Playing Politics with the Public's Right to Know

The White House asked The New York Times not to publish this article, arguing that it could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny. After meeting with senior administration officials to hear their concerns, the newspaper delayed publication for a year to conduct additional reporting. Some information that administration officials argued could be useful to terrorists has been omitted.

--The New York Times, December 16, 2005

What exactly is a year? It surely isn't the strict definition, 365 days. It is good to see the NY Times being more open as to how it is influenced by the White House. However, the "year" mentioned probably has a buffer of a few months. This leaves open the possibility that the article was ready for publication before the election, but upon pressure from the White House, it wasn't published. This would be evidence of a grave threat to the 1st Amendment and the public's right to know. It would compound doubts about whether the White House cares about the constitution and civil liberties, preferring to stifle them in order to hold on to power. One would hope that the Times launches an internal investigation into the timing of the original publication date and how the Times acted in regards to the White House demands.