The New York Times hit back at bitter government criticism of its decision to disclose details of a secret US anti-terror program to monitor global banking transactions.

In an editorial titled "Patriotism and the Press," the Times firmly rejected charges from President George W. Bush and senior Republicans that the report had undermined national security and offered succour to terrorist groups.

The story bore "no resemblance to security breaches, like disclosure of troop locations, that would clearly compromise the immediate safety of specific individuals," the newspaper said.

As for tipping off terrorists, the newspaper argued that terror groups would have to be "fairly credulous" not to have already suspected that such a fund monitoring program was in place.

It highlighted a public 2002 UN report that specifically cited the US policy of monitoring suspicious transactions.

The searches involved millions of records held by the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), a Belgium-based international cooperative that serves as a clearing house for transactions.

Bush has labelled the Times decision to publish in the face of government opposition a disgrace, while Peter King, the Republican chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security, said the newspaper should be prosecuted under the Espionage Act.

On Wednesday, Bush said there was "no excuse" for news accounts last week that gave details of a secret program to track and disrupt terrorism financing.

"It's tough enough to fight the terrorists, we shouldn't have to worry about news organizations revealing important information that makes it more difficult to protect our country," the president said in St. Louis, Missouri.

The Times said its report had exposed "an alarming pattern" that has emerged since the September 11 attacks, of the Bush administration citing security imperatives to bypass the normal checks and balances placed on the executive branch.

"It has created powerful new tools of surveillance and refused, almost as a matter of principle, to use normal procedures that would acknowledge that either Congress or the courts have an oversight role," the editorial said.

"This seems to us very much the sort of thing the other branches of government, and the public, should be nervously aware of," it added.

It is not the first time the Times has been accused by the Bush administration of undermining national security.

Similar accusations followed a report in December that Bush had authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on thousands of telephone calls made by Americans, without a warrant issued by a special court.

Both cases have served to shine a fresh spotlight on a long-running debate regarding the freedom of the press and issues of national security.

While many observers sided with the Times that publishing the eavesdropping story was clearly in the "public interest" some felt the SWIFT report row was less clear cut.

"The Times has a good argument, but the administration has a good argument too," said Thomas Patterson, a professor at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Part of the problem, Patterson suggested, was a lack of public faith in the oversight mechanisms for keeping the executive branch in check.

"In a system of checks and balance, you want that system to work well, and it does not work very well at the moment," he said.

"Congress, which is controled by the president's party, doesn't oversight well. So if Congress doesn't, who's left? The press, which tends to be more aggressive," he added.

Others saw a more partisan motivation behind the Republican outrage over the Times' disclosures.

"It's political," said Paul McLeary, a staff writer at the Columbia Journalism Review.

Copyright © 2006 AFP

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