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As others have noted, I think it's commendable that you engage criticisms so directly -- both in your comment section and within mine. That said:
But it simply was not. The news blog I work on is not a forum for my views -- that is not how any blog on the news side of The Times works -- but, perhaps more importantly for you and your readers, I simply do not have the views you assumed I have or was trying to advocate by asking that question. You have assigned them to me.
If all ou were doing was asking an innocent question to provoke debate, why didn't you ask people who advocate eavesdropping outside the law whether this case -- which resulted in a disruption of a terrorist plot using legal eavesdropping -- changed their thinking any? Why didn't you ask if those who believe we can't give trials to Terrorists had their minds changed by this episode?
It's a little hard to believe you were doing nothing other than posing a neutral question for discussion's sake since you targeted only one group -- those who oppose illegal eavesdropping -- and demanded to know if this changed their views of things. That seems to be anything but neutral.
And you did so by basing your challenge in a false premise. I'm glad you have now retracted it, but given the very limited inquiry you posed and the false assumptions in posing it, you can't blame others for thinking you were trying to make a point.
But I think it is fair to say that you've made some large assumptions about who I am and why I wrote this post that are simply baseless.
What -- specifically -- did I write that was inaccurate? Don't use the sub-headline -- use what I actually wrote in the body.
