If I was teaching a journalism ethics class at my former University, this is the question and text I would use for this basic question: when does right supersede rights?
Last week the New York Times published a story on the U.S. Government’s secret financial-monitoring program used to trace terrorists. This story went on to explain in detail that the Treasury Department was working with the CIA to examine messages within a massive international database of money-transfer records. This story was also picked up by the Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times and many other newspapers.
This weekend Congressman Peter T. King (R-NY) called for a Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to "begin an investigation and prosecution of The New York Times, the reporters, the editors and the publisher." "We're at war, and for the Times to release information about secret operations and methods is treasonous," King told The Associated Press.
In the days that have followed since the story came out in the NY Times (this is the same newspaper that in December revealed that the government also has secret domestic wiretapping program to monitor the phone calls of suspected terrorists or supporters) there have been many politicians and political pundits from both sides of the aisle either attacking the NY Times or supporting their right to print the story.
What is most interesting is when questioned on whether the NY TIMES should have actually printed the story, most people have stated that regardless which side they are taking regarding the right the NY Times might have to publish the story, they don't believe the NY Times was "RIGHT" to actually print the story.
In case you don’t understand what this is all about, after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, U.S. Treasury officials obtained access to a vast database called Swift: the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication. The Belgium-based database handles financial message traffic from thousands of financial institutions in more than 200 countries.
This service routes more than 11 million messages each day, mostly captures information on wire transfers and other methods of moving money in and out of the United States, but it does not execute those transfers and for the most part, this does not detect private, individual transactions in the United States, such as withdrawals from an ATM or bank deposits. It is aimed mostly at international transfers.
Evidently, before this story was published by the NY Times, the administration did everything possible to prevent this story from being printed. They requested over and over that this was a matter a national security and should not be revealed. In fact, they even enlisted democratic members of congress to also petition the NY Times to not print the story in the interest of national security.
However, according to Bill Keller, the executive editor of the New York times, his editors listened closely to the government's arguments for withholding the information, but said the NY Times editors "remain convinced that the administration's extraordinary access to this vast repository of international financial data, however carefully targeted use of it may be, is a matter of public interest."
In direct contrast to this stated opinion are the recent remarks of Attorney General Gonzales, who said that he believes "journalists can be prosecuted for publishing classified information which is contrary to national security" and said that the First Amendment right of free press/free speech should not be considered absolute when it comes to national security…"especially when we are at war".
All of this brings me back to the title of this blog, RIGHT VERSUS RIGHT. I keep hearing from many in my profession that the NY Times has a right…even an obligation to let the public know any information that is available on any subject. However, what is also unique about this situation is that no one seems to think that this was information that anyone in the public needed to know to protect any public interest.
In fact, it seems obvious that this tracking of funds had been very successful in repeatedly finding terrorists and cutting off their supply of funding, which is why this process was set up. Even the NY Times indicated that this data base tracking had proven very successful in combating and defeating terrorists.
So, why did the NY Times feel it was RIGHT to reveal this information? Is having the RIGHT to do something a justification for actually doing it? Now we have revealed to the terrorists, who have sworn to inflict great pain and suffering and death on us as Americans, one of the methods we have been using to defeat them.
Contrast our current situation to what we experienced as a country during WWII when everyone was united in a patriotic effort to defeat our enemies. When we finally entered they war we agreed that this terrible scourge which created the holocaust and the fanatical governments who were behind them must be defeated.
During WWII we faced our enemies who massed highly trained troops who were supported by all sorts of equipment of war. Today, we are fighting a battle that is not as easy as sending planes and ships to fight against the enemy.
Today we are fighting an enemy who is dedicated to destroying us simply for the fact we have a free and open society and they are doing it through hiding and staying in the shadows until they come out and strike us. I am not sure we as Americans really understand how brainwashed our enemy is and how deep their hatred for us goes, for no other reason than we stand for freedom.
Let’s not forget what one of their leaders said on December 17, 2005: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, at a news conference in Saudi Arabia, denied that the Holocaust we fought to defeat, never really happened. "Some European countries insist on saying that Hitler killed millions of innocent Jews in furnaces," Mr. Ahmadinejad said. "We don't accept this claim," the Iranian president said, adding that "if Europeans want to believe in the Holocaust, then they should make room for the state of Israel to move to Europe".
To make matters worse, sixty years ago, patriotism and loyalty to the United States took precedent on every level and we were committed to do whatever was necessary to defeat the great evil that threatened the world.
Today it seems obvious that politics and the pursuit of political leverage is more important than any bi-partisan patriotism. This weekend in Miami, Jack Murtha, the Democratic Congressman from Pennsylvania said this: "American presence in Iraq is more dangerous to world peace than nuclear threats from North Korea or Iran".
Murtha when on to reiterate his views "that the war cannot be won militarily" and needs political solutions. He said the more than 100,000 troops in Iraq should be pulled out immediately, and deployed to peripheral countries like Kuwait. Hard to believe that any member of congress would have ever said something like this when we were fighting the Nazi's.
Unfortunately, we now live in a world that is more dangerous than at any time in recorded history, and yet at citizens and politicians we are now more divided than ever before by the pursuit of political gain.
Shamefully, it is also our "free media" that seems obsessed with deepening the polarization of our citizens than giving us factual information. This is dangerous to each of us who are either American or committed to the pursuit of democracy since the enemy we are fighting studies these trends and forms their propoganda accordingly.
This is an enemy who purposely kills women and children simply because these acts of murder, especially if they accomplished in an outrageous or despicable manner create even more terror and loathing.
We need to remember that the enemy we are fighting is one who wants us dead simply because we allow our women to have their heads uncovered. They want to kill us because we have churches, synagogues, mosques and every other type of religious freedom available to our populace, including religion available through TV, radio and the Internet.
This is an enemy that takes advantage of our free and open society by living among us. This enemy goes to our schools, works in our office buildings, and even though they have all the opportunities provided by this open society, they want that all to be taken away because they view that lifestyle as heresy. Remember, many of these people came here, lived among us, married our citizens, and then they boarded airplanes and flew them into our buildings to kill as many people as possible.
We seem to have forgotten that it was only one year ago when 37 people were killed and 700 were injured in London by bombers who were all born in England, but became terrorists after their conversion to fundamentalist Islam.
This is an enemy that is still recruiting people every single day, as is evidenced last week in Florida where we were able to intercept a cell of seven who was going to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago, along with other building and public works.
This enemy works in secret, and in secret combinations. If we cannot work effectively in secret to counter these secret plans by tracking them and monitoring these terrorists, will we contain them? If we cannot do this, it will be impossible to defeat them!
So, what is RIGHT? If the NY Times found out that we had infiltrated one of these terrorist cells, would they come out and publish the names of those who had infiltrated the organization and give details on how we accomplished it because they had the RIGHT the information to give the information to the public?
Here is a fact that most of us have figured out, but don’t want to admit it because to do so is too awful to accept: we are in a war that likely has no end. No, I am not talking about the war in Iraq, I am talking about the war on terror. It seems obvious that as long as there are any of these terrorists alive, they will want to work in both in public and in secret to destroy America and kill Americans and anyone else who supports democracy.
The truth is, we can never relent or let down or we will not just be at risk, we will be killed. Here is the ironic truth of the matter, if these terrorists accomplished their goals and took over the U.S., there will be no democracy and without a democracy, there will be no NY Times, or for that matter, no FOX 6, which gives me the opportunity to write this blog.
So the question again is RIGHTS vs RIGHT and finding the answer to what is RIGHT is critically important for all of us. If we are going to keep on top of terrorist and not be subject to more and more terrorism, the decision of how we balance our rights versus what is right will be a question we are going to have to get better at answering, because if we don’t the terrorists will continue to use our very freedoms against us.