The Politics of Intimidation

Well, it's that time again. The President is unpopular, the Iraq war is going along as it has been (straight into a ditch), and the Republican majority is seriously threatened. So obviously, it's time to smear the media and accuse them of treason.

This is exactly what the GOP is doing over this New York Times disclosure of a secret government program that tracked international wire transfers in an attempt to stop terrorist funding sources. Only it wasn't exactly secret. The program, called SWIFT, has a website. And so does its companion programs. And SWIFT runs a trade show. And a magazine. And the President has mentioned the program to track down terrorist financing as far back as late September 2001.

But it was a secret. And the New York Times shouldn't have revealed it, although The Wall Street Journal is well within their rights to do so. That's the party line, at least, that such disclosures harm efforts in the war on terror. Even if those efforts are done completely out in the open with the full knowledge of anybody with an Internet connection. I laid off this story when it came out because I honestly didn't think that it was that big a deal. Of course we're tracking terrorist funding sources, and of course the terrorists know that; in fact, the evidence shows that they've had to change the way they do business as a result.

Matthews: "So in other words, the bad guys figured out how we were catching them."

Suskind: "Right, it's a process of deduction. After a while, you catch enough of them, they're not idiots. They say, 'Well, we can't do the things we were doing.' They're not leaving electronic trails like they were.' "

So the program was working when it was plainly evident to all those involved. Now that a newspaper prints it, suddenly we're to believe that it's rendered unusable? As the NYT says today, "Terrorist groups would have had to be fairly credulous not to suspect that they would be subject to scrutiny if they moved money around through international wire transfers." Further, Bill Keller writes that bankers are required by subpoena to comply with SWIFT, so it wouldn't halt the program in the least.

But the conservosphere, along with the White House, is now piling on, throwing around the word "treason" because a newspaper wrote about a known program. Dan Froomkin explains the real reason why:

As far as I can tell, all these disclosures do is alert the American public to the fact that all this stuff is going on without the requisite oversight, checks and balances.

How does it possibly matter to a terrorist whether the government got a court order or not? Or whether Congress was able to exercise any oversight? The White House won't say. In fact, it can't say.

By contrast, it does matter to us.

The question here is simple: do you think the government should decide what the press can and cannot publish, or not? Governments around the world use "official secrecy" and "national security" to keep things from their populations that they'd rather not disclose. It always later comes out that the real reason was anything but secrecy. In this case, the clear signal is one of intimidation and the politics of demonization. The hardcore Republican base is predisposed to hating the media with a passion, and so any red meat thrown their way on this front will necessarily excite them. This is as much an electoral strategy, painting the New York Times (but not The Wall Street Journal) as in league with terrorists, and throwing Democrats in as somehow guilty by association. But it's a dangerous line they're walking, or maybe just exactly what they wish, to remove legitimacy from all facts except for their own.

The brilliant James Wolcott has more.

What a gummy uproar. One so loud and ferocious that there almost has to be some follow-through, otherwise you are going to have one frustrated batch of highly indignants. They want the administration to show the Times and the rest of the press who's boss. The neocon contingent is already dismayed with the tiptoeing around Iran's nuclear program, with Ledeen and Perle lodging protests. If the pushback against the Times peters out, if the posse disbands shortly after mounting up, the White House is going to look weak in the bugged-out eyes of its mutant defenders. It'll be interesting to see if the controversy builds or fades over the next few days, and whether or not the Times-bashers will be compelled to call their own bluff. In the meantime, whatever one thinks of the Times's performance leading up to Iraq and the Judith Miller debacle, the ugly threatmongering and barking ("For the Times to release information about secret operations and methods is treasonous”) of Peter King shouldn't go unchallenged. Let him climb the Empire State Building if he wants to work off steam.

This is a lot of bluster for no real reason, other than to intimidate and get the base's heart rate pumping. The question is whether or not anyone will step up and put this kind of nonsense in its place.