US House slaps NYTs coverage of Swift

The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday approved (227-183) a resolution condemning news organizations for revealing a covert government program to track terrorist financing, saying the disclosure had "placed the lives of Americans in danger."

According to CNN and The Washington Post, the House resolution went after the New York Times in particular. As Justin Taylor notes, the WSJ has written a piece differentiating their publication of the Swift operation from that of the NYT. Basically, the government did not object to the WSJ publishing a less sensationalized version of the operation after the NYT had already stated, against the government's wishes, that they were going to press.

From the WSJ: "Some argue that the Journal should have still declined to run the antiterror story. However, at no point did Treasury officials tell us not to publish the information. And while Journal editors knew the Times was about to publish the story, Treasury officials did not tell our editors they had urged the Times not to publish. What Journal editors did know is that they had senior government officials providing news they didn't mind seeing in print. If this was a "leak," it was entirely authorized."

Sadly, the defense offered by Democrats was that the resolution ought not have stated that the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program was "rooted in sound legal authority." This will backfire for them, politically, since the tracking program is legitimate, and the appropriate members of Congress have been appropriately briefed on the program. Furthermore, it is working, and it enjoys a broad support base: Seven of 10 Americans support the program, including majorities of Republicans (83 percent), independents (67 percent) and Democrats (58 percent).