Matthews left unchallenged King's false claim that NY Times is "acknowledging" Bush financial monitoring program is "legal"
SUMMARY: Chris Matthews failed to challenge Rep. Peter King's false claim that The New York Times is "acknowledging" that a secret Bush administration program designed to monitor international financial transactions "is legal." However, New York Times executive editor Bill Keller has stated that "[i]t's not [the Times'] job to pass judgment on whether this program is legal." The Times has also reported that banking experts, as well as banking executives and Bush administration officials familiar with the program, have concerns about its legality.
On the June 27 edition of MSNBC's Hardball, host Chris Matthews left unchallenged Rep. Peter King's (R-NY) false claim that The New York Times is "acknowledging" that a secret Bush administration program designed to monitor international financial transactions "is legal." Specifically, Matthews failed to challenge King's false assertion that the initial June 23 Times story reporting on the program "never suggested this was illegal." In fact, New York Times executive editor Bill Keller has stated that "[i]t's not [the Times'] job to pass judgment on whether this program is legal." In addition, the June 23 Times story noted that banking experts, as well as banking executives and Bush administration officials familiar with the program, have concerns about its legality. A June 24 Times story also included a statement by Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) questioning the "legal authority" for the program.
King's falsehood echoed a similar statement by Fox News host Bill O'Reilly. As Media Matters for America noted, O'Reilly alleged that the Times report "went out of its way to say ... there was no illegality here."
When asked by Matthews whether the program is "illegal," King claimed that "[e]ven The New York Times, in this story last Friday [June 23], has never suggested this was illegal anyway." He later added: "I don't believe The New York Times very often, but in this case, they are the ones who are the critics of the Bush administration, and even they are acknowledging that it's legal."
Yet in a June 25 letter sent to readers who responded to the June 23 Times story, Keller stated that "[i]t's not our [the Times'] job to pass judgment on whether this program is legal or effective, but the [June 23] story cites strong arguments from proponents that this is the case." He also stated that "some experts familiar with the program have doubts about its legality, which has never been tested in the courts, and ... some bank officials worry that a temporary program has taken on an air of permanence," adding that the Times has not "identified any serious abuses of privacy so far." Further, in a June 28 weblog post describing an interview with Keller, Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz wrote:
He [Keller] acknowledged, as did the Times article, that there was no clear evidence that the banking program was illegal. But, he said, "there were officials who talked to us who were uncomfortable with the legality of this program, and others who were uncomfortable with the sense that what started as a temporary program had acquired a kind of permanence.["]
Additionally, as Media Matters noted, the June 23 Times article reported that L. Richard Fischer, "a Washington lawyer who wrote a book on banking privacy and is regarded as a leading expert in the field," expressed concerns about the program:
Such a program, he [Fischer] said, appears to do an end run around bank-privacy laws that generally require the government to show that the records of a particular person or group are relevant to an investigation.
''There has to be some due process,'' Mr. Fischer said. ''At an absolute minimum, it strikes me as inappropriate.''
The Times also reported that executives of the SWIFT banking consortium -- which provided customer records under the Treasury Department program -- were "[w]orried about potential legal liability" and threatened to shut down the program, relenting "only after top officials, including Alan Greenspan, then chairman of the Federal Reserve, intervened." Moreover, the administration itself debated over legal issues surrounding the program, according to the Times:
[A]t the outset of the operation, Treasury and Justice Department lawyers debated whether the program had to comply with such laws before concluding that it did not, people with knowledge of the debate said. Several outside banking experts, however, say that financial privacy laws are murky and sometimes contradictory and that the program raises difficult legal and public policy questions.
[...]
Because Swift is based overseas and has offices in the United States, it is governed by European and American laws. Several international regulations and policies impose privacy restrictions on companies that are generally regarded as more stringent than those in this country. United States law establishes some protections for the privacy of Americans' financial data, but they are not ironclad. A 1978 measure, the Right to Financial Privacy Act, has a limited scope and a number of exceptions, and its role in national security cases remains largely untested.
Several people familiar with the Swift program said they believed that they were exploiting a ''gray area'' in the law and that a case could be made for restricting the government's access to the records on Fourth Amendment and statutory grounds. They also worried about the impact on Swift if the program were disclosed.
The June 24 Times report also noted that Specter "said he was concerned about the legal authority" for the program, and said he was "troubled that the administration had expanded its Congressional briefings on the financial tracking program in recent weeks after having learned that The New York Times was making inquiries." The Times story also quoted Specter asking: ''Why does it take a newspaper investigation to get them [the Bush administration] to comply with the law?''
From the June 27 edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews:
MATTHEWS: Congressman King, answer that question. Is this an illegal program or not? The surveillance of our banking records around the world?
KING: No, it's not. In 1976, the Supreme Court ruled in the Miller case that bank records are not protected by the Fourth Amendment because they're held by a third party. Subsequent legislation that went into effect did authorize the use of administrative subpoenas, which was what was done here. This is entirely legal.
The use of Booz Allen was to put in an extra layer of protection which was not required by the law, so here you're actually penalizing the government for doing something it wasn't even required to do. Even The New York Times, in this story last Friday, has never suggested this was illegal anyway. This is entirely legal.
MATTHEWS: So you go by The New York Times on this?
KING: Listen, if anyone was going to be a critic of The New York Times -- I don't believe The New York Times very often, but in this case, they are the ones who are the critics of the Bush administration, and even they are acknowledging that it's legal.
"In addition, the June 23 Times story noted that banking experts, as well as banking executives and Bush administration officials familiar with the program, have concerns about its legality."
"The New York Times, in this story last Friday [June 23], has never suggested this was illegal anyway."
"O'Reilly alleged that the Times report "went out of its way to say ... there was no illegality here.""
That's lying, period. There's no way to reasonably believe that the Times "never suggested this was illegal", much less "went out of its way" to say it was legal. And for anyone who thinks that you have to know that something you say is false for it to be a lie, let's hear the argument that making stuff up out of thin air is honest. If they don't know what they're talking about, they shouldn't be making public statements on the matter.
Is a full-on assault on the free press....or what's left of it. They got rid of Dan Rather, now they're chipping away at the NYT. They've poisoned CNN from within and talk radio is the realm of the troglodytes. All that's left is the internet and a few rogue newspapers and magazines. All in good time, my pretty, all in good time.....
"What's really happening here...Is a full-on assault on the free press"
That would be the next step in the assault on our democracy. Lack of information is the key to killing dimocracy. We can't stop what they're doing if we don't know it's happening. And they already have full control of virtually every other component of our system of checks and balances. These are monumental times in which we live - I think we are seeing the beginning of the end. The upcoming November elections are pivotal.
Our resident dittobots will poo poo this as a "conspiracy theory", but all the signs are pointing in that direction. Fascism takes on many faces, and the current political trend has all the earmarks. Hyper-patriotism leads to jingoism leads to statism leads to fascism. They've already made concrete steps toward an imperial presidency; they have rigged elections, they have compromised the free press, and they've started a war of agression using falsified information...how obvious does it have to be before their "Christian" base wakes up and realizes how they've been duped?
Wouldn't it be easier to let a court (not public, of course) try the legality of this? Then we wouldn't have to keep this inane speculation about its legality going.
Thanks for closing my tags (I just flagged the danged thing, and so thanks MMFA for removing it).
And yes, your comment is what I had posted also:
Of course all matters of what's legal or not, are matters for our Courts.
Neither Rep. King nor the New York Times have that authority of Judging what is legal or not (Rep. King is not even a member of the House Judiciary Committee)...
You think anybody in the "media" would make that true and all-important point in this matter, that it is up to the Courts to decide the issue of what's legal here?
Heck no! That's the whole point of putting Rep. King forward in this matter, and also for all the contradictory statements of Sen. Specter...
To keep this matter in the "court of public opinion", and tossed around by the Judiciary Committees...
Keep it out of the U.S. Courts!
Which just so happens to be the only authority in the matter; that's the whole reason for their existence, to Judge what is legal and not legal...
The U.S. Courts.
(And the thing is, they are not, and can never be, the initiator of their own actions; that's for some party, any party really, to do; to bring a matter before the Court; to initiate an action.)
And again, about the publicity or public nature of Court proceedings:
The Judge may keep any part of the proceedings confidential, secret, and sealed, when those parts of the proceedings, if made public, would violate disclosure laws or otherwise compromise the efforts of law enforcement or especially compromise the national security of the U.S.
But why even repeat what is known to everybody, when this true and all-important point is intentionally ignored by our administration and it's "media"...
The entire proceedings of the FISA Court are secret, and yet that Court continues to be circumvented (in violation of the FISA Statute).
don't use the tags
I tried to close the italics-tag you left open... There, i tried again. Maybe this worked? :)
But did anyone see Matthews on Colbert last night, he said that he thought the Democrats would take the house in November, "BUT I DON'T NO IF THAT WILL BE GOOD FOR AMERICA. He than said he added the last part of his statement just to show HE WASN"T TAKING SIDES. Things that make you go hmmm.
..Bush said it was legal, so we can all go back to bed now.
no government that I know of has been corrupted from within this way without the implicit consent of the governed. The market drives these cable "news" networks, and toadies like Mathews could be driven off the air tomorrow if enough Americans cared enough to think for themselves and call him and his network on their bias. But the soundbites they serve are fast-food for the mind: quick, easy, cheap and unchallenging. The partisan spin, this right or wrong, black or white world is made to order for the average American with little time, energy or patience to piece together the story on their own.
We can bitch about the talking-heads and political cronies all day long, but they're just serving up a product that a lot of people are buying.
It seems to me that the administration is hitting the press a lot harder this time than when the other secret NSA programs came to light. If this is so, then why? Could it be that snooping around financial records is much more sensitive to Bush's base than in fringing on more pedestrian privacy rights?
Reading the NYT article, my impression is that Swift was much more concerned about legality than the US Government. The liability issues are quite staggering. If the international financial community were to perceive Swift as an eager informant to the US, Swift could lose their customer base. I think the auditing and other control procedures were put in place to protect Swift, but the administration is now willing to take credit for this to give the impression of propriety.
It's not clear why Swift was willing to go along with all of this. What do they get out of it? Why take on such exposure if there is no clear reward?
So the fall-out for Bush could be much bigger than a few grumpy liberals compaigning about personal privacy and some triffling constitution. The fall-out could be rejection the international financial community.
It reminds me a something Lincoln said about the South before him and the Bankers behind him. Of the two, he feared the Bankers more.
With "Randy" Cunningham's exit from Congress,Peter King(R=N.Y.) is now the most ignorant member of the U.S. House.Tom Tancredo honorable memtion,or is that dishonorable.Tancredo exists on hate!
Sometimes Matthews is so busy expressing his views that we are left wondering why he has people on his show. He also leaves a lot unchallenged as if he doesn't want to step on anyones toes.
What is secret about the government getting into peoples bank accounts, Bush has stated many, many times that we are going after the money, etc.