[Infowarrior] - Letter From Bill Keller on The Times's Banking Records Report

[Richard Forno]

June 25, 2006
Letter From Bill Keller on The Times's Banking Records Report

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/25/business/media/25keller-letter.html?pagewa
nted=print

The following is a letter Bill Keller, the executive editor of The Times,
has sent to readers who have written to him about The Times's publication of
information about the government's examination of international banking
records:

I don't always have time to answer my mail as fully as etiquette demands,
but our story about the government's surveillance of international banking
records has generated some questions and concerns that I take very
seriously. As the editor responsible for the difficult decision to publish
that story, I'd like to offer a personal response.

Some of the incoming mail quotes the angry words of conservative bloggers
and TV or radio pundits who say that drawing attention to the government's
anti-terror measures is unpatriotic and dangerous. (I could ask, if that's
the case, why they are drawing so much attention to the story themselves by
yelling about it on the airwaves and the Internet.) Some comes from readers
who have considered the story in question and wonder whether publishing such
material is wise. And some comes from readers who are grateful for the
information and think it is valuable to have a public debate about the
lengths to which our government has gone in combatting the threat of terror.

It's an unusual and powerful thing, this freedom that our founders gave to
the press. Who are the editors of The New York Times (or the Wall Street
Journal, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post and other publications that also
ran the banking story) to disregard the wishes of the President and his
appointees? And yet the people who invented this country saw an aggressive,
independent press as a protective measure against the abuse of power in a
democracy, and an essential ingredient for self-government. They rejected
the idea that it is wise, or patriotic, to always take the President at his
word, or to surrender to the government important decisions about what to
publish.

The power that has been given us is not something to be taken lightly. The
responsibility of it weighs most heavily on us when an issue involves
national security, and especially national security in times of war. I've
only participated in a few such cases, but they are among the most agonizing
decisions I've faced as an editor.

The press and the government generally start out from opposite corners in
such cases. The government would like us to publish only the official line,
and some of our elected leaders tend to view anything else as harmful to the
national interest. For example, some members of the Administration have
argued over the past three years that when our reporters describe sectarian
violence and insurgency in Iraq, we risk demoralizing the nation and giving
comfort to the enemy. Editors start from the premise that citizens can be
entrusted with unpleasant and complicated news, and that the more they know
the better they will be able to make their views known to their elected
officials. Our default position ‹ our job ‹ is to publish information if we
are convinced it is fair and accurate, and our biggest failures have
generally been when we failed to dig deep enough or to report fully enough.
After The Times played down its advance knowledge of the Bay of Pigs
invasion, President Kennedy reportedly said he wished we had published what
we knew and perhaps prevented a fiasco. Some of the reporting in The Times
and elsewhere prior to the war in Iraq was criticized for not being
skeptical enough of the Administration's claims about the Iraqi threat. The
question we start with as journalists is not "why publish?" but "why would
we withhold information of significance?" We have sometimes done so, holding
stories or editing out details that could serve those hostile to the U.S.
But we need a compelling reason to do so.

Forgive me, I know this is pretty elementary stuff ‹ but it's the kind of
elementary context that sometimes gets lost in the heat of strong
disagreements.

Since September 11, 2001, our government has launched broad and secret
anti-terror monitoring programs without seeking authorizing legislation and
without fully briefing the Congress. Most Americans seem to support
extraordinary measures in defense against this extraordinary threat, but
some officials who have been involved in these programs have spoken to the
Times about their discomfort over the legality of the government's actions
and over the adequacy of oversight. We believe The Times and others in the
press have served the public interest by accurately reporting on these
programs so that the public can have an informed view of them.

Our decision to publish the story of the Administration's penetration of the
international banking system followed weeks of discussion between
Administration officials and The Times, not only the reporters who wrote the
story but senior editors, including me. We listened patiently and
attentively. We discussed the matter extensively within the paper. We spoke
to others ‹ national security experts not serving in the Administration ‹
for their counsel. It's worth mentioning that the reporters and editors
responsible for this story live in two places ‹ New York and the Washington
area ‹ that are tragically established targets for terrorist violence. The
question of preventing terror is not abstract to us.

The Administration case for holding the story had two parts, roughly
speaking: first that the program is good ‹ that it is legal, that there are
safeguards against abuse of privacy, and that it has been valuable in
deterring and prosecuting terrorists. And, second, that exposing this
program would put its usefulness at risk.

It's not our job to pass judgment on whether this program is legal or
effective, but the story cites strong arguments from proponents that this is
the case. While some experts familiar with the program have doubts about its
legality, which has never been tested in the courts, and while some bank
officials worry that a temporary program has taken on an air of permanence,
we cited considerable evidence that the program helps catch and prosecute
financers of terror, and we have not identified any serious abuses of
privacy so far. A reasonable person, informed about this program, might well
decide to applaud it. That said, we hesitate to preempt the role of
legislators and courts, and ultimately the electorate, which cannot consider
a program if they don't know about it.

We weighed most heavily the Administration's concern that describing this
program would endanger it. The central argument we heard from officials at
senior levels was that international bankers would stop cooperating, would
resist, if this program saw the light of day. We don't know what the banking
consortium will do, but we found this argument puzzling. First, the bankers
provide this information under the authority of a subpoena, which imposes a
legal obligation. Second, if, as the Administration says, the program is
legal, highly effective, and well protected against invasion of privacy, the
bankers should have little trouble defending it. The Bush Administration and
America itself may be unpopular in Europe these days, but policing the
byways of international terror seems to have pretty strong support
everywhere. And while it is too early to tell, the initial signs are that
our article is not generating a banker backlash against the program.

By the way, we heard similar arguments against publishing last year's
reporting on the NSA eavesdropping program. We were told then that our
article would mean the death of that program. We were told that
telecommunications companies would ‹ if the public knew what they were doing
‹ withdraw their cooperation. To the best of my knowledge, that has not
happened. While our coverage has led to much public debate and new
congressional oversight, to the best of our knowledge the eavesdropping
program continues to operate much as it did before. Members of Congress have
proposed to amend the law to put the eavesdropping program on a firm legal
footing. And the man who presided over it and defended it was handily
confirmed for promotion as the head of the CIA.

A secondary argument against publishing the banking story was that
publication would lead terrorists to change tactics. But that argument was
made in a half-hearted way. It has been widely reported ‹ indeed, trumpeted
by the Treasury Department ‹ that the U.S. makes every effort to track
international financing of terror. Terror financiers know this, which is why
they have already moved as much as they can to cruder methods. But they also
continue to use the international banking system, because it is immeasurably
more efficient than toting suitcases of cash.

I can appreciate that other conscientious people could have gone through the
process I've outlined above and come to a different conclusion. But nobody
should think that we made this decision casually, with any animus toward the
current Administration, or without fully weighing the issues.

Thanks for writing.

Regards,
Bill Keller