Since Sept. 11, 2001, various government officials, lawmakers and news outlets have sought to inform the public about government efforts to wage a war on terror and its impact on civil liberties.
Last month, The New York Times published an article about the government monitoring bank transactions as part of the effort to determine terrorists’ financial underpinnings and to choke off the operation of money transfers. Articles also appeared in The Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times.
President Bush and Republicans in Congress have leveled harsh attacks against the newspapers, especially The New York Times, attacks that are politically motivated to say the least. The papers had declined an administration request to quash their stories. Editors often withhold information for reasons of national security, and in this case they gave ample consideration to the administration’s request.
The papers have defended their decision to publish, as well they should – there don’t seem to be any national security secrets at risk. The president declared after the Sept. 11 attacks that the government would use all means necessary to fight the war on terror and that in fact it was monitoring international banking transactions. In its article, The Times was careful not to dwell on technical or operational aspects that could set back the monitoring program, but focused instead on its scope, its legal foundation and and concerns of laxness in congressional oversight.
“If freedom of the press makes some Americans uneasy, it is anathema to the ideologists of terror,” Times executive editor Bill Keller and Los Angeles Times editor Dean Baquet wrote in a joint op-ed piece published Saturday.
In a commentary published Monday in The Washington Post, former President Jimmy Carter wrote about the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, which turns 40 today, the same day we celebrate our independence. Carter noted that the majority of Americans are concerned about government secrecy.
“Our government leaders have become increasingly obsessed with secrecy. Obstructionist policies and deficient practices have ensured that many important public documents and official actions remain hidden from our view,” Carter wrote.
The banking surveillance stories come on the heels of other articles that shed light on the anti-terrorism activities in the aftermath of the 2001 terror attacks – including the National Security Agency’s eavesdropping on Americans’ phone calls and e-mails and secret prisons in Europe run by the CIA. In May, USA Today raised privacy concerns in a piece reporting that Verizon, AT&T and BellSouth had provided phone records to the NSA. Verizon and BellSouth later denied they had provided calling records to the NSA, and last week the newspaper acknowledged that it could not confirm that they had. We hope that’s the case and that these companies will continue to safeguard American’s private communications records. And we’re glad to see USA Today set the record straight.
