When the New York Times disclosed a secret Bush administration program that monitored global money transfers by a banking consortium in Brussels, President Bush, leading Republicans in Congress and the Right-wing talk shows unleashed a flurry of venom.

Bush said: "If you want to figure out what the terrorists are doing, you try to follow their money. And that's exactly what we're doing. And the fact that a newspaper disclosed it makes it harder to win this war on terror."

Rep. Peter King (R-NY), chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, told Chris Wallace on Fox network news: “… The New York Times is putting its own arrogant elitist left wing agenda before the interests of the American people, and I’m calling on the Attorney General to begin a criminal investigation and prosecution of the New York Times – its reporters, the editors who worked on this and the publisher. We’re in a time of war, Chris, and what they’ve done has violated the Espionage Act.”

Conservative talk show host Melanie Morgan, referring to New York Times executive editor Bill Keller, said she “would have no problem with him being sent to the gas chamber.”

There is a major problem with this professed rage, indignation and bile directed at the New York Times – the Bush administration has repeatedly and publicly boasted about its efforts to track the finances terrorists. And now it wants to punish the media for printing information that is already in the public domain.

Media Matters, a watchdog group that is generally critical of the press in an effort to make it better, recounts the administration’s disclosures on its Web site, mediamatters.org:

· In a September 24, 2001, speech, Bush announced the establishment of a "foreign terrorist asset tracking center at the Department of the Treasury to identify and investigate the financial infrastructure of the international terrorist networks." He added, "It will bring together representatives of the intelligence, law enforcement, and financial regulatory agencies to accomplish two goals: to follow the money as a trail to the terrorists, to follow their money so we can find out where they are; and to freeze the money to disrupt their actions."
· In a September 24, 2001, letter to Congress, Bush noted, "Terrorists and terrorist networks operate across international borders and derive their financing from sources in many nations. Often, terrorist property and financial assets lie outside the jurisdiction of the United States." He affirmed his commitment to working with international agencies such as the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) "to build momentum and practical cooperation in the fight to stop the flow of resources to support terrorism."
· A White House fact sheet published on September 24, 2001, noted the launch of the Treasury Department's Foreign Terrorist Asset Tracking Center (FTAT): "The FTAT is a multi-agency task force that will identify the network of terrorist funding and freeze assets before new acts of terrorism take place."
· In a September 26, 2001, statement, Bush said, "We're fighting them on a financial front. We're choking off their money. We're seizing their assets. We will be relentless as we pursue their sources of financing. And I want to thank the Secretary of Treasury for leading that effort."
· On October 1, 2001, Bush told FEMA employees, "As you may remember, I made it clear that part of winning the war against terror would be to cut off these evil people's money; it would be to trace their assets and freeze them, cut off their cash flows, hold people accountable who fund them, who allow the funds to go through their institutions; and not only do that at home, but to convince others around the world to join us in doing so."
· On October 10, 2001, Bush stated that the "nations of NATO are sharing intelligence, coordinating law enforcement and cracking down on the financing of terrorist organizations."
· During remarks at FTAT, then-Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill said, "[W]e have begun to act -- to block assets, to seize books, records and evidence, and to follow audit trails to track terrorist cells poised to do violence to our common interests." O'Neill added, "We have built an international coalition to deny terrorists access to the world financial system."
· A December 2001 report on the steps the administration had taken to combat terrorism noted that the FATF "-- a 29-nation group promoting policies to combat money laundering -- adopted strict new standards to deny terrorist access to the world financial system."
· A September 10, 2004, Treasury Department statement read: "The targeting of terrorist financing continues to play an important role in the war on terror. Freezing assets, terminating cash flows, and following money trails to previously unknown terrorist cells are some of the many weapons used against terrorist networks."

This is not about the New York Times. It’s another naked effort to squash dissent and intimidate the media. Having already placed the media on the defensive by claiming it has a “liberal bias,” conservatives are now trying to lay the groundwork for weakening the First Amendment’s protection of a free press.