The Republican War on Press Freedom

It is deeply ironic that on this, the eve of the 230th anniversary of the founding of the United States, we find ourselves in the midst of nothing less than all out assault by the Radical Right, aka The Republican Party, on independent media. The assault is coming in the form of an utterly fraudulent outcry against The New York Times for publishing information on a program the government had already admitted many times was in place. This is one of the most disquieting attempts in American history to muzzle the free press. Media Matters, an utterly invaluable organization, has the story. After listing the many, many coordinated right wing attacks on the Times for supposedly "damaging national security" by "telling the terrorists about how we are tracking their money", MM brings down the hammer--big time:

There was only one problem with this argument: For nearly five years, George W. Bush and other members of his administration have been proclaiming proudly that they have been tracking terrorist financing through international financial institutions. Beginning fewer than two weeks after September 11, 2001, the Bush administration has "been very public about its efforts to track the overseas banking transactions of Americans and other foreign nationals," as a June 28 Boston Globe article noted. Keller addressed this issue in a June 25 letter to his readers, noting that the administration had voiced concerns prior to the article's publication that it "would lead terrorists to change tactics." Keller noted in response, "It has been widely reported -- indeed, trumpeted by the Treasury Department -- that the U.S. makes every effort to track international financing of terror." Following are numerous examples:

• In a September 24, 2001, speech, Bush announced the establishment of a "foreign terrorist asset tracking center at the Department of the Treasury to identify and investigate the financial infrastructure of the international terrorist networks." He added, "It will bring together representatives of the intelligence, law enforcement, and financial regulatory agencies to accomplish two goals: to follow the money as a trail to the terrorists, to follow their money so we can find out where they are; and to freeze the money to disrupt their actions."
• In a September 24, 2001, letter to Congress, Bush noted, "Terrorists and terrorist networks operate across international borders and derive their financing from sources in many nations. Often, terrorist property and financial assets lie outside the jurisdiction of the United States." He affirmed his commitment to working with international agencies such as the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) "to build momentum and practical cooperation in the fight to stop the flow of resources to support terrorism."
• A White House fact sheet published on September 24, 2001, noted the launch of the Treasury Department's Foreign Terrorist Asset Tracking Center (FTAT): "The FTAT is a multi-agency task force that will identify the network of terrorist funding and freeze assets before new acts of terrorism take place."
• In a September 26, 2001, statement, Bush said, "We're fighting them on a financial front. We're choking off their money. We're seizing their assets. We will be relentless as we pursue their sources of financing. And I want to thank the Secretary of Treasury for leading that effort."
• On October 1, 2001, Bush told FEMA employees, "As you may remember, I made it clear that part of winning the war against terror would be to cut off these evil people's money; it would be to trace their assets and freeze them, cut off their cash flows, hold people accountable who fund them, who allow the funds to go through their institutions; and not only do that at home, but to convince others around the world to join us in doing so."
  On October 10, 2001, Bush stated that the "nations of NATO are sharing intelligence, coordinating law enforcement and cracking down on the financing of terrorist organizations."
• During remarks at FTAT, then-Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill said, "[W]e have begun to act -- to block assets, to seize books, records and evidence, and to follow audit trails to track terrorist cells poised to do violence to our common interests." O'Neill added, "We have built an international coalition to deny terrorists access to the world financial system."
• A December 2001 report on the steps the administration had taken to combat terrorism noted that the FATF "-- a 29-nation group promoting policies to combat money laundering -- adopted strict new standards to deny terrorist access to the world financial system."
• A September 10, 2004, Treasury Department statement read: "The targeting of terrorist financing continues to play an important role in the war on terror. Freezing assets, terminating cash flows, and following money trails to previously unknown terrorist cells are some of the many weapons used against terrorist networks."

In other words, folks, WE HAD ALREADY ANNOUNCED WE WERE ATTACKING TERRORIST FINANCIAL NETWORKS. The Times revealed nothing--absolutely nothing--that was not known to our terrorist enemies already. In fact, The Wall Street Journal and The Los Angeles Times published the same story, and yet only the NYT is being vilified. Every element of the Right Wing Noise Machine is vomiting forth lie after lie after lie about this matter. Why? Because it's an election year and the NYT is a favorite target of the ranting cave people of the Right. This whole hideous farce is nothing less than an attempt to silence the free press, to make the media in effect an arm of the Bush Administration, much as Fox "News" already is and CNN is rapidly becoming. This is the Right's attempt to intimidate everyone into "cooperating" with the government's policies. This cannot be allowed to stand unchallenged.

I have spent many years studying authoritarian government. This move here is something right out of the "Cultural Revolution" of Mao Tse-tung's China in the late 1960s, where Mao called on hordes of brainwashed fanatics to destroy the "enemies of the people." I have never seen people more committed to destroying everything this country stands for than the Right. If they are allowed to win this battle, then I see the U.S. descending further down a very dark, very tragic road it is already on.

The Media Matters piece is long, but I urge you to read it all. I also urge you to kick in some money to help them keep up the fight for our country's freedoms. On the eve of the Glorious Fourth, it would be something tangible to do for the country we all love--a country that is in terrible danger of being lost.