How much of BushAndCheney's stridency regarding the revealing of the financial tracking program is due to legitimate belief that exposure of this system truly will impair the fight (we need a better word) against international terroristic activities, and how much of it is because they feel that they alone know best, and to question them, or expose their hidden activities, is a strike against normality of Oedipal proportions?
I suggest that it's sixty/forty. If they were inherently trustworthy, would the press be as likely to 'out' anything they find? You can read into that what I think about their trustworthiness, but I think that no, if they played straight more often, if they gave as much as they took, they'd be more likely to get a fair deal from the press -- or even one balanced in their direction.
That said, was the outing of the program objectively a good thing? No, I don't think it was. Some things should be secret, and though I seriously don't like the extent to which BushAndCheney have stretched the rationale, I have to agree: this is one of them. These are evil people without scruples that we're against, and sometimes the end does justify the means. Should the people who did the outing be reprimanded? In a better world, yes. In the BushAndCheney one - regrettably, yes, there too. But not severely, because there's a countervailing justification. The press may not have exposed the program through noble motives, but the action was another chip against the governmental monolith that BAC want to erect, and have already substantially erected. In that light, it's not a bad thing.
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