The SWIFT story is largely about the President and his cronies smearing the NYT as a threat to our national security for writing an article that really has no new substantive details. The proper way to deal with a non-threat is to focus on it, so a story that might be read by a few people would be a week or more story with even international attention.
As to the latter, it has received negative focus in Western Europe, which sort of has laws that protects the information at hand. The Bush Administration, and even our country at large (thanks George!), isn't very popular anyway. It also embarrasses the governments, since some at least probably knew what was going on, but did so on the down-low given those darn tricky privacy laws that makes the sharing of the information legally troubling.
So, it's a total win win, right? This is sort of why the fact the program on its merits might actually be acceptable (these people do not deserve any benefit of the doubt) is on some level beside the point. This is so because the Bushies made it into some sort of cynical political tool. In the long run, is not trust in government here and abroad more important than any one program?
You can scream to your spouse about how you are in the right as much as you want, but if you piss him/her off, watch out! They will at some point so distrust you that they won't believe you when you compliment them, since it will seem like there is some devious reason behind your comments. Such is sort of the point here, especially when bashing an article that in fact in some cases put your administration in a good light.
Finally, it underlines a continual sentiment of mine -- keeping things in perspective. Thus, when balancing privacy and security, you have to know that you are balancing. It may not be a total zero sum game, but it definitely is something of a cost/benefit deal. We cannot just set up costs and claim they are totally appropriate without dealing with what we are trading away.
The trade might be worthwhile, but how do we know (and compensate, when need be) without carefully looking at the issue? Thus, I spoke in the past of costs to additional loss of privacy at airports, including those profiling programs for which we are not supposed to quite understand. By even bringing up the point, some thought I was ridiculous, since overall the costs are worth it.
In various cases, I am sure they are. But, are we not to address the costs at all, costs that in certain cases are actually not necessary, or might even be counterproductive? Costs that warrant some due care, care that will not be supplied if we are not kept abreast of them? Such was the core value of the NYT article in my view. Certain sorts, however, look at any possible criticism or even doubt of the "good guys" bona fides as a threat. How dare they! This is the mind-set of people we really should not wish to lead us.
But, openness is a problem, even if the alternative causes even conservative leaning sorts some concern. Allowing open and honest debate suggests the opposition just might be partially right, which requires a level of evenhandedness that these people find uncomfortable. On this point as well, the article is quite useful.
See here for a comparable discussion on the whole signing statements issue.