The Bush administration is at least consistent in its hypocrisy: it professes continually to be working to promote freedom, democracy and human rights, and consistently undermines all of those values in the name of the "war on terror." Such secret monitoring of financial transfers is a clear invasion of the right to privacy; condemning the press for revealing it is a clear violation of freedom of expression. This administration, moreover, long ago lost the right to be given the benefit of the doubt over whether it is abusing its powers.

It is not even as if this invasion of privacy is likely to be of great benefit in preventing terrorism. Terror attacks so far have been financed by small sums, not big ones; and terrorists are just as capable as ordinary criminals of using and transporting cash to meet bigger needs. This is just a case of a government adding to its powers because it can. Only when lives are genuinely at risk from the publication of a piece of information should the press refrain from doing so. Contrary to the Bush administration's claims, that was patently not the case with the New York Times's story. This right-wing traitor says Bravo to the Times's Bill Keller, supposed left-wing traitor.