We have seen evidence of their carelessness with national security, now David Horowitz has a piece at Front Page Mag about the New York Times publishing information that could endanger the Vice President and Secretary of Defense. The NYT article is in their travel section and not a political piece, but still, are they really that clueless? This reminded me of when Michelle Malkin’s address and phone number were posted by liberal bloggers, but even they didn’t give out information about where security cameras were located. Completely clueless.
In an apparent retaliation for criticism of its disclosure of classified intelligence to America’s enemies, the New York Times June 30th edition has printed huge color photos of the vacation residences of Vice President Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, identifying the small Maryland town where they live, showing the front driveway and in Rumsfeld’s case actually pointing out the hidden security camera in case any hostile intruders should get careless.
I don’t agree that this is apparent retaliation, but the absolute cluelessness (I know, I am stuck on that word) about security matters just amazes me and does make me at least wonder.
Update: Michelle Malkin and others have now picked up on this story. Michelle, as I mentioned above, has some personal experience in this area. She has a really good post discussing some scary examples I have not seen reported.
Kevin adds: It turns out there’s substantially less to this story than meets the eye. Sometimes a travel piece is just a travel piece…
UPDATE (Lorie): Thanks to Kevin for posting the update. I did not see the new information until I read Kevin’s post. That is the reason I did not post an update here, and after Kevin did, I did not see a need to post a duplicate one. Several readers have asked why I didn’t update the post so that is why I am updating this now.
I already commented on this in Kevin’s thread, but will repeat one question I still have here. In all the update stories I read I did not see that the Secret Service, or even anyone speaking for Rumsfeld, okayed the inclusion of the location of the security cameras in the story. I wonder if that was approved and if it was I question whether it should have been. I guess it is possible that a visible camera is used as a deterrent and that other cameras that are not so visible are located in other areas (I hope so anyway). I was just surprised that information (whether or not the camera location was intended by the Secret Service to be disclosed) was not included in the followups. The NYT’s past judgment on matters of security is what made so many view the disclosure of this information as (in my words) clueless. I never went as far as some others did to ascribe any malicious intent, but just do not trust the judgment of the NYT anymore — especially when it comes to matters of security.
Prosecute them.
If I remember my Con Law classes, the pinnacle of the free press line was the Pentagon Papers case. And that case said simply that prior restraint on publication is typically not permitted. It clearly and explicitly left open that publication has consequences and that a news organization that published sensitive information could be prosecuted and/or sued for what they publish.
It’s time that the media face consequences. Sure they have the “right” to publish information – but it’s time that there be some cost to doing so. If editors and reporters know that disclosing national security information could come with jail time maybe they won’t be so quick to put it in print. Maybe they’ll listen to administration officials who ask them not to go public with the information.
I think we need to start boycotting the NYT’s advertisers. Why should we want to support businesses that support a newspaper which is so blatantly anti-American?
Michelle has already posted a list to boycott.
Can’t someone on the web return the favor to the editor, publisher and reporters at the NY Terrorists. Publish their names, addresses, pictures of their residences and the names and age of their children. Let them sweat that someone will take revenge on them, not likely because of their acts of a traitor, but as revenge for something they printed about a common criminal somewhere back in time. There really are a lot of nuts walking the streets, a good indication is the number of nuts that vote for the dumocrats.
It is retaliation. The Democrats are starting to realize that things are begining to go very badly for them. Iraq is turning around, the economy is doing well, oil might be headed down here shortly as supplies are strong …
They are in a serious panic and I believe their M.O. is to simply cause as much damage as possible. It might get even worse.
You can email President Bush, VP Cheney, Congressional Leaders & Rush Limbaugh from my eclectic homepage. You can also read Chapter One from Ann Coulter’s best-selling book “Godless”. Check it out here…
http://www.geocities.com/capitolhill/8889
The NYT DOES remain clueless. Read this latest:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/01/opinion/01keller.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print&oref=login
Seems the NYT should at least be sent the bill the government (meaning we taxpayers) are going to foot to rewire these folks security.
Should be at least couple of million dollars, esp. the cost of the undergound escape tunnel and combination safe-room, cinexplex (home-theater 🙂
Seems the NYT should at least be sent the bill the government (meaning we taxpayers) are going to foot to rewire these folks security.
Should be at least couple of million dollars, esp. the cost of the undergound escape tunnel and combination safe-room, cinexplex (home-theater 🙂
Make no mistake, there is a Civil War going on within the United States. The Dems/Libs/NYT etc. are trying to take us down!
The article was no ‘accident’.
BTW, “and not a political piece”. Well that explains all the extraneous comments then.
I’ve found a good operating principle is “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” But stupidity does not adequately explain this. NYT knows exactly what they are doing. They put more importance on their political goals than on the safety of this country, or even individual lives.
Let’s see, where does Pinch Sulzberger live?
The Washington Post’s Dan Morse outed this Maryland location back in Sept 2005 when Cheney was thinking of buying a house there (“Where the Rumsfelds Retreat, The Cheneys Soon Could Follow”). Seems the Slimes needed to give Bin Laden, Cindy Sheehan, Zawahiri, Code Pink, ad nauseum, a much-needed update, especially now that Tony Snow does weekends there too. Because of the potential for abuse. And lack of oversight. Or…some fucking thing.
Not only is Cheney’s house pictured in the Trout Wrapper article, the location of a couple security cameras is detailed, just in case the picture itself wasn’t sufficient to spot ’em. Need to know, babe. Or…right to know. Or…public interest. Or…rule of law. Or…some fucking thing.
NURSE !! Another vial of BDS, pronto.
fencesitter, Dan Riehl of the Riehl World View has already done the lifting.
http://www.riehlworldview.com/carnivorous_conservative/2006/07/whats_the_big_d.html
Countdown to an update?
For so many obvious reasons, based on easily obtainable information — including the fact that multiple right-wing news outlets such as NewsMax and Fox and others had previously disclosed this same information months earlier, that this information is commonly reported about government leaders in both parties, and the fact that we always know where our top government officials live and spend their weekends because they have Secret Service protection — these accusations were as false as they were hysterical.
But in addition to those known reasons, I strongly suspected that the Times would not have published those photographs unless they had made certain in advance that doing so would not conflict with Rumsfeld and Cheney’s security concerns. But I did not make this argument because I was not sure that it was true, and unlike Michelle Malkin and John Hinderaker, I’d rather wait to obtain the relevant evidence before running around asserting “facts” based on nothing. As a result, I wrote e-mails yesterday to Linda Spillers (the photographer) and Peter Kilborn (the reporter) bringing these accusations to their attention and asking for a response.
Although I haven’t heard yet from Kilborn, I received an e-mail from Spillers this morning, in which she said:
Ironically, photos were taken with Secretary Rumsfeld’s permission.
Here’s some more:
But I just got through talking with Hollen Wheeler, director of public affairs for Rumsfeld’s office. She confirmed what Glenn Greenwald has reported — that the photographer, Linda Spillers, had been granted permission to photograph Rumsfeld’s house by Rumsfeld himself.
“She got approval to take a picture,” Wheeler told me. “She called, we said fine, go take the picture. And that’s it.”
Wheeler also added of the picture: “It’s already out in the public domain. I’m a little confused about why this has caused such an uproar.” Wheeler declined to directly discuss the question of his security, saying that it was something they don’t discuss as a rule. But she said: “Did it affect the Secretary’s schedule in any way? No. Does it affect in any way how he does his business? No.”
Still waiting for a correction or retraction, Lorie.