Washington Post throws a sop to the anti-'political correctness' contingent, again--

Several concerns arise from a front-page article in today’s Washington Post titled “Hasan had intensified contact with cleric.”

The article repeatedly quotes unnamed sources, the story itself comes only from the unnamed sources, and the remarkable claims made in it are based entirely on the statements quoted from the unnamed sources. Both as a reader and as a journalist I believe firmly that such sole reliance on unnamed sources is destructive.

But even that’s not the biggest concern.

Here is the lede:

“In the months before the deadly shootings at Fort Hood, Army Maj. Nidal M. Hasan intensified his communications with a radical Yemeni American cleric and began to discuss surreptitious financial transfers and other steps that could translate his thoughts into action, according to two sources briefed on a collection of secret e-mails between the two.”

Here is the story, summarized:

• Alleged Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan was in communication for months with an Islamist partisan cleric, Anwar al-Aulaqi, who was under surveillance by the authorities;
• Early in the email correspondence, Hasan was writing to al-Aulaqi about theological matters, religion;
• But later on, and closer to the date of the Fort Hood shootings, Hasan began emailing the cleric about how to transfer money overseas surreptitiously;
• Authorities forwarded upward some of the earlier emails about religion;
• But did not forward the later emails about financial transfers.

This last point is the really weird one, although it seems not to be recognized as such in the article.

There is no indication in the article that the “secret e-mails” themselves were seen by reporters.

Predictably, most of the comments posted on this article on the WP web site are ditto-head railing against ‘political correctness.’ That seems to be the response intended by the thrust of the piece. Most of the posters also rail against the Obama administration, again in line with the thrust of the article.

However, surveillance of Hasan seems to have taken place mostly under the Obama administration:

“The e-mails were obtained by an FBI-led task force in San Diego between late last year and June but were not forwarded to the military, according to government and congressional sources. Some were sent to the FBI's Washington field office, triggering an assessment into whether they raised national security concerns, but those intercepted later were not, the sources said.”

The phrase “late last year” is not pinned down; the article does not say when the e-mails were actually obtained. Possibly the unnamed sources did not tell the reporters when, although there is no way to know for sure.

Here is Hasan’s trajectory according to the article:

“Hasan's contacts with extremist imam Anwar al-Aulaqi began as religious queries but took on a more specific and concrete tone before he moved to Texas . . . said the sources who were briefed on the e-mails, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the case is sensitive and unfolding. One of those sources said the two discussed in "cryptic and coded exchanges" the transfer of money overseas in ways that would not attract law enforcement attention.” [graf 3]

“"He [Hasan] clearly became more radicalized toward the end, and was having discussions related to the transfer of money and finances . . .," said the source, who spoke at length in part because he was concerned the public accounting of the events has been incomplete. "It became very clear toward the end of those e-mails he was interested in taking action."”

[graf 4]

“In the months before the shootings, the two discussed how Hasan could make several transactions of less than $10,000, a threshold for reporting to U.S. authorities, according to the source who spoke extensively. Hasan did not explicitly vow to fund terrorist activities or evade tax and reporting laws for contributions, the source said.” [graf 11]

The same source—referred to as ‘he’—goes on to call the money “operational”; the next graf belatedly mentions that “To date, investigators have not unearthed evidence that Hasan sent money to charities with strong or suspected ties to Islamist militant groups.” This item is attributed to “other sources.”

The remarkable allegation that authorities transmitted Hasan’s e-mails about religion but not his e-mails about money is cryptic:

“In this case, a first batch of Hasan's e-mails was sent by agents in San Diego to the bureau's Washington field office, where a terrorism task force began to assess them in December. But months later, additional messages emerged, according to government and congressional sources. Those e-mails were reviewed only in San Diego, where authorities determined they did not pose a national security risk. The FBI said last week, without going into details about the process, that "all of the e-mails were known."”

Here is the gravamen: If the thrust of the over-all piece is accurate, federal authorities 1) forwarded e-mails of Hasan’s to the cleric about religion. Then, when Hasan began sending e-mails about transferring funds, 2) the authorities did not choose to forward those. Or that is clearly the implication. (The phrase “additional messages” is inexact.)

Now, that is a remarkable story. If accurate, the feds made not one mistake, but two. In other words, if any e-mails should reasonably have been deemed harmless and not forwarded to superiors, surely it would have been the religious ones. Those, btw, would be where actual ‘political correctness’ would come into play.

Conversely, if there was concern about Hasan’s communicating with al-Aulaqi in the first place, why would the e-mails about transferring funds be exactly the ones selected not to forward to the Washington field office? This makes no sense.

Why would the feds pounce on religion and not on money? If ‘political correctness’ is the problem, why did the feds put religious e-mails into the pipeline rather than e-mails about transmitting funds?

What was the role of the San Diego field office? What about superiors there?

Once again, reporters are missing the story behind the story: Who are these unnamed sources, whom are they connected to, and why are they filling up three reporters with a simplistic and contradictory message about ‘political correctness’ in a sensitive and tragic matter?

Regarding Hasan, were the sources privy to the process earlier? Are they connected to officials who were involved earlier?

It is almost weirdly abject that any major newspaper would run a front-pager about a batch of e-mails, based solely on the word of sources who will not allow their names to be published, without a look at the e-mails themselves.

Some newspapers just never seem to get past the flattery of insiderism.