Friday, May 12 2006

Selectively Quoting

Brit Hume is fond of selective quotations. They make the process of distorting the arguments of an administration critic mcuh easier. Today's Grapevine is a prime example of that tactic. Commenting on a USA today story about an NSA program that tracks the telephone traffic of tens of millions of Americans, and which has cause quite an uporoar, Hume makes the following claim:

Overreaching at the NSA?

Today's front page USA Today story on the National Security Agency's database of information on domestic phone calls reports that the agency "reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans."

Not until page five, however, does the paper report the following: "Phone customers' names, addresses and other personal information are not being collected as part of this program."

By the way, despite USA Today's excitement over the story, The New York Times first reported the NSA data-mining operation in December.

Kinda makes is seem like the program is really no big deal, right? And that Liberal reporters for USA have deliberately tried to exaggerate privacy fears by "burying" this important piece of information on Page 5. Well, let's see what the USA Today piece really says:

With access to records of billions of domestic calls, the NSA has gained a secret window into the communications habits of millions of Americans. Customers' names, street addresses and other personal information are not being handed over as part of NSA's domestic program, the sources said. But the phone numbers the NSA collects can easily be cross-checked with other databases to obtain that information.

So once again we see how Brit Hume, a partisan hack disguised as a journalist, distorts the true picture by selectively quotin his sources. The fact that the NSA does not gather names and addresses is irrelevant. Once you've got the phone number, all you need is a reverse phonebook to get that information.

Shame on you, brit Hume.