Sen. Accuses Times of Endangering
U.S
Minneapolis Star/AP
December 17, 2005
WASHINGTON (AP) - A Republican senator on Saturday accused The New York
Times of endangering American security to sell a book by waiting until the day
of the terror-fighting Patriot Act reauthorization to report that the
government has eavesdropped on people without court-approved warrants.
"At least two senators that I heard with my own ears cited this as a reason
why they decided to vote to not allow a bipartisan majority to reauthorize the
Patriot Act," said Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas. "Well, as it turns out
the author of this article turned in a book three months ago and the paper, The
New York Times, failed to reveal that the urgent story was tied to a book
release and its sale by its author."
Cornyn did not name the senators in his remarks on the Senate floor.
A call to The New York Times' Washington bureau was referred to spokeswoman
Catherine Mathis, who could not be reached immediately.
Times reporter James Risen, who wrote the story, has a book "State of WAR:
The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration," coming out in the
next few weeks, Cornyn said.
"I think it's a crying shame ... that we find that America's safety is
endangered by the potential expiration of the Patriot Act in part because a
newspaper has seen fit to release on the night before the vote on the floor on
the reauthorization of the Patriot Act as part of a marketing campaign for
selling a book," Cornyn said.
Since October 2001, the super-secret National Security Agency has, without
court-approved warrants, eavesdropped on the international phone calls and
e-mails of people inside the United States. President Bush said Saturday that
the White House had kept the congressional leadership informed, which a
Republican lawmaker confirmed.
But several senators cited the NSA revelation as a reason to uphold a
filibuster on the renewal of the expiring portions of the USA Patriot Act - the
domestic anti-terrorism law enacted after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 -
without getting additional safeguards into the law. Supporters of renewing the
law failed to get 60 votes needed to break the filibuster.
Bush on Saturday also attacked the disclosure. "As a result, our enemies
have learned information they should not have," Bush said in his weekly radio
address. "The unauthorized disclosure of this effort damages our national
security and puts our citizens at risk." (PROFILE (COUNTRY:United States;
ISOCOUNTRY3:USA; UNTOP:021; APGROUP:NorthAmerica;)
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