This is particularly slimy. Especially considering that the pilots that the LATimes is reporting on are actual operatives and not some desk jockey like Valerie "Covert" Plame. They don't actually state their names, but then, they certainly do give a lot of information on them.
This is pretty funny considering that the LATimes is one of those that screams editorially about the outing of Plame. But, seeing that they are "journalists" I suppose they are ethically above those little issues.
I agree with one of the commenters, the German government probably wouldn't have so much trouble finding out who the pilots are, but that doesn't make it excusable that the LATimes has done most of the research and published the results. No doubt there couldn't be local repercussions related to those who are less ethically controlled than the LATimes editorial staff. I wonder if there is any recourse to the families if something happens. Probably not. Those first amendment rights and all.
Bloody losers.
So asked James Taranto in his Wednesday “Best of the Web Today” column for OpinionJournal.com. Taranto highlighted a Sunday Los Angeles Times story, “Pilots traced to CIA renditions: The Times identifies three fliers facing kidnapping charges in Germany related to a 2003 counter-terrorism mission,” which though it did not list their real names, identified the aliases and enough information about each to help anyone trying to find them, including how they all live within 30 miles of a certain rural airport. One “drives a Toyota Previa minivan and keeps a collection of model trains in a glass display case near a large bubbling aquarium in his living room,” another “is a bearded man of 35 who lives with his father and two dogs in a separate subdivision” and a third “is 46, drives a Ford Explorer and has a 17-foot aluminum fishing boat” where he lives “in a house that backs onto a private golf course here." (Taranto explained: “In a town of 13,000 the Times identifies in its dateline.”)
This is pretty funny considering that the LATimes is one of those that screams editorially about the outing of Plame. But, seeing that they are "journalists" I suppose they are ethically above those little issues.
I agree with one of the commenters, the German government probably wouldn't have so much trouble finding out who the pilots are, but that doesn't make it excusable that the LATimes has done most of the research and published the results. No doubt there couldn't be local repercussions related to those who are less ethically controlled than the LATimes editorial staff. I wonder if there is any recourse to the families if something happens. Probably not. Those first amendment rights and all.
Bloody losers.
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