"Lincoln's Surveillance State" Op-Ed NYTimes July 6, 2013

[David Lockmiller]

(08-04-2013 08:01 PM)Liz Rosenthal Wrote:  David: I think the 150-word limit is more of a guideline than a hard-and-fast rule. I've seen longer letters and shorter letters in the NY Times, although I'm sure the editors prefer shorter ones. They're easier to get through, edit and fit on the op-ed page.

One of the problems I see with the approach that you've taken with the NY Times is your heavy reliance on long quotations. Unless the quote is extremely memorable or precisely on point, I wouldn't bother with the quote. For one thing, you're going to lose your audience - in this case, the person who is reading your letter - with long quote after long quote.

My suggestion is to summarize, in your own words, the substance of the research you've done. But before doing that, in a letter to the editor, I would begin with the assertion made by Minchin (is that his name?) that you believe is erroneous. Then I would indicate why you believe it's erroneous, in a succinct manner, and at this point identify the correct fact or facts by way of briefly summarizing the research you've done to support the fact or facts. Finally, you could end with something like, "It's unfortunate that Mr. Minchin felt the need to misrepresent the facts in order to support his argument that the N.S.A. spying program is nothing new."

One last thing - I am confused by the information about the Bureau of Ordinance and how that relates to control of the telegraph system. I would have thought that the censoring of reports of military movements would be more relevant and might be what Minchin was thinking of. But he may have decided to rely on a faulty memory rather than double-check the facts. Unfortunately, prominent columnists, bloggers and authors acquire, in the course of their prominence, a certain amount of hubris, which can lead to carelessness in what they offer for public consumption.

You make two principal points that I wish to address: 1) "I think the 150-word limit is more of a guideline than a hard-and-fast rule." and 2)"I am confused by the information about the Bureau of Ordinance and how that relates to control of the telegraph system."

I presume that the following information that I copy from NY Times resources will serve as adequate and incontrovertible explanation.

Point 1

How to Submit a Letter to the Editor
Letters to the editor should only be sent to The Times, and not to other publications. We do not publish open letters or third-party letters.
Letters for publication should be no longer than 150 words, must refer to an article that has appeared within the last seven days, and must include the writer's address and phone numbers. No attachments, please.
We regret we cannot return or acknowledge unpublished letters.

About Letters
Thomas Feyer, the letters editor, gives tips for getting your letter published.

FROM THE LETTERS EDITOR
Our Compact, Updated
By THOMAS FEYER
Published: May 23, 2004

Last September, as letters editor of The Times, I used some of this space for an essay called "To the Reader," introducing myself and outlining the mission and the mechanics of the letters page.

But readers, new and old, send in questions (and even complaints!) about the letters page almost every day, and so a refresher course may help. This is an attempt to answer some frequently asked questions.

Your suggested length for letters is about 150 words. Why so short? (Or, as one writer put it after I cited the brevity of the Gettysburg Address, "Why does Lincoln get 250 and the rest of us a measly 150?")

Ideally, the letters page should be a forum for a variety of voices, and that means letting a lot of readers have a turn. With our limited space, we have room for letters that make their case with a point or two, but not for full-length articles. (For those, try our neighbors at the Op-Ed page.)


Point 2

-----Original Message-----
From: Chan, Sewell [mailto:sewell@nytimes.com]
Sent: Tuesday, July 16, 2013 11:31 AM
To: davidlincoln@msn.com
Subject: FW: Lincoln's Surveillance State" -- NY Times Op-Ed Published July 6 (Saturday) electronic edition

Dear Mr. Lockmiller:

Please pardon my delay in responding. I'm out of the office for a work assignment but I have not forgotten your concern.

The sentence in question reads: "In 1862, after President Lincoln appointed him secretary of war, Edwin M. Stanton penned a letter to the president requesting sweeping powers, which would include total control of the telegraph lines."

The claim that Stanton requested "sweeping powers" is supported by the letter from Stanton requesting the authority to make unnamed changes "in the Bureau of Ordnance, and perhaps some others." Lincoln granted this request.

The claim that those powers "would include" control of the telegraph is supported by the fact that, a month later, Stanton wrote an executive order, approved by Lincoln, taking control of the telegraph.
(For the executive order, see here: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=69797)

We recognize that it was a two-step process by which the powers were requested. I also have immense respect for President Lincoln -- he is my favorite president -- and appreciate your enthusiasm for defending his reputation, but we carefully checked this essay and stand by its accuracy.

Thank you.

Sewell Chan


I was not trying to write a Letter to the Editor; I was not trying to write an Op-Ed; I was trying to convince the authorities at the NY Times to retract the Op-Ed "Lincoln's Surveillance State" already published and provide an explanation to its readers as to how the NY Times was so easily "bamboozled" into publishing the Op-Ed in the first place.

Yesterday, the NY Times printed another article on Obama's Surveillance State entitled "Other Agencies Clamor for Data N.S.A. Compiles." Comments by NY Times readers followed and you can arrange these in order by the number of other NY Times readers recommending the comment for reading. The most popular commentary with 176 recommendations was Ken Belcher from Chicago. He made the following pertinent observation in his third paragraph: "Thirty years ago it did not matter that the data existed - and could be accessed without a warrant - because the capability to process the data to build a database of all our relationships did not exist."