Bush disclosed "secret" years ago

When I saw a video clip of Bush speaking to the press — bragging, actually — about how the U.S. is able to track terrorists' bank transactions, I was stunned. After all the "shame, shame" he and Cheney are dishing out . . .

Here's one account I dug up without much searching, in today's Boston Globe:

But a search of public records -- government documents posted on the Internet, congressional testimony, guidelines for bank examiners, and even an executive order President Bush signed in September 2001 -- describe how US authorities have openly sought new tools to track terrorist financing since 2001. That includes getting access to information about terrorist-linked wire transfers and other transactions, including those that travel through SWIFT.
"There have been public references to SWIFT before," said Roger Cressey, a senior White House counterterrorism official until 2003. "The White House is overreaching when they say [The New York Times committed] a crime against the war on terror. It has been in the public domain before."