Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Brother?

Bob Murphy
Jun. 29, 2006

Andrew McCarthy, a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and frequent contributor to National Review Online, has written several articles blasting the New York Times and L.A. Times for publicizing details of the Bush Administration’s "Terrorist Finance Tracking Program." One such piece, "The Media’s War Against the War," was so simplistic and naïve that I feel compelled to write a similarly black-and-white rebuttal.

First is the title itself. (In fairness, McCarthy himself may not have chosen it, but it definitely fits the tone of his piece.) For many of the pundits who support the president, any criticism of his policies is interpreted as anti-Bush bias. (I myself have experienced this phenomenon: In response to an antiwar article I inevitably get an email from an angry reader denouncing "my candidate" Kerry and telling me that socialism doesn’t work. Yeah, I know.) It is apparently inconceivable to these outraged patriots that someone could agree that military action is necessary in light of 9/11, and yet still honestly think that Bush’s handling of the war against terrorists has been poorly conducted, or that the invasion of civil liberties at home has gone beyond what is necessary to keep Americans safe.

Having said that, the right-wingers do have a point. Those of us who have consistently opposed the war from the beginning must admit that many of those on "our side" are there only because of political expediency; when a Democrat inherits the Iraq occupation, it will be interesting to see if the media trumpet every casket and further erosion of liberty.

Let’s move on to McCarthy’s text. He opens with this dramatic assertion: "Yet again, the New York Times was presented with a simple choice: help protect American national security or help al Qaeda. Yet again, it sided with al Qaeda."

It is depressing that this constitutes the level of "thoughtful" analysis these days. There are so many things wrong with McCarthy’s description that it’s hard to know where to begin (or stop). The magnitude of the task shouldn’t excuse me though from at least pointing out a few:

(1) McCarthy assumes that the federal program will protect Americans. In light of the major strategic miscalculations and intelligence failures thus far, it is not clear why the Bush Administration should be rated so highly.

(2) McCarthy assumes that al Qaeda operatives were previously unaware of the fact that the Bush Administration might be spying on financial transactions. (That’s why the Times leak will "help al Qaeda.") Inasmuch as al Qaeda operatives believe the U.S. is trying to take over the world, and that George Bush is a lying killer, it is not clear why they would’ve left their operations vulnerable by thinking their financial privacy was secure.

(3) Even if it were true that in this instance, the Times disclosure really puts Americans in danger, it doesn’t necessarily follow that it is behaving improperly and that society would be better in the long-run if newspapers were more "responsible." For example, the rule of law can only function when everyone – even serial killers – have effective legal counsel, and when people that the police "know" are guilty are set free when there is insufficient evidence. From this it does not follow that defense lawyers have a "simple choice" to make, i.e. to help protect average Americans or to "help murderers." By the same token, a free press is vital to American liberty, and even to McCarthy’s much-revered democratic institutions. (Indeed, I think some of the founding fathers – whom the National Review crowd adores – had some words to this effect.) One way to help keep the politicians honest (or rather, to limit their lying) is to publicize controversial programs.

After assuring us that there are "no conceivable constitutional violations involved" (my italics), McCarthy writes:

And unlike the last vital program the New York Times compromised – the National Security Agency’s Terrorist Surveillance Program, which the same reporters, James Risen and Eric Lichtblau, exposed last December – there is not even a facially plausible concern that the TFTP violates statutory law. The provisions germane here (mainly, the Right to Financial Privacy Act that Congress enacted in 1978 in reaction to Miller) do not even apply to the nerve center at issue, the Society of Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication.

Now it’s not entirely clear, but McCarthy seems to be saying here something like the following: ‘The Times has really sunk to a new low! These people just won’t lay off the president as he tries to save lives! This time, he’s not even breaking the law!!’ (I am not a legal scholar so I don’t know if even this defense is true.)

Naturally, the main concern when it comes to things like this is that the power to crush evildoers might also be used to crush innocents. Never fear, though:

Nor is there any credible worry that the Bush administration is secretly and dictatorially running roughshod over privacy interests. Prominent members of Congress – including elected officials from both parties who serve on the House and Senate Intelligence Committees – have been briefed on the program since its inception after the 9/11 attacks.

Those worried that the federal government might trample civil liberties should be comforted to know that the people running the federal government know all about it. In McCarthy’s view, it is simply non-credible to think that not only the president, but even prominent members of Congress, would ever violate privacy. As the old adage goes, power corrupts, but not in a bicameral legislature.

But Bush et al. haven’t stopped simply at debriefing senators on this matter. Such is their concern for privacy that

The administration, moreover, has worked closely with SWIFT managers, who are led by the National Bank of Belgium and include such other independent financial powerhouses as the Bank of England, the European Central Bank, and the Bank of Japan, as well as the U.S. Federal Reserve. The resulting collaboration has both narrowed the information gathered and ensured that its use is limited to counterterrorism purposes – not the prosecution of ordinary crimes. As if that were not enough, the TFTP is regularly subjected to independent auditing as an additional safeguard ensuring that information is accessed only for terrorism-related purposes.

One begins to wonder: With all of these "independent" outsiders in the loop, checking up on the program, how is it that the Times is tipping the hand of the good guys? McCarthy can’t have it both ways: Either this is a secret program, where we just have to trust that the government won’t abuse its power, or it is a safe program subject to clear limits by independent parties. You can’t possibly have a secret program that nobody knows about and that is also incapable of official abuse.

Nearing his conclusion, McCarthy becomes particularly self-righteous:

The blunt reality here is that there is a war against the war. It is the jihad of privacy fetishists whose self-absorption knows no bounds. Pleas rooted in the well-being of our community hold no sway.

The anti-warriors know only the language of self-interest. It is the language that tells them the revelation of the nation’s secrets will result, forthwith, in the demand for the revelation of their secrets – which is to say, their sources in the intelligence community – with incarceration the price of resistance. It is the language admonishing that even journalists themselves may be prosecuted when their publication of national secrets violates the law.

As usual, when a National Review writer doesn’t get his way, his solution is to use the government’s guns. Note also the irony: Those who object to the war (and I don’t use the term "war against the war" because as a pacifist I deny the efficacy of violence in general, not just when a politician I dislike conducts it) are dismissed as being interested only in "self-absorption" and "self-interest." Let’s review: People who want U.S. troops out of Iraq say things like, "It’s wrong to blow up foreign babies" and "We have no business conquering other countries and setting up their governments." In response, the ultimate trump card is, "If we don’t then terrorists will continue to attack us." Now who is principled and who cares only about self-interest?

Andrew McCarthy’s rants about the Times coverage are appropriate for a drunken uncle at a family reunion. There is certainly a legitimate and ageless debate between the interests of security versus the rights of the individual; one could honestly think that times of war demand certain emergency measures and could make a decent case for this. (Such an honest person would still be wrong; there is no tradeoff between safety and freedom.)

Yet McCarthy elects not to follow this route of sober scholarship, and writes as if only a traitor would utter the following: "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

_______
Bob Murphy has a PhD in economics from New York University, and is the author of Minerva. See his personal website at BobMurphy.net.