And just the other day, government sources leaked-- to the New York Times!-- information from a classified briefing about plans to scale down U.S. forces in Iraq. The Administration quickly confirmed the disclosure, so quickly in fact, that there is little doubt that the Administration was happy that the news leaked out. After all, the leak sent signals to the American people that we would not be in Iraq forever, and that is a point particularly worth making as the 2006 elections near. Yet one would think that secret military plans for withdrawal of American troops are exactly the sort of information that our opponents in the Iraqi insurgency would like to know about. And yet, unlike the disclosure of the secret banking surveillance program, the Administration did not suggest that *this* leak to the New York Times was "disgraceful," to use President Bush's words. And unlike the financial records story, no Congressman, to my knowledge has demanded that the New York Times be prosecuted for it. One can only conclude that is because the Administration figured that leak of possible troop withdrawals benefited the Administration's domestic political agenda.

For this administration to wax apoplectic over leaks of classified info is just too comical to have any effect, outside the Fox/NRO/OTB-commenters crowd.

Clearly there is a substantial consternation on this whole NYT/financial records story. I have more to say about it, I suspect, but have neither the energy nor inclination at the moment.
Still. I will say that agree with James Joyner’s assessm...

Part of what is new, it seems to me, is that scope of the data collection and the continued story of scant oversight.

At a minimum it is no surprise that the NYT thought it was news given the previous data-gathering stories. Once a patterned is formed, the press is more willing to continue try and find new pieces to fit into it.

In other words, if there previous program did not exist (or, at least, were unknown) the NYT's editors may have been more prone to acquiesce to the administration's request.

So the NYT has a hierarchy of values. What's the hierarchy? Clearly, the public right to know is not the highest value nor is the secrecy of effective public programs that served the public good. So what's the highest value?

Apparently, the Times's right to publish and it seems to me that's fairly shallow.

The position being advocated seems to me less James Madison and more William Vanderbilt: "The public be damned!"

(2) Can you imagine what would have happened if an American newpaper, and calling the political rag NY Times a newspaper is a stretch, published information about the Manhatten project before it was completed?

No, but I *can* imagine what would have happened if an American newspaper, and calling the then-political rag Chicago Tribune a newspaper is a stretch, published information about our secret breaking of the Japanese naval cipher, which actually WAS a secret--the Japanese had no idea we were reading their mail.

Pretty much nothing. A grand jury was convened, but no indictment was issued or charges otherwise brought.

The NYT's can no longer separate their personal politics, from their reporting of same. Thusly they can no longer be considered a newspaper. Easier to just ignore (when possible). Personally doesn't do my spirit good to sift through the #%&*@$ they print (like this morning's coverage of the Israeli hostage. Quite disgusting it was. As usual).

The future of anti-terror mil ops will be different. Evolving to something quite speedy and yet again even more secret. F*ck the NYT's. All the way up with a red hot poker. AND their liberal apologists. There is no politics in right and wrong. There is no right to slaughter innocents (still, I must be an idiot for not having bought large swaths of real estate in Private, Idaho. Where all the libs have settled. Before land values skyrocketed).

Maybe we should start with the people who leak information to the Weakly Standard ?

From what I understand, in this particular case, it may have been people at SWIFT who leaked the story (or at least confirmed it). Not being government employees, they have probably not broken any laws, although they could probably still be fired over it.

That is a plain lie.

Anyone remember Wen Ho Lee ? The NYTimes published a dozen stories about this case. That hurt the CLinton administration badly and probably ended the VP ambitions of Bill Richardson. And to top it all, the Wen Ho Lee story turned out to be not true, and the case was dismissed. The NYTimes just paid money to Lee to settle a civil suit.

Also, those of us who have somewhat longer memories remember the NYTimes publishing a dozen Judith Miller pieces before the war (and a few afterwards) about WMDs in IRaq, and some highly alarmist reporting. None of the stories turned out to be true. I suppose the NYTimes is only biased when it suits your purpose.