Editorial

On Friday, The New York Times ran an article on an almost five-year old secret government program that has been using the databases of Swift, a Belgian-based global financial co-operative that processes transaction between banks, brokerages, stock exchanges and other institutions, to access the financial records of suspected terrorists and terrorist organizations. The bank records of up to "thousands" of Americans may have been sifted through during these efforts, which have led to multiple terrorism convictions. Other major publications followed the Times in printing the details of the program.

The Administration claims (and the New York Times confirms) that they requested the Times not print out of fear that revealing the program would diminish its effectiveness. The dispute between the Administration and the Times has touched off a firestorm of debate with several leading Republicans labeling the Times decision to print a disgrace and a prominent conservative publication calling for the New York Times's press credentials to be withdrawn. The New York Times's editor Bill Keller responded on Sunday in a "letter" defending the decisions.

The New York Times has a right and obligation to make its own decisions on the "public interest." Recent debates on press boundaries and anti-terrorism have centered on the government's involvement in secret prisons and warrant-less electronic surveillance of telephone records. Some might disagree with the decisions that led to these programs being exposed, but it would be hard to argue the public doesn't have an interest in knowing about such things.

Not so much in this case. The Supreme Court has already ruled the Fourth Amendment does not cover bank records -- if it did it would be a lot easier to cheat on your taxes.

Unlike warrant-less phone surveillance, there is no reasonable expectation the government isn't looking into your bank records, warrant or otherwise. This is especially true of the large, often international transactions the Swift database records. The database doesn't track, for example, ATM activity. Furthermore, The Times's own investigation concluded the program is likely legal (at worst, its legality is "untested.")

In his letter, the best defense Keller offers can be summed up as "what does it matter?"

Keller doubts daylight will prompt the European banking executives who control Swift to cease working with the unpopular American government, and doesn't think knowledge of the program will change the behavior of terrorists, making them more difficult to track.

I believe Keller's assessment of how the bankers and terrorists will react (or not react) is probably correct. This whole story is much ado about nothing. Still the government is right to be concerned whenever any of its effective counter-intelligence efforts are reveled. Even the obvious and seemingly uncontroversial ones such as the Swift program.

I've read the initial article four times now and I still can't figure out why the New York Times was willing to go the mat with the government over its contents. The only way exposure of this program could firmly be in the public interest is if the government wasn't employing it.

I'm sure since 9/11 the government has been putting what feels like way too much pressure on news organizations to toe the government's secrecy line on their anti-terrorism measures -- all the while using the "revealing secrets to the terrorists" argument ad nauseam.

More reason why this would have been the perfect time for the New York Times to let the government win one, and hold the article. The Times would have put itself (and the press as a whole) in a better position to serve the public by using this as a chit for future disagreements with the administration about boundaries. Instead it defied the government to run a boring, unenlightening expose.