Power Line has two powerful posts about the Bush program to eavesdrop on jihadists, its benefits, the New York Times’s disclosure of the program, and the harm that disclosure has caused. The proximate event is the release of a report from the Inspectors General of five agencies that documents the program and its effects.
Almost incredibly, the New York Times let the reporters who exposed the program—and thereby made themselves part of the story—write about the IG report. As expected, the IG report’s characterization that the program was a “useful” tool that provided information “previously unavailable” and allowed us to “disrupt al-Qaeda operatives” was held to a different standard by the rats. Because the program didn’t stop any ticking time bombs with seven seconds left on the counter, its benefit was “unclear.”
This Times analysis overlooks the brutal calculus of countering jihadists: A program that frustrates even one mass casualty attack, whether a day before that attack or five years before, is a very useful thing. And exposing that program is a very disloyal thing.
