Truthiness For The Times

The New York Times serves up a steaming heap of truthiness for America. In an editorial titled "Following the money, and the rules", the Times informs everyone all about the soundness of a "follow the money" strategy for hunting terrorists. Then comes the most ridiculous series of self-serving, fact free justification for their revelation of the formerly secret and formerly successful program that you are likely to see anytime soon.

That sounds like good news. What's worrisome is a familiar refrain. Despite a compliant Congress, which was eager to give the administration all the investigative tools it requested, the White House has chosen to operate outside any real scrutiny, and not to seek explicit authorization for what has clearly become a permanent program……….

And Congress, as usual, has never exercised any oversight…….

A few members were briefed on the program, and a few more told about it once it became clear that newspapers were preparing an article. But the briefings tend to become a trap in which those who are informed about what is going on are required under security rules not to talk about what they know even after it becomes public. Armed with some knowledge, they become more impotent than when they were completely in the dark…….

One danger of a never-ending government investigation into people's financial transactions is mission creep. A Treasury Department spokesman told The Times that the information mined from Swift — which includes millions of records — cannot be used for anything except terrorism searches. But there is little to guarantee that will continue to be the case……..

So far, the only check on the executive branch appears to have come from the Swift executives themselves, who grew increasingly concerned when what they envisioned to be a short-term program seemed on its way to becoming permanent. It was at their insistence that the controls the government now cites were put into place. An outside auditing firm is now used to verify that investigators have real intelligence leads behind their requests for information……

Nowhere, not once, does the Times editorial state a rule violation. Nowhere, not once, does it prove any of it's assertions. Congress was briefed. The Times tells us that once briefed, Congress becomes less able to do anything. That is patently offensive to members of Congress and I do not for one minute believe that a member of Congress who firmly believed the law was being broken would not be screaming bloody murder and daring the administration to try to shut them up about it. The Times admits effective controls were in place.

What this boils down to is playing to the fundamental truthiness that appeals so much to the left. Screw the facts, if it feels truthy, run with it. The final sanctimonious pronouncement is what really infuriates me:

Investigators will probably need to monitor the flow of money to and from suspected terrorists and listen in on their phone conversations for decades to come. No one wants that to stop, but if America is going to continue to be America, these efforts need to be done under a clear and coherent set of rules, with the oversight of Congress and the courts.

Only the Times has already crippled or killed both of those things and given invaluable assistance to the terrorists. The Times has decided.

And make no mistake, Americans will pay with their lives in the future because of the actions of the Times.