Time Issues Spying Correction - UPDATED

Time magazine will issue a correction to columnist Joe Klein's column on wiretapping reform painted Democrats as being supporters of rights for terrorists, following a barrage of criticism from Salon, the left half of the internet and THREAT LEVEL, according to an email published by Salon writer Glenn Greenwald.

But in announcing the upcoming correction, Klein's managing editor, Richard Stengel, indicates he stands behind Klein, saying that he quickly corrected his error in a follow-up blog post, though those posts, in fact, simply continued to show that Klein remains ignorant of what the wiretapping bills actually do.

TIME Columnist Joe Klein made a reporting error, which he swiftly addressed in his blog postings on TIME.com. In addition, TIME will run a correction in his column in this week's issue of the magazine.

In that column, Klein wrote:

Unfortunately, Speaker Nancy Pelosi quashed the House Intelligence Committee's bipartisan effort and supported a Democratic bill that — Limbaugh is salivating — would require the surveillance of every foreign-terrorist target's calls to be approved by the FISA court, an institution founded to protect the rights of U.S. citizens only. In the lethal shorthand of political advertising, it would give terrorists the same legal protections as Americans. That is well beyond stupid.

The inaccuracies fight for attention in Klein's first sentence, while the third sentence "That is well beyond stupid" can only be understood as referring to the errors in the first two.

Update: *Time'*s public relations director Betsy Burton pointed THREAT LEVEL to the 'correction' which reads, hilariously and incorrectly:

In the original version of this story, Joe Klein wrote that the House Democratic version of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) would allow a court review of individual foreign surveillance targets. Republicans believe the bill can be interpreted that way, but Democrats don't.

There was no bi-partisan effort quashed by Pelosi. The bill is only about surveillance done on American phone switches, internet providers and email services. It puts no burden on the NSA to get warrants for the wiretapping it's been doing under the color of law for the past 29 years.

It also expands the NSA's right to spy inside the United States without having to get particularized warrants saying who and where they want to wiretap. Hell, the bill even carves out a way for the NSA to wiretap inside the United States without getting warrants at all.

But in follow-up blog posts, Klein wrung his hands over some minor point of law that was easily understood by turning to the longstanding Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, then threw up his hands and said "I have neither the time nor legal background to figure out who's right."

But he never corrected the core inaccuracies of his original column. Indeed, it would be impossible to do so without retracting the whole thing, which Stengel seems to indicate is not going to happen.

THREAT LEVEL asked Stengel to confirm the upcoming correction (which hasn't made its way yet to the online version) and asked what the content of it would be.

In the meantime, the hits on Klein keep coming, including one from Congressman Russ Holt (D-NJ), who played a major part in writing the House's Restore Act. He writes on Huffington Post:

In his original column, Mr. Klein incorrectly wrote, "Unfortunately, Speaker Nancy Pelosi quashed the House Intelligence Committee's bipartisan effort and supported a Democratic bill that - Limbaugh is salivating - would require the surveillance of every foreign-terrorist target's calls to be approved by the FISA court, an institution founded to protect the rights of U.S. citizens only." It contains no such provision. [...]

What we have not agreed to do is give this or any other President a permanent blank check to spy on you, your family, the members of your congregation, or any other American citizen without any judicial oversight - a position shared by an overwhelming majority of Americans according to the latest public opinion surveys on the topic.

Meanwhile, Salon's Glenn Greenwald and Firedoglake's Jane Hamsher continue bird-dogging Klein for his sloppy journalism and are now trying to force a real correction out of Time.

As Greenwald points out, the origin of the error is more interesting than the error itself:

Whoever it was who told Klein that the House bill "would require the surveillance of every foreign-terrorist target's calls to be approved by the FISA court" was lying to him, in order to manipulate Time and Klein to do exactly what they did – publish the accusation that Democrats want to extend civil liberties protections to foreign Terrorists.

Any respectable journalist would recognize that this is the real story here – that Bush officials and GOP operatives were outright lying about the House bill, and they would report on that, including revealing who did this.

See Also:

• Time Columnist Joe Klein Gets Wiretapping Debate Wrong a Third Time
• Time's Columnist Joe Klein Butchers Wiretapping Debate
• Senate Bill Gets Telcos Legal Immunity and Lets NSA Wiretap In U.S. Without Court Approval
• NSA's Lucky Break: How the U.S. Became Switchboard to the World
• AT&T Whistle-Blower Hits DC To Stop Telecom Spying Immunity
• In Twist, Senate Judiciary Spying Bill Lacks Immunity for Telecoms
• Stage Set for Senate Immunity Showdown As House Passes Spy Bill ...

Cropped CC Photo: Gabu-chan