REVELATIONS OF the Bush administration’s banking surveillance program–the Swift program–are important in at least one respect. They are meant to amplify one of the media’s favorite subjects: President Bush’s secrecy. Because the Swift operation has been conducted covertly and relies on broad administrative powers–“a significant departure from typical practice in how the government acquires Americans’ financial records,” according to the New York Times–it comes ready-made as an illustration of this recurring theme. It’s “part of an alarming pattern,” as the Times says.

Thanks to the media, Bush’s manifest secrecy is now the worst-kept secret in Washington. In the June 22 issue of the New York Review of Books, for example, Elizabeth Drew wrote, “Through secrecy and contemptuous treatment of Congress, the Bush White House has made the executive branch less accountable than at any time in modern American history.”