More on Media Transparency at Home

James Lileks blogs about this MSNBC story in which an attempt ot turn a suspected al Qaeda weapons dealer was blown by a BBC story. Its nice when the police get the criminals, including the ones higher up the food chain. But I can't help comming away from this story happy that the press here is free to speak the truth, even when its inconvienient. The price of terrorism is extramly rare and sometimes catastrophic. The price of censorship is constant and potentially every bit as catastrophic. Not that I am against the "dispatch [of] some of the grim men who can kill you with a shoelace and a thumbtack from sixty paces," as Lileks puts it. Its just that when when the press gets a hold of it, they get to tell us. I haven't seen anyone connected to this story say otherwise, that's just what I get from it. Read the whole bleat, as always.