New York Times ombudsman Barney Calame, often referred to as “The Empty Suit,” finally gets around to admitting that the Times was wrong to reveal the SWIFT program that monitored terrorist banking.

He also admits that no person’s private data was misused, and that the program was not illegal.

He does not deal with the bigger issue—that revealing secret government programs that protect us from terrorists just might negatively affect the security of America.

UPDATE at 10/22/06 6:48:59 pm:

Here’s the column at the NYT: Can ‘Magazines’ of The Times Subsidize News Coverage?

Notice how Calame buries the critical admissions way down deep in an otherwise unrelated piece.