Tracking of terrorist money isn't so surprising

The revelation that ever since 9/11 the United States has been tracking international banking data to follow terrorist money is easily the most bizarre of the recent news leak controversies.

For starters, it appeared to be not a leak but a gusher, spouting from news spigots coast to coast. It sprung first on the night of June 23 on the Web site of The New York Times, in a long and detailed report. Within hours, it was gushing out as well on the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times Web sites, and then it appeared in the old fashioned way, in ink on newsprint, on our doorsteps (or perhaps in our rosebushes).

It didn't take long for the moanings and wailings to gush forth, as predictably as the leg swing that follows the knee tap. From the bloggers and talk-showoffs of the left came accusations that our privacy has been massively violated — yet again — by the government. From their counterparts on the right came claims that the terrorists had been handed a vital gift by a secret-telling, enemy-helping news media. Then, President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney — who run the Federal Sieve — led a coordinated burst of outrage not at the leakers but the messengers — their new enemy, The New York Times. "Disgraceful" story. Caused "great harm." America needs a time out.

Let's begin with the first revelation that tipped off al-Qaida about a coordinated plan that would use international banking data to track its terror-funding efforts. It was the disclosure that the Bush administration had established a Foreign Terrorist Asset Tracking Center to identify and investigate the international financial transactions of al-Qaida and other terrorists. One U.S. official was quoted as saying: "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."

That official wasn't one of those anonymous leakers — it was Bush himself, back when he was at the top of his game and had all the world with him, on Sept. 24, 2001, just 13 days after al-Qaida attacked the World Trade Center and Pentagon. He announced the first of a series of measures that made clear international bankers were cooperating to track al-Qaida's funding.