It Takes a Big Man, Like Me, to Admit Mistakes Were Made

The Times ombudsman admitted that maybe, just maybe, the Administration had a minor point with the SWIFT program. But let's not get too cocky guys. After all, we are the GodAlmighty NY Times and we write Holy Writ.

Iowahawk rephrases Calame:

But, now that I've had the chance to think it over for a while, I've started to persuade me that despite these important reasons for disclosure of the program, they were ever-so-slightly outweighed by two factors to which I and myself had possibly given too little emphasis. First, while the surveillance program was potentially at odds with privacy laws in the EU, North Korea and Iran, it turns out that neither I nor The Times legal staff nor myself have been able to find evidence that the surveillance program was technically illegal under United States laws. Yeah, I know, go figure. It surprised the hell out of me too. I guess US banking laws are sort of like the Alabama civil code that lets you marry your twelve year old cousin or something. Unless new incoming House Intelligence Committee Chairman Alcee Hastings grandfathers in a fix for this glaring loophole, the Adminstration escapes on a technicality.

Second, and equally surprising, there apparently weren’t any abuses of private data linked to the program. Yes, I know as well as you do that the administration and their closeted gay pedophile allies in Congress probably had plenty of data abuses planned - data waterboarding, data pederasty, data humiliation, IM-ing underaged data with creepy suggestive data messages - but as far as our investigators have found nothing that was actually implemented. Ironically, it was probably The Times disclosure of the program and its resulting shutdown that saved the administration from another embarrassing abuse scandal. Hey guys, you're welcome.

But anyhoo, long-story-short, while it’s a close call now as it was then, I guess I don’t think the article should have been published.

But I mean, seriously, can you blame me or the editors or I for previously defending it? You try sitting in on a lunch meeting while a bunch of stupid administration reps beg and plead you not to print a story, claiming that "we're tracking Sheik Abdul-al-Whatzis, bla bla bla." The idiots are sitting right there telling tells you they're hiding something, which makes it even more newsworthy and juicy and scandalous! And when you print the story they start in with the vicious attacks, like you had whipped out your cell phone at Le Cirque or something. Always with the screaming and whining about national security "secrets." I mean, how freaking "secret" can it be? For crissakes, it's been on the front page of the New York Times!