After all, how else can you explain a major American paper giving front page coverage to a report about what portions of the infrastructure of a major American city are most vulnerable to a terrorist attack?

An analysis done for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey says that the PATH train tunnels under the Hudson River are more vulnerable to a bomb attack than previously thought, and that a relatively small amount of high explosives could cause significant flooding of the rail system within hours.

The analysis, based on work by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, revises some critical aspects of an assessment of the system’s vulnerability that was presented to the agency last spring. It makes clear that the tunnels — four tubes of varying design and sturdiness that stretch across the Hudson riverbed — are structurally more fragile than first thought.

A draft summary of the most recent analysis was given to The New York Times by a government official who was troubled by what the official felt was a lack of action in response to the analysis, which the official said the Port Authority got about three weeks ago. The official said the latest analysis indicates that it would take only six minutes for one of the PATH tubes to flood if a significant but not necessarily very large bomb were detonated.

Oh, yes -- once again we get the "anonymous public official with an axe to grind" giving the New York Times sensitive documents that the enemy can use to thwart our efforts to prevent terrorist attacks. I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm coming to believe that the Grey Lady has put on a burqa and begun actively aiding the jihadi terrorists in their efforts to harm America.

And even if one wishes to be charitable and presume that this formerly great newspaper is not intent upon assisting our nation's enemies and abetting another terrorist attack on New York City, one still has to question the editorial decisions that go into the publication of such information. In particular, we need to start questioning the use of anonymous sources. I understand that there might be legitimate reasons for withholding the names of sources from time to time, but the current practice of obscuring identities and thereby rendering the public less-able to determine the credibility and motivation of such sources is troubling, to say the least.

Of course, the NY Times benefits from publishing material that helps America's enemies in at least two ways. First, it makes people think it is still a great newspaper standing up to the government. Second, it makes it quite certain that the NY Times offices will not be a target of any future terrorist attack -- because why would al-Qaeda attack its own military intelligence network?

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Posted by: Greg at 04:03 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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