Too little, too late

WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, issued the following statement after New York Times public editor Byron Calame declared his newspaper wrong for publishing a story on the illegally disclosed Terrorist Finance Tracking Program:

"The mea culpa of the New York Times public editor comes too late to stop the damage done to one of our nation's leading tools to track, understand and prevent the money transfers that enable terrorist attacks. While the editor should be recognized for being the only one at the paper to recognize this was an irresponsible action, he should have been harsher on his fellow editors for ignoring pleadings of congressional leaders, the administration, including the Treasury Secretary, and the leaders of the 9/11 commission, which recommended America implement exactly this type of program, not to publish this story.

"Of course the mea culpa was buried deep in the paper and at the end of a piece about the newspaper's magazines, so it's not surprising few people noticed. But more Americans need to notice, and they should be outraged by this, and all, illegal disclosures of vital national security information. The New York Times will suffer no consequence from the illegal disclosure of this program, but the American people could pay the ultimate price because our nation's ability to track and defend itself against terrorists has been harmed.

"In the war against radical Islam, intelligence is more vital than it has ever been before. The endless, politically motivated illegal leaks about our nation's terrorism prevention programs must stop. Attempts to exploit these illegal disclosures for political gain also have to stop, and Republicans and Democrats should unite in universal condemnation of all illegal national security leaks.

"At the end of the day, no American has benefited from any of these illegal disclosures, only al-Qaeda, which can count on learning about America's intelligence capabilities through a subscription to the New York Times."