As I try started trying to catch up with the "What did The New York Times know, and how did it know it?" debate about last month's domestic wiretapping stories,  I noticed that some of the discussion used links to the first story in the controversy, but the links had "expired" into the Times Select $4 archive.

However, the Times still provides a special, more permanent, set of links if you subscribe to its (still free) RSS headline feeds. So here are a few still-working links to the earlier stories that started it all:

• Bush Secretly Lifted Some Limits on Spying in U.S. After 9/11, Officials Say, By James Risen and Eric Lichtblau,  Dec. 15, 2005.
  
• Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts, By James Risen and Eric Lichtblau,  Dec. 16, 2005.
• FBI Watched Activist Groups, New Files Show, By Eric Lichtblau,  Dec. 19, 2005.
• Spy AgencyMined Vast Data Trove, By James Risen and Eric Lichtblau,  Dec. 24, 2005.
• Congress Never Authorized Spying Effort, Saschle Says, By Richard W. Stevenson, Dec. 24, 2005.
• Terror Threats and Responses --  Times page of links to related stories, Dec. 19-Jan. 1.

And here's some of the debate:

• Behind the Eavesdropping Story, a Loud Silence, By Byron Calame, Times Public Editor, Jan. 1, 2006. (The Times ombudsman calls editors' explanations for running the story "woefully inadequate.")
• NYU professor & blogger Jay Rosen comments at PressThink.
• UT professor & blogger Glenn Reynolds comments at Instapundit.
• Prying Open The Times: Once again, the paper's lack of transparency has put it on shaky ground with readers, Salon.com
• Some Veteran Journalists Say 'Times' And 'Post' Should Have Disclosed Meeting with Bush, Editor & Publisher.

8:16:09 PM  #