The War Over "War Secrets": Why The NY Times Is Not Treasonous (Op/Ed)

Originally posted by zenlover28
And that makes it look like to me that the Times wants the rest of the world to get ticked off at us. Hmmmm....another thought to ponder here.

In all seriousness, the Times would be completely unnecessary for that purpose.

If the US is spying on it's own citizens there's not much we can do about it. When the US overextends it's reach and starts making the governments of other countries look ineffectual and unable to protect their citizens privacy, you gotta know our governments won't be happy. They need votes to stay in office.





[edit on 28-6-2006 by Duzey]

Originally posted by Duzey
In all seriousness, the Times would be completely unnecessary for that purpose.

In all seriousness, I realize the world hates us, but this is perpetuating it.

If the US is spying on it's own citizens there's not much we can do about it.

Yeah well i'm not convinced that is going on entirely......just yet anyhow.

When the US overextends it's reach and starts making the governments of other countries look ineffectual and unable to protect their citizens privacy, you gotta know our governments won't be happy.

Hmmm...are you saying other governments don't do this?

The basics are this. This is a non-issue. The Times knows that it was a non-issue. The Dems should know it is a non-issue and the Repubs should even know that this is a non-issue...if they really aren't doing anything other than what is being reported, that is. The Times printed an article to add to the division of this country after knowing good and well that this is exactly what their paper called for the Bush Administration to do post 9-11. It stinks....heavily, I might add.

Originally posted by grimreaper797

Originally posted by thermopolis

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord

2) "Terrorists" are criminals, not "enemy states"... as such, I'm not clear how constitutional law relating to war powers would apply.

This is one of the biggest problems...........criminalization of war. This is not a TV movie. Terrorist are not "criminals" with any rights under the constitution.

However, the NYT's is criminal and should be dealth with accordingly.

thats where your wrong. Terrorists are criminals. They are not part of any army or department of some government. They are extremists from any religion of any country, killin people. They are just murderers. Murderers are criminals. Soldiers fighting in a WAR are not criminals, terrorists are not soldiers and not fighting a war.

Al qaeda doesn't have any of its own land, its just a band of international criminals.

This is where I make some people mad. We are at war... with Islamic fundamentalists. To say that we can not be because Islam isn't a "country" is a legal fiction. We aren't at war with terrorists. We haven't invaded Northern Ireland. The fact the Bush and everyone else keeps dancing around the fact that if you look at every hot spot on the globe, there is one group that keeps popping up. Guess who?

Originally posted by hogtie
if you look at every hot spot on the globe, there is one group that keeps popping up. Guess who?

Okay, I'll play. The United States?

Originally posted by The Iconoclast

Originally posted by hogtie
if you look at every hot spot on the globe, there is one group that keeps popping up. Guess who?

Okay, I'll play. The United States?

Oh, you! You... nut.


Its the Iroquios.

[edit on 28-6-2006 by hogtie]

Originally posted by zenlover28
In all seriousness, I realize the world hates us, but this is perpetuating it.

I don't think the whole world hates the US. Personally, I am resentful of the fact that a foreign government can access my financial and medical records. That doesn't mean I hate an entire country because of it.

To borrow a phrase - if they weren't doing anything wrong, they have nothing to hide. If the US had the permission of my country to access private, protected records than they have nothing to be concerned about. The investigation will die and we won't hear of it again.

Hmmm...are you saying other governments don't do this?

Heck no. SWIFT and the banks have been monitoring and reporting suspicious transactions for years. This is different because it is a foreign government accessing records. Would the US like it if SWIFT had handed US records over to China without informing/getting permission from the US? No, no they wouldn't.

The Times printed an article to add to the division of this country after knowing good and well that this is exactly what their paper called for the Bush Administration to do post 9-11.

Non-issue? Perhaps within America. For those of us who are subject to a government we don't vote for, it might be a concern.

Like any other newspaper, the Times wants to sell papers and advertisement space based on readership. That's capitalism at it's finest. I can't blame them for embracing the traditions your country was founded on.

zenlover28

Unfortunately both sides are corrupted.

Benevolent Heretic

I agree with you again . . . the reason is so overblown is because the President himself has a personal opinion occurs in the best interest of the nation's . . . safety on the particular news and has ample time to make that point.

One piece of news will compromised the entire nation

Conveniently.

Originally posted by hogtie

Originally posted by grimreaper797

Originally posted by thermopolis

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord

2) "Terrorists" are criminals, not "enemy states"... as such, I'm not clear how constitutional law relating to war powers would apply.

This is one of the biggest problems...........criminalization of war. This is not a TV movie. Terrorist are not "criminals" with any rights under the constitution.

However, the NYT's is criminal and should be dealth with accordingly.

thats where your wrong. Terrorists are criminals. They are not part of any army or department of some government. They are extremists from any religion of any country, killin people. They are just murderers. Murderers are criminals. Soldiers fighting in a WAR are not criminals, terrorists are not soldiers and not fighting a war.

Al qaeda doesn't have any of its own land, its just a band of international criminals.

This is where I make some people mad. We are at war... with Islamic fundamentalists. To say that we can not be because Islam isn't a "country" is a legal fiction. We aren't at war with terrorists. We haven't invaded Northern Ireland. The fact the Bush and everyone else keeps dancing around the fact that if you look at every hot spot on the globe, there is one group that keeps popping up. Guess who?

actually we are at war with criminals so this war would be better know as "War On Crime". We are fighting any criminal who commits a criminal act. They aren't terrorists, they are criminals. They are murderers. Murder is Murder, regardless of reason how many you kill at once or who you killed.

Originally posted by Duzey

To borrow a phrase - if they weren't doing anything wrong, they have nothing to hide. If the US had the permission of my country to access private, protected records than they have nothing to be concerned about. The investigation will die and we won't hear of it again.

Very true, but again I think it is ultimately going to end up being a non-issue for you as well.

Like any other newspaper, the Times wants to sell papers and advertisement space based on readership. That's capitalism at it's finest. I can't blame them for embracing the traditions your country was founded on.

They won't be selling very many newspapers if they continue to show nothing but hypocrisy, IMO. Not a smooth move on their parts, which is why is just one reason this is being questioned so much I think.

But, anyhow I just heard where the Belgium government has now washed their hands of anymore of this....which has me confused. Tony Snow said that would happen and no one thought it to be true because of the vast knowledge of SWIFT anyhow. So either something else is going on entirely that shouldn't be going on OR they want to convince everyone that SWIFT is not being used to track terrorists. Which is it? Hmmmmmmm

Edited to put Belgium government in place of SWIFT





[edit on 28-6-2006 by zenlover28]

Question:

Do you all honestly think there is a BETTER method of tracking terrorists' finances in the international level other than the SWIFT program?

Show me one better method of tracking and assessing the financial activities of the terrorists worldwide without compromising or risking privacy and civil liberties?

SHOW ME!

[edit on 6/28/2006 by pawnplayer]

Originally posted by pawnplayer
Show me one better method of tracking and assessing the financial activities of the terrorists worldwide without compromising or risking privacy and civil liberties?

SHOW ME!

[edit on 6/28/2006 by pawnplayer]

How spying on the financial activities of private citizens all around the world with the excused of tracking terrorist is legal.

Have you ever thought about that one? no?

How many terrorist are out there that are rich enough to be tracked internationally?

Perhaps some but no many.

No, . . . tracking all financial information from private citizens is the issue here . . . but for what reason.

If the government wants to know how terrorist get finance they should track Saudi Arabia and their business partner including the many here in the US link with government positions and big oil interest.

By the way the NY times is the biggest news paper with circulation in the US.

Originally posted by pawnplayer
Show me one better method of tracking and assessing the financial activities of the terrorists worldwide without compromising or risking privacy and civil liberties?

The nature of the original op/ed piece was not a judgement on the potential legalities of the monitoring system... but a speculative piece on the way in which the story unfolded, and is being used.

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord

Originally posted by thermopolis
Terrorist are not "criminals" with any rights under the constitution.

I'm confused. Can you help me understand why we're using the criminal courts to prosecute captured terrorists?

REPLY: Me too! They shouldn't be in criminal courts; look at the zarqawi (sp?) fiasco.

Originally posted by zappafan1
They shouldn't be in criminal courts

Really?

What should we do then?

Should we just go and kill them?

I'm still waiting for this submission to be approved (since late last night), but check it out for yourself:

[link] www.freerepublic.com... [/link]

Yeah, it's a blog/forum, but the content speaks for itself. Not all blogs are crap, and that's not to say that every story is true on any given blog, but in this case....... it's verifiable history.

Originally posted by Jamuhn
Question for everyone....

Has the NYT been charged yet? Why not?

I believe that the proper thing to do would be to conduct an investigation first, to see who leaked the story. The "leaker" is who should be sought out and prosecuted, if appropriate.

Originally posted by jsobecky
I believe that the proper thing to do would be to conduct an investigation first, to see who leaked the story. The "leaker" is who should be sought out and prosecuted, if appropriate.

How would that be possible if our use of the SWIFT program was public since before 2003?

OK, I am still debating as why If the NY times was not the only paper to write the story but also Wall street Journal, Los Angeles time NY times is the one that Bush has targeted.

The excused is that they were the leaders and the others followed pursue.

I don’t get it.

The debate into that NY times didn’t have the story first has been put aside after Mr. Bush remarks.

Perhaps this nothing more than use of politics to gain votes for control of the congress.

We all know that our Good conscious government is after our safety and well being right.

So we should know by now that we have ( in the name of fighting terror )been kept and eye on .

So why the big issue on the liberal vs. conservative fight.

Is nothing more than dirty politics like we have not seen before in our lives.

The ones that leak information are having a ball with the results they get out of the media, the government and the public opinion with news that actually are not really news at all.

After the Nixon era we should have learned that our government is the biggest breaker of our constitutional rights and have not stopped yet.

And that big interest are paying to keep things the way they are.

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord

Originally posted by zappafan1
They shouldn't be in criminal courts

Really?

What should we do then?

Should we just go and kill them?

Yes..........kill them, kill them now.

Ok, I took the bait............go for it..........

But, did we go to court and try every Nazi killed in WWII? Or how about every Japanses soldier in a banzi attack?

No they were just killed...period.

The NYT is aiding the enemies of the state by providing intell...........

Originally posted by thermopolis

The NYT is aiding the enemies of the state by providing intell...........

Really, what intel?