US Representative Peter King is calling for President George W. Bush to bring civil charges against The New York Times for a June 23 report about a secret US Treasury Department program.
The New York Republican says that for the New York Times to release a report concerning a Treasury program which scans SWIFT data for evidence of suspected terrorist activity could damage the security of Americans.
”We’re at war, and for the Times to release information about secret operations and methods is treasonous,” King told The Associated Press.
But Times Executive Editor Bill Keller has defended the report and said in a letter to readers that the paper spent weeks talking to White House officials and debating whether to publish the report.
“We don’t know what the banking consortium will do, but we found this argument puzzling,” Keller said in his letter. “The Bush Administration and America itself may be unpopular in Europe these days, but policing the byways of international terror seems to have pretty strong support everywhere.”
And though similar reports were released the same day by The Wall Street Journal and The Las Angelas Times, King, who is chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, says he wants Bush to target the Times in particular because it also released a report in December about a secret domestic-wiretapping program.