LA Times editor Dean Baquet: Why we ran the story exposing bank monitoring

Why we ran the bank story
The Times editor on the paper's decision to expose U.S. terror-money monitoring.
By Dean Baquet
June 27, 2006

....The decision to publish this article was not one we took lightly. We considered very seriously the government's assertion that these disclosures could cause difficulties for counterterrorism programs. And we weighed that assertion against the fact that there is an intense and ongoing public debate about whether surveillance programs like these pose a serious threat to civil liberties.

We sometimes withhold information when we believe that reporting it would threaten a life. In this case, we believed, based on our talks with many people in the government and on our own reporting, that the information on the Treasury Department's program did not pose that threat. Nor did the government give us any strong evidence that the information would thwart true terrorism inquiries. In fact, a close read of the article shows that some in the government believe that the program is ineffective in fighting terrorism.

In the end, we felt that the legitimate public interest in this program outweighed the potential cost to counterterrorism efforts....This newspaper has done much hard-hitting reporting on terrorism, from around the world, often at substantial risk to our reporters. We have exposed terrorist cells and led the way in exposing the work of terrorists. We devoted a reporter to covering Al Qaeda's role in world terrorism in the months before 9/11...But we also have an obligation to cover the government, with its tremendous power, and to offer information about its activities so citizens can make their own decisions. That's the role of the press in our democracy.

The founders of the nation actually gave us that role, and instructed us to follow it, no matter the cost or how much we are criticized. Thomas Jefferson said, "Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government."...History has taught us that the government is not always being honest when it cites secrecy as a reason not to publish. No one believes, in retrospect, that there was any true reason to withhold the Pentagon Papers, although the government fought vigorously to keep them from being published by the New York Times and the Washington Post. As Justice Hugo Black put it in that case: "The guarding of military and diplomatic secrets at the expense of informed representative government provides no real security for our Republic."...

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-baquet27jun27,0,7950949.story?coll=la-home-commentary

I remember reading an article about it here. So why has Bush** got his panties in a twist over it now?

months ago. W just wanted to beat his chest for a few minutes declaring he was king of the jungle. Same old. Same old.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1382850

Report: Bush Drafts Plan to See Intl Banking Records

Sat Apr 9, 2005 05:01 PM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Bush administration is developing a plan to give the government access to possibly hundreds of millions of international banking records in an effort to trace and deter terrorist financing, The New York Times reported in Sunday editions. Citing interviews with government officials, the newspaper reported that the new initiative, conceived by a working group within the Treasury Department, would vastly expand government access to financial transactions via logs of international wire transfers into and out of U.S. banks....

More at link.

So -- if Bush**'s precious plan was so secret, why wasn't he banging the table top and yelling "heads will roll" in April 2005?

Bush** is angry because he's been exposed to the American public as a sneaky SOB again, not because the recent NYT article told the terrorists anything they didn't already know.

Bush** must think terrorists are as dumb as he is. "Shit, Omar, we knew America had frozen our accounts so why didn't it occur to us they'd also monitor int'l bank transactions?" If only they WERE that stupid!!

Will tell you anything you want to know about international banking transfers

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=SWIFT+banking

quote.........
Foreign Services
Swift
The SWIFT (Society for World-wide Interbank Financial Telecommunications) system is a computer-based message switching system used by most international Banks as a method of making overseas payments. The Co-operative Bank uses this method where possible but whilst it is currently available in 150 countries, it is not always possible to transmit a payment instruction using this system and, therefore, it is not always possible for customers to stipulate SWIFT as a payment method
end quote.......
http://www.co-operativebank.co.uk/servlet/Satellite?cid=1079944047735&pagename=CoopBank%2FPage%2FtplPageStandard&c=Page

See the thread I just posted about it: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1514341

The problem is, as I'm sure you'd agree, the US government is snooping into any int'l bank transaction it wants, just because it "seems odd". Have you ever withdrawn a large amount on holiday and had your bank call you to make sure it was legit? It's not just the bank who's looking now. BushCo can see any US<-->int'l transactions it wants on the same grounds.

I expect my bank to do that. I don't expect my government to do it. And with the Bush** cabal, where the information may wind up is of greatest concern -- it's not like they're trustworthy, good with data security, and strive to apprehend only real terrorists!!

every day. They didn't a shit over outing a CIA operative & disclosing Brewster Jennings but they care about an international banking computer system that even I figured out existed.

quote......
Bush slams Times on story's release
Says paper broke practice of keeping wartime secrets MY ASS!

President Bush said yesterday that it was ``disgraceful" that the news media had disclosed a secret CIA-Treasury program to track millions of financial records in search of terrorist suspects.


``The fact that a newspaper disclosed it makes it harder to win this war on terror," Bush said, leaning forward and jabbing his finger during a brief question-and-answer session with reporters in the Roosevelt Room.

end quote......
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/06/27/bush_slams_times_on_storys_release/

Why do they hate our freedoms so? :(

With the weak spined, rubber stamping GOP controlled Congress and Supreme Court, the press was the only free voice to speak out. I applaud them.

I abhor the GOP Congress for shirking their oversight responsibilities. Hitler would have truly appreciated them.

When a newspaper has to explain why they're doing their job.

WSe might have avoided a war..we might still have some lost freedoms, and we might not have the cocky bastards still squatting the the White House..

Sorry, NY Times.. you carried the snake halfway across the river, but you got bitten anyway..and guess what THIS snake can swim the rest of the way..

Faux even criticized others for not wearing a flag emblem. It was, this president right or wrong, and you were a traitor if you dare criticized him. We're finally waking up.

plane picture on your sig line many times and I took the liberty of animating it... do you like it?





If you don't like it, or if it infringes any copyright or intellectual design, I'll take it down, just let me know, ok?

so I have no idea who actually made it :)

They're hoping we won't notice that their activities are illegal.

are.

It's rather dumb, considering that if the seemingly fox lite press sees they don't have anything to lose being agressive, they are going to be agressive.

when the Media was complicit with them.

wrap themselves in the flag claiming it is a matter of national security, blah, blah, yada, yada. I simply don't trust my government and the MSM needs to expose more of its shenanigans!

what news is printed in this country.. As long as we have a free press.. According to Ron Suskind who wrote this in his book, this was already well-known with the terrorist and they are finding new and different ways to move their money...

So in essence, this is not new news to the terrorist, only to US citizens...