Group to Protest at NY Times Office, Call for Prosecution

Two organizations, the D.C. Chapter of FreeRepublic.com and Accuracy in Media, will hold a protest outside the Washington, D.C., office of the New York Times. They will denounce the Times for "giving aid and comfort to al Qaeda by publishing stories exposing national security intelligence programs," and will call for the prosecution of the principle players. The event will by held July 3.

According to the press release:

The D.C. Chapter of FreeRepublic.com, an independent grassroots conservative organization, and Accuracy in Media (AIM) will hold a demonstration at noon, Monday, July 3, at the Washington, D.C., bureau of The New York Times, 1627 I St., NW, to call for the prosecution of New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., Executive Editor Bill Keller and reporters James Risen and Eric Lichtblau for giving aid and comfort to al Qaeda by publishing stories exposing national security intelligence programs.

Despite pleadings from the federal government and Democrat and Republican members of the 9/11 Commission, The Times recently published a report detailing lawful surveillance of international banking transactions that was employed to prevent terror attacks.

This report followed The Times' publication last year exposing the federal government’s NSA surveillance of international based phone and electronic communications aimed at preventing terror attacks. Incredibly, The Times was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for that story.

When confronted at the April 2006 annual Times meeting by AIM editor Cliff Kincaid about the NSA story, Sulzberger said that he and his editors "made the decision that, in the battles between civil liberties on the one hand and national security on the other, civil liberties won."

To which Kincaid responded, "Whose civil liberties are you talking about? Certainly not the civil liberties of those Americans who are possible victims of a terrorist attack carried out by the terrorists who are under surveillance. So whose civil liberties are you protecting in this case by going public and alerting our enemies as to what we're doing?"

Kristinn Taylor, co-leader of the D.C. Chapter of FreeRepublic.com said of The Times, "As a military family member, I find it appalling that The New York Times would place the lives of soldiers in the field and civilians at home in danger by giving our national security secrets to al Qaeda. Suzlberger, Keller, Risen and Lichtblau are nothing more than ink stained enemy combatants who should be prosecuted for treason."