Freerepublic.com and Accuracy in Media hosted a lunchtime protest at the New York Times D.C. bureau today, to harangue the Grey Lady for publishing stories on secret anti-terrorism programs. The groups’ panties were most recently bunched by the NYTimes revelation of an international bank surveillance program, of course.
I didn’t get to go — but others did, and took pictures. One in particular, from a collection by Matthew Stoller, grabbed me:
Yes, that’s a mock-up of the New York “Crimes” publishing the location of Anne Frank’s secret hiding place.
Now, I’m confused. (And yes, I know that the New York Crimes is not the name of a real newspaper.) The government’s counterterror programs are like Anne Frank?
I called Free Republic’s Kristinn Taylor, who said his group was responsible for the sign (“We made that one up,” he told me). Could he explain it?
“Basically, it’s a satire on what the New York Times would be publishing during World War II if they had the same attitudes they have now,” he said.
Ignoring for the moment that the New York Times published all through World War II, and did not once reveal the location of Anne Frank’s hideout, I asked him: So, is Anne Frank analogous to government counterterror programs?
“Probably not an exact one,” Taylor said. “It’s just the idea that what they’re doing now will get people killed. [It’s] equivalent to [how] revealing Anne Frank’s location to the Nazis would get her killed.”
I don’t mean to dwell on this point. But does anyone really think that Anne Frank is the right choice to be the literal poster child for government programs involving kidnapping, torture, warrantless searches, and denial of legal due process?
Update: Michelle Malkin went and took pictures, too, but none that she put on her site show the “Anne Frank” sign. Weird.
