Freedom of the press and national securityRe...

Freedom of the press and national security

Re “When do we publish a secret?” an article by Los Angeles Times Editor Dean Baquet and New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller, July 1

Thank you for sharing the process the Los Angeles Times editorial staff followed in deciding whether to publish and thereby expose our government’s secret SWIFT banking surveillance program. It’s too bad the process produced such a potentially harmful result to the defense of our country.

Although I fully support 1st Amendment rights, I strongly believe the right of the public to know needs to be tempered by the timing of such publication so as to not harm national security. I fully expect our government to be aggressive in searching for information about our enemies’ plans. However, I do not expect the public to be advised of legitimate, secret defense activities when it can tip our hand to the enemy. I can wait.

RON THOMPSON

Winnetka, Calif.

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Hurray for the L.A. Times for standing up for freedom of the press and supporting the New York Times. Those who say their articles have put our troops at risk need to ask themselves, how did our troops come to be at risk in the first place? The responsible news media did not claim that we were attacked by Iraq on 9/11 or use false and questionable intelligence to sell the nation on declaring the wrong war on the wrong country. It was President Bush and his radical right-wing supporters who got us into this war and who are now blindly and bitterly defending this disaster. It is high time to stop blaming the messenger for the White House’s bad news.

GARY W. PRIESTER

Placitas, N.M.

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As editors of the L.A. Times and the New York Times, you are to be commended for struggling valiantly to justify your publication of the monitoring of international banking transactions. Really, in your hearts, are you sure that your actions did not translate specifically into more roadside bombs and the like for Iraq?

LARRY MERCIER

Placentia

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By printing information regarding the investigation of terrorists [by monitoring] banking networks, you have helped our enemies and harmed the citizens and security of our nation. It is clear that you are far more concerned with assisting our enemies than you are with helping protect citizens. It is time to ask if one who openly assists our enemies is not also our enemy? To me the answer is obvious. Sadly, I never thought I would believe that of a U.S. newspaper.

JIM ADAMS

Rocklin, Calif.

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In wartime, it is vital to question and seek to understand what our government is doing. Sept. 11 did not change things; it reinforced the principles and values our nation was founded on. As we have seen, an administration with no unaccountability is a dangerous thing.

STACIE BALCACER

Kihei, Hawaii

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There is no doubt in my mind that Baquet and Keller used their best judgment in publishing stories on the government monitoring program of international banking. But did they use their common sense?

CATALINO T. RIBAC

Encino

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The current attention by the L.A. Times and the N.Y. Times concerning the government’s monitoring of phone and financial traffic is a clear example of why a free and, within the law, unfettered press is a necessity. It is the only thing that protects our nation from the tyrannies of fraud and government that the current administration is so vocally and expensively fighting in the rest of the world.

RICHARD GREENE

Pacific Palisades

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You state: “we weigh the merits of publishing against the risks of publishing” and “We make our best judgment.”

The American people did not elect either of you to make such decisions. We did elect President Bush, in large part to prosecute the war on terror and to protect our country and its citizens. It is not up to the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times or the Wall Street Journal to do so. If your disregard for the safety of the American people results in future terrorist attacks, will you then take full responsibility?

SANDRA WILSON

Venice

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Your joint excuse is flimsy at best. The fact that there is nothing illegal about monitoring the banking transactions of terrorist organizations in order to curtail their operations leaves absolutely no compelling reason for publishing the details of this program.

The fact that your newspapers called for following the money trail shortly after Sept. 11, and that it was one of the primary recommendations of the 9/11 commission in order to prevent future attacks, pretty much shoots holes in your attempt at justifying this treasonous act.

You like to think that you are preserving the freedoms that make this country great, i.e. freedom of the press. At no point did I get a feeling that you understand that with freedoms come responsibility for your actions.

Bottom line: You blew it. Printing this story was an abuse of the freedom of the press.

CONNIE PATTERSON

Saratoga, Wyo.

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Bravo on this joint undertaking. Thank you for reminding us so eloquently and accurately of the role of the free press in a democratic government -- a role that the current administration seems incapable of understanding.

SUZANNE WEAKLEY

Berkeley

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I just want to say, stay the course. Expose all attempts at infringing on our American right to privacy. Don’t listen to the naysayers. Some vague future terrorist attack should never be an excuse for wide-scale infringement upon our civil liberties.

DAN COLLINS

Los Angeles

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Your defense of the decision to disclose the government efforts to track the financial dealings of our terrorist enemies is no less than a poor defense of treason. Today’s enemies are the most violent and dedicated to our destruction that we have ever faced. A divided nation cannot effectively stop such an enemy, and the mass media seem only to contribute to expanding such national divisions.

Our security against terrorism is the top issue with most Americans. If you continue to ignore the patriots, the so-called red states and the great military family of America, the decline of the major media can only increase.

The disclosure of our national strategies against a vicious and unprincipled enemy is not the same as hard-hitting journalism. Someone is obviously deceived, and it is not Middle America.

JAMES WATSON

Dickinson, Texas

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The controversy over the publishing of government secrets is disturbing, and not because thoughtful people don’t want the government protecting us -- we do, but in the way that sets our form of government apart: legally, albeit in secret when required and with oversight.

But when both our government knows and the bad guys know, why is it that the public shouldn’t know? Are there really people who think that our enemies didn’t long ago take steps to hide the movement of money because they thought that we were watching?

No, what’s disturbing about this controversy is the apparent failure of our society to have educated enough of its people about how government should work and the importance of a free and independent press; the willingness of so many to so easily surrender their rights and then attack those who would not; and, most of all, that newspaper editors should have to publicly defend their actions and then explain what everyone should have learned in civics class.

STEVE LAWRENCE

Los Angeles