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igotthisguitar
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
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 Posted: Fri Jun 23, 2006 7:36 am Post subject: Feds Get Access to Worldwide Banking Data |
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Feds Get Access to Worldwide Banking Data
By JEANNINE AVERSA and KATHERINE SHRADER, Associated Press Writers
Fri Jun 23, 1:23 AM ET
WASHINGTON - The U.S. government gained sweeping access to international banking records as part of a secret program to choke off financial support for terrorism, officials said Thursday.
Treasury Department officials said they used broad subpoenas to collect the financial records from an international system known as Swift. Stuart Levey, Treasury's undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, called the subpoenas "a legal and proper use of our authorities."
"Since immediately following 9-11, the American government has taken every legal measure to prevent another attack on our country," Dana Perino, deputy White House press secretary, said Thursday evening. "One of the most important tools in the fight against terror is our ability to choke off funds for the terrorists."
The White House and Treasury Department issued statements about the secret subpoenas after The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and The Wall Street Journal posted stories about the program on their Web sites.
Under the program, which started shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, U.S. counterterrorism analysts could query Swift's massive financial data base looking for information on activities by suspected terrorists, a Treasury Department official said. They would do so by plugging in a specific name or names, the official said.
The program involved both the CIA and the Treasury Department
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060623/ap_on_go_pr_wh/treasury_terrorist_financing ... |
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sundubuman
Joined: 04 Feb 2003
Location: seoul
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| Posted: Fri Jun 23, 2006 11:54 am Post subject: |
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why that's great news !!!!
You mean the US government can now prevent terrorists from using the international banking system????
I, and most sane people, are pleased by this news. |
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igotthisguitar
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
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| Posted: Fri Jun 23, 2006 12:23 pm Post subject: |
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| sundubuman wrote: |
why that's great news !!!!
You mean the US government can now prevent terrorists from using the international banking system????
I, and most sane people, are pleased by this news. |
Rub-a-dub ...
Are you intentionally trying to ignore the "BIGGER" picture here ( as in e.g. M.O. ) ,
or is this simply one of your unconsciously "SANE" habits? |
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Junior
Joined: 18 Nov 2005
Location: the eye
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| Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 4:06 am Post subject: |
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Lets just say 9/11 and everything ever after was a gift to Big brother.
If theres any serious protest about runaway federal power, then I'm sure someone can rig up an even bigger event for the public. |
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Juregen
Joined: 30 May 2006
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| Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 5:18 am Post subject: |
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Some people really need to read a very specifique book, a novel, dealing with these matters.
It is called "A brave New World", personally i would make it obligatary reading for anyone in any language.
PS: the firm involved is called SWIFT, is a belgian firm, i once had the chance working for them but declined since i asumed there was no excitement in banking.
my bad. |
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Nowhere Man
Joined: 08 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 8:39 am Post subject: ... |
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From reading other sources, apparently one of the reasons the administration is so agitated about this is that banks "are sensitive to public opinion".
I guess the telecoms are not. |
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ddeubel
Joined: 20 Jul 2005
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| Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 5:37 pm Post subject: |
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| From reading other sources, apparently one of the reasons the administration is so agitated about this is that banks "are sensitive to public opinion". |
That's exactly the point bang on. I feel sick to my stomach when Bush and many other administration officials lambast the N.Y. Times for reporting about SWIFT and the massive amounts of info. , personal info. that the American govt uses without court approval. A basic by-passing of the constitution and an impeachable offense -- any way you look at it.
Bush's own comments about the Times being "unpatriotic" are just farcical, more so coming from the head of state. What a comment and he should be hung out to dry for criticising a free press. See the article below for why Americans should fight for a free press and why the administration doesn't want one.
They are pissed at the Times precisely because now banks might opt out of providing the info. once consumers know ...........also pissed because evidence might enter the public realm in how they have canvassed, used and misused this info. without congressional approval.
Once again, the founding fathers are rolling in their graves.
DD
| Quote: |
Secrecy, patriotism and the press
The New York Times
Published: June 28, 2006
Over the last year, The New York Times has twice published reports about secret antiterrorism programs being run by the Bush administration. Both times, critics have claimed that the paper was being unpatriotic or even aiding the terrorists. Some have even suggested that it should be indicted under the Espionage Act. There have been a handful of times in American history when the government has indeed tried to prosecute journalists for publishing things it preferred to keep quiet. None of them turned out well - from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the time when the government tried to enjoin The Times and The Washington Post from publishing the Pentagon Papers.
As most of our readers know, there is a large wall between the news and opinion operations of The New York Times (as there is with the International Herald Tribune), and we on the opinion side were not part of the debates about whether to publish the latest story under contention - a report about how the government tracks international financial transfers through a banking consortium known as Swift in an effort to pinpoint terrorists. Our own judgments about the uproar that has ensued would be no different if the other papers that published the story, including The Los Angeles Times and The Wall Street Journal, had acted alone.
The Swift story bears no resemblance to security breaches, like disclosure of troop locations, that would clearly compromise the immediate safety of specific individuals. Terrorist groups would have had to be fairly credulous not to suspect that they would be subject to scrutiny if they moved money around through international wire transfers. In fact, a UN group set up to monitor Al Qaeda and the Taliban after Sept. 11 recommended in 2002 that other countries should follow the United States' lead in monitoring suspicious transactions handled by Swift. The report is public and available on the UN's Web site.
But any argument by the government that a story is too dangerous to publish has to be taken seriously. There have been times in the history of The New York Times when editors have decided not to print something they knew. In some cases, like the Kennedy administration's plans for the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion, it seems in hindsight that the editors were too cautious (certainly President John F. Kennedy thought so.) Most recently, The Times held its reporting about the government's secret antiterror wiretapping program for more than a year while it weighed administration objections.
Our news colleagues work under the assumption that they should let the people know anything important that the reporters learn, unless there is some grave and overriding reason for withholding the information. They try hard not to base those decisions on political calculations, like whether a story would help or hurt the administration. It is certainly unlikely that anyone who wanted to hurt the Bush administration politically would try to do it by writing about its extensive efforts to make it difficult for terrorists to wire large sums of money.
To us, the Swift story looks like part of an alarming pattern. Ever since Sept. 11, the Bush administration has taken the necessity of heightened vigilance against terrorism and turned it into a rationale for an extraordinarily powerful executive branch, exempt from the normal checks and balances of our system of government. It has created powerful new tools of surveillance and refused, almost as a matter of principle, to use normal procedures that would acknowledge that either Congress or the courts have an oversight role.
The Swift program, like the wiretapping program, has been under way for years with no restrictions except those that the executive branch chooses to impose on itself - or, in the case of Swift, that the banks themselves are able to demand. This seems to us very much the sort of thing the other branches of government, and the public, should be nervously aware of.
The United States will soon be marking the fifth anniversary of the war on terror. The country is in this for the long haul, and the fight has to be coupled with a commitment to individual liberties that define America's side in the battle. A half-century ago, America endured a long period of amorphous, global vigilance against an enemy who was suspected of boring from within, and history suggests that under those conditions, it is easy to err on the side of security and secrecy. The free press has a central place in the Constitution because it can provide information the public needs to make things right again. Even if it runs the risk of being labeled unpatriotic in the process.
Over the last year, The New York Times has twice published reports about secret antiterrorism programs being run by the Bush administration. Both times, critics have claimed that the paper was being unpatriotic or even aiding the terrorists. Some have even suggested that it should be indicted under the Espionage Act. There have been a handful of times in American history when the government has indeed tried to prosecute journalists for publishing things it preferred to keep quiet. None of them turned out well - from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the time when the government tried to enjoin The Times and The Washington Post from publishing the Pentagon Papers.
As most of our readers know, there is a large wall between the news and opinion operations of The New York Times (as there is with the International Herald Tribune), and we on the opinion side were not part of the debates about whether to publish the latest story under contention - a report about how the government tracks international financial transfers through a banking consortium known as Swift in an effort to pinpoint terrorists. Our own judgments about the uproar that has ensued would be no different if the other papers that published the story, including The Los Angeles Times and The Wall Street Journal, had acted alone.
The Swift story bears no resemblance to security breaches, like disclosure of troop locations, that would clearly compromise the immediate safety of specific individuals. Terrorist groups would have had to be fairly credulous not to suspect that they would be subject to scrutiny if they moved money around through international wire transfers. In fact, a UN group set up to monitor Al Qaeda and the Taliban after Sept. 11 recommended in 2002 that other countries should follow the United States' lead in monitoring suspicious transactions handled by Swift. The report is public and available on the UN's Web site.
But any argument by the government that a story is too dangerous to publish has to be taken seriously. There have been times in the history of The New York Times when editors have decided not to print something they knew. In some cases, like the Kennedy administration's plans for the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion, it seems in hindsight that the editors were too cautious (certainly President John F. Kennedy thought so.) Most recently, The Times held its reporting about the government's secret antiterror wiretapping program for more than a year while it weighed administration objections.
Our news colleagues work under the assumption that they should let the people know anything important that the reporters learn, unless there is some grave and overriding reason for withholding the information. They try hard not to base those decisions on political calculations, like whether a story would help or hurt the administration. It is certainly unlikely that anyone who wanted to hurt the Bush administration politically would try to do it by writing about its extensive efforts to make it difficult for terrorists to wire large sums of money.
To us, the Swift story looks like part of an alarming pattern. Ever since Sept. 11, the Bush administration has taken the necessity of heightened vigilance against terrorism and turned it into a rationale for an extraordinarily powerful executive branch, exempt from the normal checks and balances of our system of government. It has created powerful new tools of surveillance and refused, almost as a matter of principle, to use normal procedures that would acknowledge that either Congress or the courts have an oversight role.
The Swift program, like the wiretapping program, has been under way for years with no restrictions except those that the executive branch chooses to impose on itself - or, in the case of Swift, that the banks themselves are able to demand. This seems to us very much the sort of thing the other branches of government, and the public, should be nervously aware of.
The United States will soon be marking the fifth anniversary of the war on terror. The country is in this for the long haul, and the fight has to be coupled with a commitment to individual liberties that define America's side in the battle. A half-century ago, America endured a long period of amorphous, global vigilance against an enemy who was suspected of boring from within, and history suggests that under those conditions, it is easy to err on the side of security and secrecy. The free press has a central place in the Constitution because it can provide information the public needs to make things right again. Even if it runs the risk of being labeled unpatriotic in the process.
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Octavius Hite
Joined: 28 Jan 2004
Location: Househunting, looking for a new bunker from which to convert the world to homosexuality.
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igotthisguitar
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
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| Posted: Thu Jun 29, 2006 1:48 am Post subject: |
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| Junior wrote: |
Lets just say 9/11 and everything ever after was a gift to Big brother.
If theres any serious protest about runaway federal power, then I'm sure someone can rig up an even bigger event for the public. |
Yep.
Just waiting for the other "shoe" ... to drop.
Politics of fear, all the way to the bank.
Speaking of Big Brother, which is better: to be loved or to be feared? |
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