The NYT blows a legal, effective, and classified program that was not
abused. Now, months later, their public editor comes to the conclusion
that it was legal, classified, and not abused. His excuse? The debil
made him do it, in the form of George Bush. Bush was mean to
them by pointing out at the time that the program was legal,
classified,
effective, and not abused.
The brute.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/22/opinion/22pubed.html?_r=3&pagewanted=2&n=Top%%...
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My July 2 column strongly supported The Times's decision to publish
its June 23 article on a once-secret banking-data surveillance program.
After pondering for several months, I have decided I was off base.
There were reasons to publish the controversial article, but they were
slightly outweighed by two factors to which I gave too little emphasis.
While it's a close call now, as it was then, I don't think the
article should have been published.
Those two factors are really what bring me to this corrective
commentary: the apparent legality of the program in the United States,
and the absence of any evidence that anyone's private data had
actually...