Not So SWIFT

The SWIFT program is the counterterror program designed to ferret out terrorists from financial data collected on certain kinds of transactions. Press Secretary Tony Snow was asked about this program earlier today:

Q Vice President Cheney said he was offended by press disclosures about the bank records story, because he said it makes it harder for us to protect ourselves against future attacks. As Press Secretary, are you also offended by that, and do you think that it makes it harder for us to protect ourselves?

MR. SNOW: I'm not going to get into my state of mind about the story. I will have more to say about it in the briefing later today. I'm going to leave it to the people who are actually operating the program. They say it does make it more difficult, I'll take them at their word.

Q What about -- Peter King went further, he was talking about investigating and prosecution. Is that going too far?

MR. SNOW: Well, again, there is a process for doing this. The agency in charge has to make a criminal referral. You may remember that former CIA Director Tenet made a criminal referral. It is highly unusual for somebody to announce that they've done so. But there are very strict processes for doing this. And beyond that, I'm not going to extend the brief.

Q One last thing. How hard did you push to convince the press not to publish this --

MR. SNOW: I was not directly involved. The Department of the Treasury, since it has been operating the SWIFT program, did the work, and they're the ones who made the contacts, primarily to The New York Times, but to others, as well.

How hard was it for the media not to reveal details about a program that by all accounts, including the NYT's own reporting, was quite successful? Apparently they had no problem revealing the program despite the entreaties from a bipartisan group of people who sought to keep the program from being publicized on the pages of the NYT and other papers.

The President was also asked about the program earlier today:

Q Sir, several news organizations have reported about a program that allows the administration to look into the bank records of certain suspected terrorists. My questions are twofold: One, why have you not gone to Congress to ask for authorization for this program, five years after it started? And two, with respect, if neither the courts, nor the legislature is allowed to know about these programs, how can you feel confident the checks and balances system works?

THE PRESIDENT: Congress was briefed. And what we did was fully authorized under the law. And the disclosure of this program is disgraceful. We're at war with a bunch of people who want to hurt the United States of America, and for people to leak that program, and for a newspaper to publish it does great harm to the United States of America. What we were doing was the right thing. Congress was aware of it, and we were within the law to do so.

The American people expect this government to protect our constitutional liberties and, at the same time, make sure we understand what the terrorists are trying to do. The 9/11 Commission recommended that the government be robust in tracing money. If you want to figure out what the terrorists are doing, you try to follow their money. And that's exactly what we're doing. And the fact that a newspaper disclosed it makes it harder to win this war on terror.

Video of the President's statement can be found at Hot Air. It appears that the media is truly clueless about the significance of these kinds of programs and that Congress was briefed on a regular basis. I find some comfort in knowing that the members of Congress who were briefed on the program were able to keep their yappers shut, although I know one person who thinks that a certain Senator from West Virginia (Jay Rockefeller) might not have such a capability.

Don Surber is still trying to figure out why Keller and the Times ran the story despite being asked not to. Reliving the Watergate days doesn't cut it for me. Paul at Wizbang boils down Keller's incomprehensible defense down to 'screw you.'

Of course the interdiction of terror financing was seen as a critical piece of bolstering the US defense against terrorism by the 9/11 Commission. Ed has the details.

Hugh Hewitt and Powerline each offer takedowns of the Keller and NYT defense of the indefensible. Glenn Reynolds, Michael Barone, and Patterico don't think much of Keller's response either.

Others chiming in: Rick Moran, The Anchoress, Blue Crab Boulevard, Ace of Spades,

Liberty and Justice doesn't think that prosecution is the right approach, but neither was publication the right thing either.

Not that Keller and the Times are without defenders. David A posting at In Search of Utopia thinks that those on the right are blowing this whole thing out of proportion - calling the right a bunch of hypocrites all while admitting that he's not a constitutional scholar. He thinks that the media was doing the right thing by informing the people.

That's a try at least. And it's better than the nonsense blathered by Keller himself.

Hume's Ghost, posting at Glenn Greenwald makes the following points:

What this story seems to do is provide Americans with an idea as to what that entails, and how it might potentially be abused. And given the administration's record of abuse of power, I can see why the NYT's thought that it might be in the public interest to start giving the program some consideration.

Again, that's a better argument than anything Keller put together, but it still falls short of why the media should be allowed to publish information that can and will assist terrorists avoid detection. After all, there is considerable bipartisan support for this very kind of program (as per the 9/11 Commission - Lee Hamilton was among those who went to the NYT to request they withhold publication). And, there's the simple fact that it was working and there were no questions about legality of the program.

The left continually claims that the Administration oversteps the bounds and engages in programs of questionable legality. Yet each time, the claims of illegality are not only in the abstract, but safeguards in place are there for a reason - along with regular consultation with Congress. Poliblog thinks that the use of subpoenas are insufficient protections, but I think his concerns are unwarranted (to pardon the pun). Considering that subpoenas are used in all kinds of civil and criminal cases, the fact that we're using them to go after terrorists is neither unusual nor should we require some higher standard of protection on counter-terror related activities.

It is as though the NYT believes that it should be the arbiter of what gets published on national security matters, not the government that now has an increasingly difficult job of protecting the nation from terrorist attacks. That kind of action would never have been tolerated in the past, and there's no reason to tolerate it now, though you can be sure that someone will say that the Pentagon Papers case gives the media carte blanche.

UPDATE:
Still more reax: Sister Toldjah, Stop the ACLU, Austin Bay, and All Things Beautiful.

UPDATE:
Treasury Secretary John Snow issues a rejoinder of his own against the ludricous claims from NYT Editor Bill Keller that the Administration didn't pull out all the stops to try and convince the paper from running the story. In fact, Keller called the steps the Administration took as being half-hearted.

Since when should the Administration have to beg to keep from running a story with serious national security consequences. Snow closes by saying he's deeply disappointed in the Times. Why does the Administration have to beg to do keep the paper from publishing. Is no one at the Times sane enough to realize the potential danger that they're inflicting on the nation, if not the world, by revealing aspects of a successful counter terror program?

I'd like to know if there were dissenters at the Times who thought that the story shouldn't have run.

I think we as a nation deserve to know if there are any adults at the paper where decisions about our personal security is threatened with each and every leak that comes down the pike.

That's seriously understating things. Can you imagine the outrage should terrorists manage to carry off a mass casualty attack somewhere around the world and we later learn that the money used to fund the attack could have been intercepted via the SWIFT program or that law enforcement found out too late that such an attack was imminent and could not act quickly enough to stop the attack?

The Times would be at the forefront of those calling for scalps, and yet their own actions undermine the very national security concerns that have been on minds of experts since 9/11.

Others writing about Snow's comments: Charles at LGF and AJ Strata.

UPDATE:
Speaking of AJ Strata, he has another curious tidbit. There were three people from outside the Administration who paid a visit to the Grey Lady to keep it from running the story. Lee Hamilton, Tom Kean Sr., and Rep. John Murtha (D-PA). That's right folks; even Rep. Murtha realized that the Grey Lady went too far.