a clearinghouse for financial transactions.
NYT claims the program wasn’t secret and that terrorists knew about it. Patterico asks, “Who?”
The U.S. tracks mostly overseas transactions to detect patterns of terrorist activity. The article acknowledged that SWIFT is legal, limited in scope, and successful in capturing terrorists. The Los Angeles Times and Wall Street Journal followed up with their own stories.
Although I’m suspicious of NYT‘s motives, the tone of the story was more balanced than expected.
Many bloggers jumped on the story early, including Michelle Malkin. To save time and links, I’ll point you to a few of her posts, which contain lots of links, photoshopped WWII posters, and reader feedback: June 24, June 26 – A, June 26 – B, and a must-see Hot Air video that includes fish-wrapping. 
2) On June 28, after much derision, NYT published an editorial called Patriotism and the Press, defending its decision to print the story. Among the claims: It was not a security breach (as disclosure of troop movements would be), the public has a right to know about government snooping, and the editors will always err on the side publishing such information, even if called unpatriotic.
Michelle Malkin issues a call to protest NYT (post includes more photoshopped WWII posters). Update: Report and photos.
Patterico is fact-checking the LA Times and questioning its decision to publish a story about SWIFT. Latest posts here, here (disclosures kill), and here (letter to editor Dean Baquet).
President Bush calls disclosure of the SWIFT program disgraceful.
3) On July 1, NYT executive editor Bill Keller and Los Angeles Times editor Dean Baquet published a joint editorial , When Do We Publish a Secret?
4) On July 2, NYT published a story by public editor Brian Calame, Secrecy, Security, the President and the Press.
Michelle Malkin sees backpedaling. She also reports on a protest outside NYT’s DC offices.
That’s a lot of information, and there’s more still. But that’ll bring you up to speed. Of all the stories and op-eds I’ve read about this so-called scandal, Jeff Jarvis’s take is the best so far. He asks important questions I believe people on both sides of the aisle can agree are important:
They [NYT and LA Times] say that it is right and necessary for the press to report on what government is doing — and, of course, I agree — but they do not address the limits of that, other than to say that they know their limits and have not revealed other secrets in the past. So shouldn’t we know those limits as well? For if we don’t, then aren’t we merely trading blind faith in politicians, properly balanced by the press, with blind faith in editors, balanced by nothing more than government attacks — and now, perhaps, bloggers? Here’s how it works now: The editors reveal; the politicians accuse them of everything from jeopardizing programs to risking national security to committing treason; the editors and their defenders shoot back at the politicians. And we in the public are left without a roadmap: This government secret had to be revealed because…. This government secret could not be revealed because…. Shouldn’t the editors give us that map?
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In his last letter, Keller tried to argue that it was not the job of The Times to judge the programs’ legality or effectiveness. Yet — I asked before — isn’t the decision about whether to violate the government secrets and reveal the workings of the program based on that very sort of judgment? Otherwise, why was the secret revealed? What made it necessary and newsworthy? Was it because the program was illegal or abusive or incompetent or dangerous? Where is the standard?
Keller tries to sound objective, but a decision to publish the classified info is a judgment call, just as a decision not to publish would be. Jeff wants to know the standard by which these decisions are made. With freedom comes responsibility. The press has to weigh the public’s right to know with the government’s duty to keep us safe. Jeff lets us know who checks the press:
And let’s be clear that the freedom and responsibility supposedly given to the press was truly given to the people. The press itself has no special franchise on that freedom. Indeed, if the press is a check on government, then the people — not the government — is the rightful check on the press. So the people deserve to know not only how government operates in our name but how the press operates in our name.
At the risk of blockquoting the entire post (because it’s filled with so many quotable quotes), I encourage you to read it. Forget about Jeff’s political affiliations (whatever they may be) and focus on what he’s saying as a blogger, journalist, and American just as concerned about the war against maniacs who want to cut off our heads.
Congressman Peter King calls for NYT‘s prosecution under the Espionage Act of 1917 for repeatedly revealing classified information. Last year I defended Woodrow Wilson’s brand of wartime propaganda, and I think NYT would do well to employ it every now and then. We are at war, after all.
But I don’t believe the editors should be charged with espionage. What do you think?
