What the NYT isn't telling you (Part 1 of an infinite series)

You have to start somewhere, so, let's start with August 19, 2004's "Immigrants Face Loss of Licenses in ID Crackdown" (link) by Nina Bernstein. Please read the following description of one Margaret Stock:

...But critics say the enforcement [of driver's licenses only for citizens and legal residents] will fall mainly on illegal immigrants who are hard-working members of society - and to local D.M.V. clerks with no understanding of complicated immigration laws.

"Nobody has considered the bureaucratic nightmare that they're creating," said Margaret Stock, an associate professor of national security law at the United States Military Academy at West Point, who is writing a paper on the driver's license issue. "It's actually harmful to national security to deny licenses to people on the basis of immigration status."

Ms. Stock, who is also a lieutenant colonel in the military police of the Army Reserves, said there was a better chance of tracking a terrorist with a driver's license than one without. Moreover, she said, "immigration status is a moving target - someone legal today can be illegal tomorrow and someone illegal today can be legal tomorrow," so motor vehicle offices can end up issuing and denying licenses to the wrong people.

Yet thousands of illegal immigrants denied driver's licenses will continue to drive, she said, and probably add to the number of hit-and-run accidents and uninsured drivers already on the road.

The real problem, she said, is that since 9/11, officials have been trying to turn the driver's license into "a backdoor national identity card." But, she added, "driver's licenses are really about road safety."

From the NYT, we learn that Margaret Stock is an "associate professor of national security law at the United States Military Academy at West Point" as well as being "a lieutenant colonel in the military police of the Army Reserves". All fine resume points. And, she gets five whole paragraphs in the New York Times to state her views.

However, Nina Bernstein and her editors failed to inform us of a couple other of Stock's resume points, highlighted here in her Congressional testimony (aila . org/contentViewer.aspx?bc=9,576,4682,5136 ):

Mr. Chairman and distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, my name is Margaret Stock. I am honored to be here in two capacities: on behalf of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) and as an expert in the field of constitutional, military, national security, and comparative law. I am an Assistant Professor at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. The statements, opinions, and views expressed herein are my own, and do not represent the views of the United States Military Academy, the Department of the Army, or the Department of Defense...

...I am an Assistant Professor at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, where I teach National Security Law, Constitutional Law, Military Law, Comparative Law, and International Law to future military officers. As an attorney and a graduate of the Harvard Law School, I have practiced in the area of immigration law for more than ten years, and have written and spoken extensively on the issue of immigration and national security. I am also a lieutenant colonel in the Military Police Corps, United States Army Reserve. Over the years, I have represented hundreds of businesses, immigrants, and citizens seeking to navigate the difficult maze of US immigration law...

To recap, the New York Times' Nina Bernstein and her editors failed to disclose that Stock was not just an immigration lawyer, but a member of the AILA or had testified on their behalf.

I already sent an email about this, but I urge you to do so as well: public@nytimes.com

Comments

Considering the record of AILA it could hardly be uninitentional. And has the NYT ever recognized the reality that state drivers' licenses are our de facto national ID? Nearly every other developed country (and many undeveloped such as Costa Rica, where I live)has a national ID card which provides proof of citizenship. The US should have a national ID since other documents like drivers' licenses, passports, etc. serve other functions.

Nice pickup of some very interesting information.

You can send all the emails you want, but I don't think it will do any good. Here's why: This particular omission was either 1) unintentional, in which case they're very unlikely to publish her additional background (what would that be? -- sort of a negative retraction?), or 2) intentional, sort of like when they expunge the description of at large crime suspects because the suspects are non-white. Either way, it fits their editorial philosophy.

So a lawyer who belongs to a professional association is suspect when they give an expert opinion related to the professional association to which they belong? That would be like alleging some impropriety if I speak about military issues as an Army officer because I belong to the United States Armor Association.