Also, the higher-ups may have decided to let some disinfecting sunshine in before the inevitable arrival of corruption (a crooked bureaucrat using the program to facilitate an identity-theft scam or something). Something like that would severely, perhaps fatally, undermine the government's credibility.
As though the stealing of ALL veterans' social security numbers though some nebbish at the VA who took his work home and lost his laptop to a burglar, didn't do that. We might as well file all the SSA's data at the Library of Congress.
You mean like with the NSA story? ;)
It's far more likely that career leftists in Washington, particularly within the CIA, have leaked these classified programs because they believe the administration can't properly defend itself because of the inherent secrecy built into these operations. Programs like this are an easy target because they put the administration in a defensive position. The Times doesn't care if their story is misleading or makes it more difficult to track terrorist activities. They're just out to score a point against President Bush and it doesn't matter how many people might die in future attacks because of their irresponsible behavior.