Protein Wisdom on NYTGate.
..Anyway, let’s count the boons to the “public good” here, shall we: 1) reporting on the classified information leaked them, the Times’ editors were told, would jeopardize three ongoing investigations; 2) the program and its searches were legal, a fact made clear to the editors, who were shown evidence to that effect; 3) administration officials and several congressmen made it clear to the editors that printing the leaked classified information would jeopardize not only the ongoing investigations, but would irreparably damage a program that had been demonstrably effective; 4) despite all this, the Times’ went with the story—an editorial decision that in fact jeopardized three investigations, “outed” a legal and classified program, and rendered impotent what had been an effective program for thwarting terrorist planning and rolling up cells. In addition, they created problems for our allies, who will likely be far more circumspect about helping the US with any future programs for fear of being exposed by leakers with ties to our intelligence community.
And then, to add insult to injury, they had the temerity to spill ink over their struggles with conscience—concluding, ultimately (and boy, here’s a shocker) that they owed it to the public to render useless the legal program that had actually been protecting said public.
Which, while that certainly takes balls like casaba melons, is nevertheless still self-serving and repugnant rubbish that anyone with a bit of sense would dismiss as such. Which is why Glenn Greenwald and others have done the exact opposite.