'The reasoning is absurd on its face.'

Link Here

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But Keller's statement revealed that the Times does not see itself as competent to watch out for illegal government activity. In explaining the delay, Keller stated that the administration had "assured senior editors of the Times that a variety of legal checks had been imposed that satisfied everyone involved that the program raised no legal questions." Keller went on to say that "it is not our place to pass judgment on the legal or civil liberties questions involved in such a program, but it became clear those questions loomed larger within the government than we had previously understood."

In other words, Keller believes it is the Times' "place" to accept officials' own evaluation of the legality of their behavior. (Note that, to the Times, "everyone involved" does not include the people whose constitutional rights were violated, but only the handful of people inside the government who were aware of the program.)

This abdication of the press's responsibility to watchdog the government is startling. As Lawrence Velvel, dean of the Massachusetts School of Law, wrote in CounterPunch (1/7/06): "Why did publication depend upon what people within the government said was the legality or illegality of the program? Why the hell didn't the Times (confidentially) consult its own lawyers, who could have told it in a New York minute, in 2004, that what was being done by the government was flatly in violation of the law?"