The SWIFT story was marketed the same way for mostly the same reasons. (Forgive me, I also think it helped atone for Keller’s Iraq war backing and Judy Miller’s unethical alliances with sources.) SWIFT was information the government preferred stay under the radar. Their persistence only made Keller & Co. convinced something was rotten in Brussels. It wasn’t.

The U.S. also can’t be thrilled FoxNews and the AP yesterday reported that Mideast money transfer centers turn away all “Mohammed’s” and “Ahmed’s” while they’re cross-checked with a Treasury watch list. A procedure that can take days. This knowledge assuredly encourages jihadist financiers to adopt fake identities.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,201850,00.html

The UN’s secret-but-not-classified terror finance tracking programs are catalogued for our browsing convenience:

http://www.un.org/Docs/sc/committees/1267/1267mg.htm

Trying to get their readers outraged over nothing is a trait shared by editor Keller *and* his emulating antagonists.

It is time for our Government to take a firm hand, quit playing with the issue of leakers, investigate, root them out and prosecute them severely. If reporters get in the way, jail them. This is National Security – and both the “leakers” and the repo…

I think your feelings are correct. The following sentence appeared in the original NYT story:

In terrorism prosecutions, intelligence officials have been careful to “sanitize,” or hide the origins of evidence collected through the program to keep it secret, officials said.

The only curious thing is why they went through so much trouble to hide a program everyone supposedly knew about? Gee whiz it’s a stumper.

But I still think you and Patterico are asking for trouble from the left by insisting upon using facts and logic to support your positions.

Perhaps the NY Times got the SWIFT program confused with the SwiftBoatVets, lost perspective, went ballistic, and blindly lashed out, without consideration for the harm they might do to national security or to innocent bystanders.

No, on second thought, that can’t be it, but it’s about as plausible as the NYT’s whoppers.

I can’t seem to write short posts anymore like normal bloggers. What’s going on? Once I get started…
The man on the left is Thomas Paine, an American Revolution-era political philosopher, journalist, and pamphleteer who openly ad…

I don’t think it put any lives at risk.

Beating up on the New York Times is red meat for the Conservative Base.

If You’re Under The Impression That The Press Is Neutral, That Couldn’t Be More Wrong.

I’ve just finished viewing yesterday m…

You can’t do that !

[So does my esteemed guest blogger See-Dubya, who wrote the post. -- P]