The New York and Los Angeles Times recently published stories disclosing a classified anti-terror government program which monitored terrorist finances through the surveillance of banking transactions. "In the end," stated the editor of the Los Angeles Times, "we felt that the legitimate public interest in this program outweighed the political cost to counter terrorism efforts.....We have an obligation to cover the government, with its tremendous power and to offer information about its activities so citizens can make their own decisions. That’s the role of the press in our democracy." It is beyond dispute that in a viable democracy the press has an august responsibility to not simply cover the government, but to proficiently scrutinize it. What is at question is whether these respective newspapers served the public interest or offended it in this specific affair. Having given weight to the nature of the program and, most importantly, the broader context which provided the complete inducement for it, the only conclusion I can reach is the public interest was contravened, not served, here.
Transparency and accountability in government are generally the requisite traits and hallmarks of democratic self-government. From the most obscure municipal government, to state government, to the national government; public erudition of the conduct of public servants is integral to insuring they are serving the public interest. Government transparency is a mighty bulwark protecting the public from nefarious public servants who require a shroud of secrecy to diabolically abuse, in whatever manner, the public trust placed in them. Additionally, the people’s apprehension of the totality of their government at work lends to their ability to competently evaluate the candidates and issues placed before them each election day.
As a conservative, my most natural reaction is to cringe upon hearing the words "secret government program." In abstraction, conservatives distrust arbitrary government power, a sentiment amplified if said power is exercised surreptiously. Government’s cardinal tendency, left unbridled, is to aggrandize its own power and influence. A government so unencumbered and omnipresently empowered serves it own interest, and the interests of those individuals who constitute it, to the detriment of the public. Prevention of this depends upon limitations, structural and practical, placed on the government’s power. For a conservative, limited and enumerated powers are synonymous with, if not the determination of, good, accountable government. Without them little would staunch government usurpation.
Unfortunately, practical realities occasionally preclude the luxury of operating within abstract theory. The obligation of the federal government, specifically the president, to effectively protect national security boisterously exemplifies this. Classified government power, executed within the confines of strictly constructed parameters, is indispensably linked to protecting America from her enemies. Were the president and the federal government to be prohibited from maintaining secrets in the interest of national security, they would be denied the means to achieving that end.
In these specific times the unconventional nature of our enemies only amplifies this. Al-Qaeda and its operatives and followers are dogged in their pursuit to kill as many innocent Americans as possible. They operate in virtual anonymity, amongst and undistinguishable from the innocent. The intelligence methods of yesterday—crafted towards the adversaries of yesterday—are archaic methods inadequate towards thwarting them. Phone and bank records, not aerial surveillance or conventional espionage, are mandatory in identifying and stopping those who would, individually or in small groups, perpetuate acts of terror on American soil and on American interests.
These programs are vital, and their efficacy is contingent upon their confidentiality. It is self-evident that sustainable detection and surveillance of terrorist threats is possible only when those threats are themselves ignorant of their detection and surveillance. Should they become aware of their detection and surveillance, and the means through which they are detected and observed, they will obviously adapt and craft other manners through which to operate outside of our observation, compromising (to put it heavily euphemistically) our capability to foil their barbaric intentions.
According to the New York and Los Angeles Times, this debilitating consequence is an acceptable exchange for aiding the public’s presumably heavier interest in preventing any possible presidential or governmental abuse of power. Blithely ignoring the very real, tangible threat our enemies pose, the editors felt justified in spoiling an effective means in countering that threat based upon a conceived and hypothetical threat posed by the possibility that the president or government may abuse the power they have and exercise in enacting those means.
This paralyzing logic would, if propagated further, devastate national security and America’s ability to wage this war on terror. If the mere hypothetical possibility that the president or federal government could abuse their power and responsibility to protect and preserve national security justified a program to public exposure, then every newspaper, magazine, television news program—every reporting agency under the sun—would have license to expose any and every program—covert or overt, no matter how successful or narrowly tailored within the confines of the law—to the public. In such a state we’d be powerless to protect ourselves, but at least we’d be secure from the possibility of the government abusing its power to protect us, never mind that the federal government would be impotent in its obligation and responsibility in that sphere, for which the power was given it in the first place.
Of course, this rationale is intrinsically illogical. The president and the federal government have an obligation to protect the nation. To fulfill this obligation they must have the requisite powers, or access to the appropriate means, to do so. As Madison states in Federalist 44, "wherever the end is required, the means are authorized; wherever a general power to do a thing is given, every particular power for doing it is included." The New York and Los Angeles Times would deny the president and the federal government these powers and access to the appropriate means simply because there is a hypothetical possibility that they may employ those powers and means abusively.
This in itself is specious justification. Every power vested in the government, whether it be related to national security or not, can hypothetically be abused. Should government itself then be abolished? I doubt the Times’ believe this. The possibility that a power may be abused is an inherent appendage to granting that power. To borrow from Justice Scalia: "A system of separate and coordinate powers necessarily involves an acceptance of exclusive power that can theoretically be abused."
The public has an interest in insuring the president and federal government do not abuse the powers the public has placed in them. In this regard the New York and Los Angeles Times were correct. However, the public also has an interest in the president and the federal government adopting the necessary means to keep them safe. The latter outweighs the former, yet the actions of the two respective papers served the former at the expense of the latter. Because of this the papers contravened, not served, the public interest.
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