NYT Seems To Admit They Harmed National Security

While the left has its talking points -- of course terrorists knew their money was being tracked, etc. -- the most immediate harm comes via our skittish allies. While foreign governments are hostile to the US, they're positively sweethearts compared to the anti-Americanism of their populations. Poland is often cited as a key US ally, and it is; but the Polish people are much less eager to assist in, say, Iraq than their government is.

When it is exposed that foreign institutions are governments are cooperating with the despised US, public pressure will be brought to bear, and may limit or end cooperation with the US.

The New York Times alerted the anti-American popuations of Europe that their banks were aiding the US and that their governments were looking the other way. Will they now continue to look the other way?

Tom Maguire notes a New York Times article suggests that maybe they won't.

A former federal prosecutor who handled major terrorism cases, Andrew C. McCarthy, said he believed that the greatest harm from news reports about such classified programs was the message that Americans could not keep secrets.

"If foreign intelligence services think anything they tell us will end up in the newspapers, they'll stop sharing so much information," said Mr. McCarthy, now a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington.

Is the Times outing classified information for the purposes of keeping Americans informed, or for the purposes of keeping Europeans and Al Qaeda terrorists informed?

posted by Ace at 02:55 PM

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