Why Trust Bill Keller?

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Jack Shafer has a very good column today about whether the New York Times should’ve published its story revealing a semi-classified terror-financing story or not. Understandably, he trusts Bill Keller over the Bush administration. Nothing to disagree with there, although I’m agnostic on the question of whether the article actually harmed national security in any way; reports suggest that details of the SWIFT program were already somewhat public, and I don’t plan on taking the word of administration officials on this matter.

But there’s another article I’ve been meaning to link to, concerning the merits of the program in question. like William Greider, I wish the government would actually more to monitor overseas financial transactions; it would be nice if something like SWIFT could be used to clamp down on offshore tax evasion, securities fraud, CEOs looting pension funds, etc. As it is, the U.S. government is incredibly lax on the issue. Sadly, bankers and corporations tend to be hugely influential, so terrorist financing is the only thing that is likely to get any attention.

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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