"While my wilingness to trust the government is pretty low, I'm not particularly fond of the idea I should trust Bill Keller et. al., either."

In contrast, I find that freedom of the press, and trusting to trying publishers if they've committed crimes and endangered soldiers or anyone else has served us very well for over 200 years. The Supreme Court also agreed when it struck down prior restraint on the Pentagon Papers.

And given the lack of anyone actually having been killed because a reporter revealed a true secret, in these past two hundred years, I think history backs up that trust very well indeed.

"The pundits should focus on bigger problems than a bad decision by the Times."

What bad decision?

*sigh* I didn't say I wanted to change the system, Gary. I merely noted that I'm not fond of trusting either side to do the right thing. I'm curious how you could possibly know that no one has ever been killed because a reporter revealed a secret, as it seems to me that would be a rather difficult thing to prove. It suggests to me that you believe it because you want it to be true, rather than because it necessarily is the case.

As for the second, clearly the pundits who are raising Hell consider the decision by the Times to publish what they knew about the SWIFT program to be a bad decision. I'm speaking to that perspective.

"I'm curious how you could possibly know that no one has ever been killed because a reporter revealed a secret, as it seems to me that would be a rather difficult thing to prove."

I assume that it would have made it to the public, the government would have mentioned it, it would be in the history books, if it had happened a number of times, enough times to be a problem.

I can imagine rare circumstances in which some undercover agent might have died, and the government still wanted to conceal that, and let it go, but I can't imagine that if we had a significant problem in American history with this happening enough times to be a problem, that it would be Completely Secret To All History.

"As for the second, clearly the pundits who are raising Hell consider the decision by the Times to publish what they knew about the SWIFT program to be a bad decision."

Yes, but what, exactly, did the Times reveal that wasn't either publically available or, in fact, announced by the Administration, or that somehow caused any damage to our fighting terrorism?

I've yet to see even a hint of any factual claims being made on this. All I've seen is lunatic accusations. If you can point me to some credible information on this that I'm unaware of, I'll be all ears.

Briefly speaking, SWIFT could hardly be more public, there's been plenty of info published -- and announced non-stop, constantly, by the Administration, since 2001 -- on our efforts to obtain all possible financial info from all possible banks and financial organizations to fight terrorism and shut down those financial tools. So what's anyone on about?

Today's lunacy is about Don Rumsfeld's house. I mean, these people making these complaints are insane. Is there a valid complaint about SWIFT, and if so, what is it?

Gary,

First I want to say that I don't know if you are wrong or right about how much damage the NYTimes article has caused (if any).

To that, if you could find for me where the following pieces of information were made public prior to June 22:

1. "The program is limited, government officials say, to tracing transactions of people suspected of having ties to Al Qaeda by reviewing records from the nerve center of the global banking industry, a Belgian cooperative that routes about $6 trillion daily between banks, brokerages, stock exchanges and other institutions."
2. "Much more limited agreements with other companies have provided access to A.T.M. transactions, credit card purchases and Western Union wire payments, the officials said."
3. "Data from the Brussels-based banking consortium, formally known as the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, has allowed officials from the C.I.A., the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other agencies to examine "tens of thousands" of financial transactions, Mr. Levey said."
4. "The cooperative is owned by more than 2,200 organizations, and virtually every major commercial bank, as well as brokerage houses, fund managers and stock exchanges, uses its services."
5. "Customers' names, bank account numbers and other identifying information can be retrieved, the officials said."
6. "And the information is not provided in real time — Swift generally turns it over several weeks later."
7. "It is not clear if other network participants know that American intelligence officials can examine their message traffic."
8. The article points to two individuals captured because of SWIFT. Did Al Qaeda know how we got to them? Even if they had heard of SWIFT, did they know that was what we used to grab them?
9. "Similar subpoenas for the Western Union data allowed the F.B.I. to trace wire transfers, mainly outside the United States, and to help Israel disrupt about a half-dozen possible terrorist plots there by unraveling the financing, an official said."

I realize that you don't have time to answer each of the points above, and feel free to argue if you don't think they are important. But each of those points above, to me, seem like information Al Qaeda (or evidently anti-Isreali terrorists as well) could use. If this had already been released then I can see your point, this is a whole lot of shouting over nothing. But it would make me curious as to why people keep calling it a "leak" and why Keller "agonized" over releasing it and asked three separate people in the government for advice.

(I'm not sure about the tone of this post. I'm not being snarky. I can be convinced of your position. I also realize that it isn't your job to convince me.)

P.S. Andrew, don't sigh at Gary. And stop slouching!

"1. "The program is limited, government officials say, to tracing transactions of people suspected of having ties to Al Qaeda by reviewing records from the nerve center of the global banking industry, a Belgian cooperative that routes about $6 trillion daily between banks, brokerages, stock exchanges and other institutions."

I already gave the link for that.

"2. "Much more limited agreements with other companies have provided access to A.T.M. transactions, credit card purchases and Western Union wire payments, the officials said."

Sure. Risen and Lichtblau, Suskind, some thousands of news stories, and hundreds of administration speeches. Tons of stuff on the Treasury Department website, and the White House website, going back to 2001. Here is just one. There are hundreds more.

"4. "The cooperative is owned by more than 2,200 organizations, and virtually every major commercial bank, as well as brokerage houses, fund managers and stock exchanges, uses its services."

See #1.

5. "Customers' names, bank account numbers and other identifying information can be retrieved, the officials said."

See the waiver on the form you fill out to make an international bank transfer.

"7. "It is not clear if other network participants know that American intelligence officials can examine their message traffic.""

See here. Also here. And here.

There are hundreds and hundreds of such press releases and transcripts of Congressional testimony and thousands of news stories.

Those of us following the WoT have been blogging or reading about the efforts to shut down and trace financial networks since late 2001; remember "hawala"?

"But it would make me curious as to why people keep calling it a "leak""

Because it's useful politics to attack the NY Times and to blame Democrats and "liberals" of course. And it's a distraction from stuff like this.

If you've not noticed by now that these guys consistently lie like crazy to blame anyone but themselves for failures, and that they lie like crazy all the time about anyone whom they think is a threat, you've really not been paying attention.

Here is one for you, Andrew, btw.

See also here and here and here.

Still digesting.

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