Editor and Publisher reports this morning that the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee on Sunday called for the Bush Administration to pursue criminal charges against The New York Times for its reporting on a "secret financial-monitoring program used to trace terrorists."

Rep. Peter King (R-NY): "I am asking the Attorney General to begin an investigation and prosecution of The New York Times -- the reporters, the editors and the publisher. We're at war, and for the Times to release information about secret operations and methods is treasonous."

The Times, along with the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and other news outlets also reported on the Treasury Department's collaboration with the CIA on a program monitoring messages from an international database of wire-transfer records. King, however, chose to focus his attack on the NYTimes in light of the wiretapping case involving Times reporter Judith Miller.

The Los Angeles Times quotes King on a Fox News program as saying: "By disclosing this in time of war, they [NY Times reporters and editors] have compromised America's anti-terrorist policies. Nobody elected the New York Times to do anything. And the New York Times is putting its own arrogant, elitist, left-wing agenda before the interests of the American people."

A letter that was sent directly to readers who wrote Times executive editor Bill Keller about the report was published yesterday. Keller explained: "Our decision to publish the story of the Administration's penetration of the international banking system followed weeks of discussion between Administration officials and The Times, not only the reporters who wrote the story but senior editors, including me. We listened patiently and attentively. We discussed the matter extensively within the paper. We spoke to others — national security experts not serving in the Administration — for their counsel. It's worth mentioning that the reporters and editors responsible for this story live in two places — New York and the Washington area — that are tragically established targets for terrorist violence. The question of preventing terror is not abstract to us. . .

"We weighed most heavily the Administration's concern that describing this program would endanger it. The central argument we heard from officials at senior levels was that international bankers would stop cooperating, would resist, if this program saw the light of day. We don't know what the banking consortium will do, but we found this argument puzzling. First, the bankers provide this information under the authority of a subpoena, which imposes a legal obligation. Second, if, as the Administration says, the program is legal, highly effective, and well protected against invasion of privacy, the bankers should have little trouble defending it. The Bush Administration and America itself may be unpopular in Europe these days, but policing the byways of international terror seems to have pretty strong support everywhere. And while it is too early to tell, the initial signs are that our article is not generating a banker backlash against the program. "

Yet there is some evidence that government prosecutors are pursuing efforts to pressure reporters to reveal sources in matters beyond those of national security. Roger Cossack, writing at ESPN Sports, notes the case of reporters Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada , who broke the story on BALCO and Barry Bonds' illegal steroid use. At issue is whether or not Williams and Fainaru-Wada received secret grand jury information, and who might have leaked it to them. Cossack states: "Although the government prosecutors are legally correct in their concern about grand jury leaks, it seems to me that the subject matter of their investigation ought to call for restraint. Some leaks might affect national security. This leak concerns a steroid investigation. How important was the BALCO probe to the government? So important that prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney's office in San Francisco negotiated plea bargains with the principals that, in the end, amounted to no more than slaps on the wrist. "

Cossack believes that what the reporters "helped readers realize (was) how harmful steroid usage can be," and that prosecutors might want to ask BALCO founder Victor Conte if he was the source of the leak before they attempt to jail the reporters "for simply doing their job."