NY Times and intelligence leaks

[scaeagles]

The official outing of an active intelligence gathering program is problematic. It is common knowledge that US monitors domestic banking transactions and does so legally (which is why I find the outrage about the existance of the program laughable in talking about how it is a violaton of some sort of privacy to Americans when domestic banking has been ruled to not be protected by the 4th amendment). I am not sure how common the SWIFT monitoring was. Regardless of opinion about if it is "d'uh" or not, it is classifed.

The program has proven successful though the only announced apprehension in the wake of the story involved an Indonesian terrorist in 2002, I believe.

Hypothetical - I have intel on 15 subjects. If I arrest them all at the same time, the linkage is more easily made as to how i gathered the intelligence on them. If I monitor and space out such apprehensions, the methods of intelligence gathering can be more easily kept secret.