New York Times Hypocrits
 

The NY Times doesn't think the government should keep any secrets. I wonder if the NY Times thinks this rule applies to them? If they don't want any secrets then they should publish a list of their sources on the front page of tomorrow's issue.

Re: New York Times Hypocrits
 

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The NY Times doesn't think the government should keep any secrets. I wonder if the NY Times thinks this rule applies to them? If they don't want any secrets then they should publish a list of their sources on the front page of tomorrow's issue.

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The NYT does not deny that the govt can have secrets. It just stands by its right to publish whatever it finds out about. THe two are not the same.

The govt cannot and must not be able to gag a private news enterprise.

Re: New York Times Hypocrits
 

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The NY Times doesn't think the government should keep any secrets. I wonder if the NY Times thinks this rule applies to them? If they don't want any secrets then they should publish a list of their sources on the front page of tomorrow's issue.

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Seems you don't understand the value of a free press.

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The NY Times doesn't think the government should keep any secrets. I wonder if the NY Times thinks this rule applies to them? If they don't want any secrets then they should publish a list of their sources on the front page of tomorrow's issue.

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The NYT does not deny that the govt can have secrets. It just stands by its right to publish whatever it finds out about. THe two are not the same.

The govt cannot and must not be able to gag a private news enterprise.

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Yeah, this isnt a newspaper's fault for publishing that information, its the government's fault for being incompetent and allowing it to leak in the first place.

Re: New York Times Hypocrits
 

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The NYT does not deny that the govt can have secrets. It just stands by its right to publish whatever it finds out about. THe two are not the same.

The govt cannot and must not be able to gag a private news enterprise.


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While I agree with this statement, it seems pointless to print everything simply because they found out about it and it was a government secret. Surely some discretion should be used on each story they discover, no? How does this help the American people in any way? How were we being harmed by not knowing this information? Is more good done by releasing this story or moving on to the next one? I doubt the NYT had any good answers for these questions when they decided to go with the story. The NYT's main agenda is not to exercise a free press in order to help the public. It wants to do whatever it can to break down the Bush administration and the right. *(Note: I'm not a Republican or a Bush supporter)

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Well done for coming up with such an astutely observed parallel. It's almost exactly the same thing.

Re: New York Times Hypocrits
 

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The NY Times doesn't think the government should keep any secrets. I wonder if the NY Times thinks this rule applies to them? If they don't want any secrets then they should publish a list of their sources on the front page of tomorrow's issue.

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Seems you don't understand the value of a free press.

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Good for you. You can contemplate that value while reading a NYT issue with the next (and possibly preventible with some restraint by the press) terrorist attack that kills someone you care about.

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The truly hypocritical thing about the New York Times is they ran a story on September 24, 2001 criticizing the Bush administration for not doing enough to monitor terrorist financial transactions. Now they criticize him for doing it. Talk about damned if you do and damned if you don't...

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The NY Times doesn't think the government should keep any secrets. I wonder if the NY Times thinks this rule applies to them? If they don't want any secrets then they should publish a list of their sources on the front page of tomorrow's issue.

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Seems you don't understand the value of a free press.

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Good for you. You can contemplate that value while reading a NYT issue with the next (and possibly preventible with some restraint by the press) terrorist attack that kills someone you care about.

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So, as "fear of terrorist attacks" has been the rallying cry to systematically eliminate many of our Constitutionally-Protected freedoms over the last 5 years...it appears they have finally made it all the way to the 1st. That is just awesome.

Constitutional freedoms are unnecessary anyway, everybody knows the government knows what's best for you.

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Good for you. You can contemplate that value while reading a NYT issue with the next (and possibly preventible with some restraint by the press) terrorist attack that kills someone you care about.

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X might lead to unsafety.

Therefore, no one may ever do X again.


You must lead a fun life.

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Good for you. You can contemplate that value while reading a NYT issue with the next (and possibly preventible with some restraint by the press) terrorist attack that kills someone you care about.

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X might lead to unsafety.

Therefore, no one may ever do X again.


You must lead a fun life.

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The people entrusted to protect the country might use technology that has been proven tostop terrorists to monitor my phone calls to my girlfriend and banking transactions, so lets dismantle the whole thing.

asinine life you lead. try reading about EV in life instead of poker for a change.

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The people entrusted to protect the country might use technology that has been proven tostop terrorists to monitor my phone calls to my girlfriend and banking transactions, so lets dismantle the whole thing.

asinine life you lead. try reading about EV in life instead of poker for a change.

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I consider Constitutionally protected freedoms to be +EV in life. I consider it -EV to give those up to the government after our founding fathers expressly forbade it.

If you disagree, that's cool. We place different values on freedom.

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Good for you. You can contemplate that value while reading a NYT issue with the next (and possibly preventible with some restraint by the press) terrorist attack that kills someone you care about.

[/ QUOTE ]

X might lead to unsafety.

Therefore, no one may ever do X again.


You must lead a fun life.

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The people entrusted to protect the country might use technology that has been proven tostop terrorists to monitor my phone calls to my girlfriend and banking transactions, so lets dismantle the whole thing.

asinine life you lead. try reading about EV in life instead of poker for a change.

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Working for government should be goddamned hard. What's wrong with holding our government to the highest of standards? Clearly there must be a balance, but I don't see how there can be much of a comparison in the standards we hold to society (with respect to laws) and that which we hold to government.

Re: New York Times Hypocrits
 

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The people entrusted to protect the country might use technology that has been proven tostop terrorists to monitor my phone calls to my girlfriend and banking transactions, so lets dismantle the whole thing.

asinine life you lead. try reading about EV in life instead of poker for a change.

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I consider Constitutionally protected freedoms to be +EV in life. I consider it -EV to give those up to the government after our founding fathers expressly forbade it.

If you disagree, that's cool. We place different values on freedom.

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You are ignoring the probability portion of EV calculations. We may value freedom identically, but the probability that anything thats been revealed by the NYT will actually impact my freedom is infinitesimal compared to the probability that they will save lives, possibly including mine or someone close to me.

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Good for you. You can contemplate that value while reading a NYT issue with the next (and possibly preventible with some restraint by the press) terrorist attack that kills someone you care about.

[/ QUOTE ]

X might lead to unsafety.

Therefore, no one may ever do X again.


You must lead a fun life.

[/ QUOTE ]

The people entrusted to protect the country might use technology that has been proven tostop terrorists to monitor my phone calls to my girlfriend and banking transactions, so lets dismantle the whole thing.

asinine life you lead. try reading about EV in life instead of poker for a change.

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Working for government should be goddamned hard. What's wrong with holding our government to the highest of standards? Clearly there must be a balance, but I don't see how there can be much of a comparison in the standards we hold to society (with respect to laws) and that which we hold to government.

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I agree with holding the government to high standards, and also agree there needs to be balance. But I also agree that the media needs to be held to high standards as well. Their sources should not be protected when their sources have committed serious crimes (including those that endanger the welfare of the country).

Everyone b!tches and moans about the press being the watchdog on government. That presumes a measure of restraint and balance, which the press apparently has become incapable of on either side. When that happens everyone loses except the stockholders in the media companies.

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So at what point do we draw the line on how many of our freedoms we sacrifice? Do we let them monitor everything we do, everything we say? Give up our rights to free speech, free press, privacy rights. What about our judicial rights? At what point do republicans say enough is enough?

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Free press only exists because we have people like our U.S. service men and current president willing to fight those who will destroy us.

Don't bite the hand that feeds you.

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So at what point do we draw the line on how many of our freedoms we sacrifice? Do we let them monitor everything we do, everything we say? Give up our rights to free speech, free press, privacy rights. What about our judicial rights? At what point do republicans say enough is enough?

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Why dont we wait till some freedom has actually been diminished before we say its too much?

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The NYT does not deny that the govt can have secrets. It just stands by its right to publish whatever it finds out about. THe two are not the same.

The govt cannot and must not be able to gag a private news enterprise.


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While I agree with this statement, it seems pointless to print everything simply because they found out about it and it was a government secret. Surely some discretion should be used on each story they discover, no? How does this help the American people in any way? How were we being harmed by not knowing this information? Is more good done by releasing this story or moving on to the next one? I doubt the NYT had any good answers for these questions when they decided to go with the story. The NYT's main agenda is not to exercise a free press in order to help the public. It wants to do whatever it can to break down the Bush administration and the right. *(Note: I'm not a Republican or a Bush supporter)

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I think that newspapers should employ good judgement in what the print and generally they do (not always).

The biggest issue with this controversy is not whether they should have printed it or not but that the so called purveyors of freedom have decided to come down hard on the printers of the story.

Regarding the story itself, there appears to be a pattern of secret investigations that are (at a minimum) border line infringing on the rights of the individuals from this administration under the guise of national security. This is a very, very disturbing trend.

I strongly think that the government should investigate electronic transfers but have no right to conduct it in secret and certainly have no biz lambasting the NYT. The investigations must be conducted with due process.

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Free press only exists because we have people like our U.S. service men and current president willing to fight those who will destroy us.

Don't bite the hand that feeds you.

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I can play this game too. Those men and women who "fight those who will destroy us" are protecting, in part, the "free press" that has been established in this country and that I consider as an extremely important part of this, or any, democratic system.

I guess I don't see why this is a big deal. If the governmenr doesn't want the NY Times, or any media source, to print sensitive information, it should be more careful about who gets to learn that sensitive information in the first place. If that isn't possible, then the government is simply too large. In my eyes, this is a problem that should be between "the government" and its employees.

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it should be more careful about who gets to learn that sensitive information in the first place

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and then youll get whiners like the last poster that it was "secret and with no oversight", even though some members of Congress knew about it.

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it should be more careful about who gets to learn that sensitive information in the first place

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and then youll get whiners like the last poster that it was "secret and with no oversight", even though some members of Congress knew about it.

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Then let the whiners be whiners. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img] I agree with him in that I would rather these things be transparent, but as long as they're not going above the law, I don't think it's a big deal at all. I do fully believe though that if something gets leaked, it's fair game for the press. Whether said press should or should not print something sensitive is a separate matter, but I believe that nothing should be inherently safe from them; go after the guys leaking rather than the press.

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So at what point do we draw the line on how many of our freedoms we sacrifice? Do we let them monitor everything we do, everything we say? Give up our rights to free speech, free press, privacy rights. What about our judicial rights? At what point do republicans say enough is enough?

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Why dont we wait till some freedom has actually been diminished before we say its too much?

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......The Patriot Act......

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So at what point do we draw the line on how many of our freedoms we sacrifice? Do we let them monitor everything we do, everything we say? Give up our rights to free speech, free press, privacy rights. What about our judicial rights? At what point do republicans say enough is enough?

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Why dont we wait till some freedom has actually been diminished before we say its too much?

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......The Patriot Act......

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and how exactly have you been harmed by the patriot act?

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This has been a good debate. Thanks for everyone for keeping it civil. Including myself.

I don't know exactly where the line between freedom and national security lies, but the NY Times is walking a thin line. This story would never have printed during WWII, but then in many ways we are fighting a very different kind of war.

I think it is wise to err on the side of caution, like folding medium pair in a NL Hold'em cash game on the flop when out of position, 2 players yet to act, and the pot is small.

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and how exactly have you been harmed by the patriot act?

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So I have to be harmed to have my freedoms reduced?

All the government has to do is label you a terrorist and you have no rights. Do they have any criteria they have to meet to label you a terrorist? No. So they can do it to anybody. They can detain you forever if they feel like it without ever having to charge you with a crime where you'll most likely be tortured and sodomized daily.

Am I supposed to trust the government's discretion on this? Well I don't. I'm not supposed to, thats why we have these rights in the first place.

P.S. I just threw in the torture and sodomy part for fun.

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I don't know exactly where the line between freedom and national security lies

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Ask Ben Franklin.

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and how exactly have you been harmed by the patriot act?

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So I have to be harmed to have my freedoms reduced?

All the government has to do is label you a terrorist and you have no rights. Do they have any criteria they have to meet to label you a terrorist? No. So they can do it to anybody. They can detain you forever if they feel like it without ever having to charge you with a crime where you'll most likely be tortured and sodomized daily.

Am I supposed to trust the government's discretion on this? Well I don't. I'm not supposed to, thats why we have these rights in the first place.

P.S. I just threw in the torture and sodomy part for fun.

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I will go back to the EV discussion. The probability of the Patriot Act being used to harm you times the value of that harm (including emotional distress value, poor baby) vs the increased probability of a terrorist attack times the cost of that to you.

If you think they are even within orders of magnitude of each other, you are grossly underestimating the war we are in and the capabilities of the enemy.

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I don't know exactly where the line between freedom and national security lies

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No one does. Different people have different beliefs on where that line should be placed. Some people want more freedom and less security, and others the other way around.

We do have fifty states. There's no reason why every single person in America should have to live under the same laws.

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I don't know exactly where the line between freedom and national security lies

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No one does. Different people have different beliefs on where that line should be placed. Some people want more freedom and less security, and others the other way around.

We do have fifty states. There's no reason why every single person in America should have to live under the same laws.

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we'll remember that the next time you whine about freedoms under the Constitution being eroded. Why should we all have to live under such an antiquated legal framework.

Youve made it clear that you are very young, and dont have much of a clue about whats going on around you now, much less of history. Children should be seen and not heard.

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Why should we all have to live under such an antiquated legal framework.

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You're welcome to argue that here. If you've been paying any attention, you'd know that I haven't been arguing for the constitution. In fact, I've been arguing against it.

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Youve made it clear that you are very young, and dont have much of a clue about whats going on around you now, much less of history. Children should be seen and not heard.

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Ad hominem, ad hominem, ad hominem.

If you want to actually argue your point (you are in a debate-heavy forum), then do it. I'm so young and naive and gosh-darn stupid it shouldn't be any trouble for you to find the errors in my logic.

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The NY Times doesn't think the government should keep any secrets. I wonder if the NY Times thinks this rule applies to them? If they don't want any secrets then they should publish a list of their sources on the front page of tomorrow's issue.

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Seems you don't understand the value of a free press.

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Good for you. You can contemplate that value while reading a NYT issue with the next (and possibly preventible with some restraint by the press) terrorist attack that kills someone you care about.

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You missed the point of my sentence. The point was that the NYT, or any newspaper, should not have to reveal their sources. Equating newspaper sources with government secrets is illogical. A free press is one of the cornerstones of our freedom.

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The NY Times doesn't think the government should keep any secrets. I wonder if the NY Times thinks this rule applies to them? If they don't want any secrets then they should publish a list of their sources on the front page of tomorrow's issue.

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Seems you don't understand the value of a free press.

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Good for you. You can contemplate that value while reading a NYT issue with the next (and possibly preventible with some restraint by the press) terrorist attack that kills someone you care about.

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You missed the point of my sentence. The point was that the NYT, or any newspaper, should not have to reveal their sources. Equating newspaper sources with government secrets is illogical. A free press is one of the cornerstones of our freedom.

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You're missing the point. Fascists don't like freedom.

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I doubt the NYT had any good answers for these questions when they decided to go with the story.

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I'm sure they had a ton of answers, and they were probably similar to the other papers (like the LA Times) that also had the same story and were about the break it:

1. The use of SWIFT data wasn't exactly a state secret, as the SWIFT officials whose cooperation was needed obviously knew about it.

2. It's extremely unlikely that any terrorist presumed that records of financial transactions were untraceable.

3. There is no evidence that any anti-terror operation was or would be compromised.

4. Given the White House's record of invading privacy without legal process, the potential for this information to be misused and the President's position of being above and beyond the law during "wartime," the issue was obviously one of public import.

5. There is no evidence that the White House could not have obtained the same or equally good information through formal legal processes, such as subpoenas under seal.

The only that's even interesting about this story was the White House's ability to coordinate a propaganda campaign suggesting without a shard of evidence that the NY Times compromised state security. They saw the story coming -- and not just from the Times -- and alerted Fox, the blogs and all their sympathetic friends eager to help Bush out of another embarrassment by issuing frivolous allegations of "treason" (as O'Reilly called it, without any facts, the day it broke). It's just more proof that Bush's acolytes will believe anything, no matter how absurd, emanating from the White House PR machine.

Re: New York Times Hypocrits
 

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The NY Times doesn't think the government should keep any secrets. I wonder if the NY Times thinks this rule applies to them? If they don't want any secrets then they should publish a list of their sources on the front page of tomorrow's issue.

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Seems you don't understand the value of a free press.

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Good for you. You can contemplate that value while reading a NYT issue with the next (and possibly preventible with some restraint by the press) terrorist attack that kills someone you care about.

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You missed the point of my sentence. The point was that the NYT, or any newspaper, should not have to reveal their sources. Equating newspaper sources with government secrets is illogical. A free press is one of the cornerstones of our freedom.

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You're missing the point. Fascists don't like freedom.

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So because fascists don't like freedom, we shouldn't either?

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The NY Times doesn't think the government should keep any secrets. I wonder if the NY Times thinks this rule applies to them? If they don't want any secrets then they should publish a list of their sources on the front page of tomorrow's issue.

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Seems you don't understand the value of a free press.

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Good for you. You can contemplate that value while reading a NYT issue with the next (and possibly preventible with some restraint by the press) terrorist attack that kills someone you care about.

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You missed the point of my sentence. The point was that the NYT, or any newspaper, should not have to reveal their sources. Equating newspaper sources with government secrets is illogical. A free press is one of the cornerstones of our freedom.

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You're missing the point. Fascists don't like freedom.

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So because fascists don't like freedom, we shouldn't either?

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No. I was suggesting that the poster's appeal to something being a cornerstone of freedom was likely pointless given the outlook of some of the posters here.

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and how exactly have you been harmed by the patriot act?

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So I have to be harmed to have my freedoms reduced?

All the government has to do is label you a terrorist and you have no rights. Do they have any criteria they have to meet to label you a terrorist? No. So they can do it to anybody. They can detain you forever if they feel like it without ever having to charge you with a crime where you'll most likely be tortured and sodomized daily.

Am I supposed to trust the government's discretion on this? Well I don't. I'm not supposed to, thats why we have these rights in the first place.

P.S. I just threw in the torture and sodomy part for fun.

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Every conservative has the exact same response about the patriot act. (how has it harmed you) As if the loss of rights and freedoms have to be immediate.

Its amazing how unified they are not only in their beliefs, but in their fundamental understanding of basic concepts.

If you lost your right to a fair trial... but you weren't currently being tried... they would argue you've lost nothing.

Sad, really.

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And I'm sure you look forward to sitting around the campfire, reading your "cornerstone of freedom" fishwrap, and singing Kumbaya.

Just be sure your lookout alerts you when one of the MCP is coming, or the fishwrap might be better used for your decapitated head.

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And I'm sure you look forward to sitting around the campfire, reading your "cornerstone of freedom" fishwrap, and singing Kumbaya.

Just be sure your lookout alerts you when one of the MCP is coming, or the fishwrap might be better used for your decapitated head.

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Sure; security threats justify any kind of oppression. I read it in the characteristics of fascism thread.

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The people entrusted to protect the country might use technology that has been proven tostop terrorists to monitor my phone calls to my girlfriend and banking transactions, so lets dismantle the whole thing.

asinine life you lead. try reading about EV in life instead of poker for a change.

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I consider Constitutionally protected freedoms to be +EV in life. I consider it -EV to give those up to the government after our founding fathers expressly forbade it.

If you disagree, that's cool. We place different values on freedom.

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it could be a lot simpler than that - they all could be a lot more ignorant on history then the rest of us.

Anyone can tell you the danger from a repressive totaliarian govt. is much worse then a few muslims or idiots on the Web - anyone with any common sense can tell you that. That's why we like our safeguards and the press keeping an eye on things.

remember - they think EVERYTHING they do is legal - we know that's [censored] - so does the SCOTUS - but if they can keep it secret, it doesn't matter if it's illegal - which is part of the reason the press is so important.

I just laugh and say ha ha - the truth is so anemic to these Republicans that to see it in print brings them to throes of anger and shouts of treason - their work cannot stand up to the light of truth and the flaws become immediately apparent when the light shines in their direction.

they don't like truth very much. Their father is the father of lies.

RB