Midnight,
Look again at the title of the New York Times article: Bank Date is Sifted In Secret To Block Terror.
If it truly was a secret program, and successful in its tracking of terrorists, then what in Heaven's name was the Times or any other paper, foreign or domestic, doing reporting it?
The mantra trotted out to defend the Times in this instance is the tired one of "the people's right to know."
Please explain exactly WHY I needed to know THIS? There was no reason to believe that government officials were doing anything other than following the money trail of terrorists.
This is just another example of media irresponsibility and ****lessness. What purpose could the Times have had other than to embarass the current administration? Much of the major media considers the Bush administration's anti-terrorism activities to be a greater threat than foreign sponsored terrorism. So, they print information that knocks the props from under a useful program in tracking the activities of terrorists.
Seeing themselves as defenders of the law, the media believes itself to be above it. The greatest defenders of the press admit that there should be limits beyond which the media should not go, and yet they never seem to find a case where the media have exceeded them.
The benefit of the doubt during wartime should work against such disclosures; in the eyes of most reporters and editors, apparently, it now lies heavily in the other direction.
Granted, it is important to have an independent press that is more adversarial than compliant...for democratic governments require watchdogs.
But there is a profound difference between performing the necessary function of informing the public and going out of one's way to undermine programs that any reasonable person would consider useful for safeguarding the nation's security.
If the media help to check the power of government, but the media cannot be prosecuted by the government for clear-cut cases of wrongdoing, then what checks the media?
(A summary and paraphrased version of an article in The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, by Bradley R. Gitz.)