It is highly unlikely that reports about the Bush administration's secret monitoring of international banking transactions were news to the world's terror organizations.
On the contrary, it has long been known that government officials target the transfer of money to locate, and in some cases prosecute, terror groups. Publication by several news organizations of the secret monitoring project involving a clearinghouse for international money transfers could not have been terribly damaging to U.S. efforts to fight terrorists
But the Bush administration, awash in bad news, is attacking The New York Times for writing about the program, accusing it of "disgraceful reporting," undermining the war on terrorism and endangering Americans. That's absurd, but the administration hopes to make political points by attacking the Times as a liberal bastion that doesn't care about the safety of the United States.
Attacking the Times — but pointedly not The Wall Street Journal, which also reported on the secret program — plays well in conservative political circles. This administration, one of the most secretive and grasping in history, reacts in fury when its questionable tactics are exposed.
http://www.statesman.com/opinion/content/editorial/stories/06/28times_edit.html