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Sir or Madam,
A number of readers have written to ask about The Times' decision
to disclose the President's secret order authorizing certain domestic
wiretaps without a warrant. Some readers are concerned that reporting about
this program might jeopardize government efforts to prevent terrorist
attacks. Others wonder why we did not publish the story when we first
learned of it.
It is impossible to fully answer those questions without getting
into specifics of when and how we learned what we learned. That would
entail violating pledges of confidentiality that are important to our
ability to continue reporting on sensitive subjects of national interest.
We can say the following:
We start with the premise that a newspaper's job is to publish
information that is a matter of public interest. Clearly a secret policy
reversal that gives an American intelligence agency discretion to monitor
communications within the country is a matter of public interest. From the
outset, the question was not why we would publish it, but why we would not.
A year ago, when this information first became known to Times
reporters, the Administration argued strongly that writing about this
eavesdropping program would give terrorists clues about the vulnerability
of their communications and would deprive the government of an effective
tool for the protection of the country's security. Officials also assured
senior editors of The Times that a variety of legal checks had been imposed
that satisfied everyone involved that the program raised no legal
questions. As we have done before in rare instances when faced with a
convincing national security argument, we agreed not to publish at that time.
We also continued reporting, and in the ensuing months two things
happened that changed our thinking.
First, we developed a fuller picture of the concerns and
misgivings that had been expressed during the life of the program. It is
not our place to pass judgement on the legal or civil liberties questions
involved in such a program, but it became clear those questions loomed
larger within the government than we had previously understood.
Second, in the course of subsequent reporting we satisfied
ourselves that we could write about this program -- withholding a number of
technical details -- in a way that would not expose any
intelligence-gathering methods or capabilities that are not already on the
public record. The fact that the government eavesdrops on those suspected
of terrorist connections is well-known. The fact that the N.S.A. can
legally monitor communications within the United States with a warrant from
the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is also public information.
What is new is that the N.S.A. has for the past three years had the
authority to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States
without a warrant. It is that expansion of authority -- not the need for a
robust anti-terror intelligence operation -- that prompted debate within
the government, and that is the subject of the article.
Beyond that, we will let the story speak for itself.
Bill Keller
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