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WASHINGTON (June 23) - The Bush administration said Friday an anti-terrorism program that taps into an immense international database of confidential financial records has adequate safeguards to protect Americans' privacy.
Democrats and civil liberties groups said the effort had disturbing similarities to another controversial anti-terrorism program of warrantless spying on telephone calls and e-mails.
The program, kept secret until it was revealed Thursday by news organizations, has been going on since shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
Using broad government subpoenas, the program allows U.S. counterterrorism analysts to obtain financial information from a vast database maintained by a company based in Belgium. It routes about 11 million financial transactions daily among 7,800 banks and other financial institutions in 200 countries.
"By following the money, we've been able to locate operatives, we've been able to locate their financiers, we've been able to chart the terrorist networks and we've been able to bring the terrorists to justice," Snow said. "If people are sending money to help al-Qaida, we want to know about it."
The existence of the program was first reported Thursday night on the Web sites of The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and The Wall Street Journal. The administration had argued for the media to withhold details.
Vice President Dick Cheney, speaking at a political luncheon in Chicago, denounced the decision to reveal the existence of the financial monitoring program and the earlier-disclosed National Security Agency surveillance program.
"What I find most disturbing about these stories is that some of the news media take it upon themselves to disclose vital national security programs, thereby making it more difficult for us to prevent future attacks against the American people," Cheney said. "That offends me."
The news organizations defended their decision. Dean Baquet, editor of the Los Angeles Times, said the government's arguments were considered carefully but in the end the newspaper felt it was "in the public interest to publish information about the extraordinary reach of this program."
Snow said that "very significant protocols and safeguards" had been put in place to protect Americans' privacy. Officials said that for the most part, Americans would not come under the scrutiny of the program unless they were transferring or receiving money from abroad.
We all know where I am on this -- Mossad guy convinced me 100% this is the only way to get at terrorist Dawa programs, short of legislating against religious charities, which obviously can never happen. Go for the funding, watch where it starts, and where it siphons off along the way. Go for the big funders, and in some cases, just quietly keep watching as they lead you to new outlets. These kinds of paper trails already have made the Arab Bank, which was funding suicide bombers in Palestine and Iraq, and a couple French banks laundering Arab terrorist funds, clean up their acts and has helped the Israel Law Center identify freezable assets for Hamas and other terrorist organizations they have gone after.
I am not OK with this program being exposed by the media -- that seems irresponsible to me. They get subpoenas, it's not on US soil, and it's not small-potatoes people like us they're looking at. Wouldn't it be fun if they were able to tie, say a Halliburton subsidiary in Saudi Arabia or UAE to Hezbullah? On the other hand, if Bush hadn't broken the damn law a dozen times previously spying on and outing people, and had shown a smidgen of ethical common sense along the way, this probably wouldn't have been such irresistable news for the media.
Besides -- I imagine half a dozen commercial data-miners and credit bureaus know more about MY financial life than the Feds, if they even cared.
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oderint dum metuant (Latin for 'let them hate, so long as they fear').
Well, in truth I'm actually not a total hawk, but I'm not a dove either -- I'm more like an angry pigeon flying over the political arena after a really big meal. -Abba Gav
We all know where I am on this -- Mossad guy convinced me 100% this is the only way to get at terrorist Dawa programs, short of legislating against religious charities, which obviously can never happen. Go for the funding, watch where it starts, and where it siphons off along the way. Go for the big funders, and in some cases, just quietly keep watching as they lead you to new outlets. These kinds of paper trails already have made the Arab Bank, which was funding suicide bombers in Palestine and Iraq, and a couple French banks laundering Arab terrorist funds, clean up their acts and has helped the Israel Law Center identify freezable assets for Hamas and other terrorist organizations they have gone after.
I am not OK with this program being exposed by the media -- that seems irresponsible to me. They get subpoenas, it's not on US soil, and it's not small-potatoes people like us they're looking at. Wouldn't it be fun if they were able to tie, say a Halliburton subsidiary in Saudi Arabia or UAE to Hezbullah? On the other hand, if Bush hadn't broken the damn law a dozen times previously spying on and outing people, and had shown a smidgen of ethical common sense along the way, this probably wouldn't have been such irresistable news for the media.
Besides -- I imagine half a dozen commercial data-miners and credit bureaus know more about MY financial life than the Feds, if they even cared.
This as you said is the ugly stepchild byproduct of doing the right thing the wrong way.
I've come to agree that funding is key to this, and by the way a couple weeks before 911 we had an irrate Arab guy who needed about 50k on his home loan by the friday before 911, was abusive was degrading to the loan officer and kept saying things like you Americans are always trying to keep us down etc etc, this was all pre-911
During the process he explained his brother in Germany needed the money to start a new business and that he had to have it by Friday 9-8 or forget it.
It's a true story and after 9-11 it dawned on us what he might have needed the money for, we never heard from him again because we didn't get the money to him in time. What made it eerie for me is that I sat there and laughed with the loan officer before 911 thinking the guy was just some crackpot, so I know in fact he did say those things. It wasn't something the loan officer made up after the fact.
We emailed this about 2 days later to a special FBI web site they set up for tips, explaining that we had information but we couldn't disclose the guys name without a court order due to privacy issues.
They never called us, I expect they didn't need to.
It could be that it was just a weird coincidence, that they never followed it up because he didn't get the money or that they lost the email in the blizzard of tips they got, I think though they just didn't need to ask us since they could figure it out on their own without ever talking to us.
One of the biggest aspects of the Patriot act that's a pain in the butt is that now on all home loans you have to get photo ID before the closing, it's always been required that the title company verify the identity of the borrowers but they didn't have to keep a copy, most did just to cover themselves but now even to get a loan approval you have to provide a photo ID, this is I'm sure another form of tracking the money because mortgages are a huge source of legitimate amounts of money.
I'm sure anyone that wires large amounts of money is screened, I don't mind and I think it's smart to do so, I don't even think they by and large use the info to go after other illegal activities although I guess they might, I just don't think they do.
I think they hope to setup a system that makes it very uncomfortable to use the banking system as a whole.
I've maintained all along, if you watch the money, you're watching them, as long as you setup a proper system of checks and balances with a few key people, I'll live with it.
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At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.
~Abraham Lincoln Lyceum Address
Last edited by conraddobler; June 23rd, 2006 at 06:41 PM.
I would bet they used it to find out how much money Kobe paid the girl to make it go away and You know they used it to find out how much Bill O'Reilly had to pay his girl.
I pretty much agree with you, Zenny. Money is the lifeblood of any criminal activity, and drying up that funding should have always been the number one goal.
This program is no suprise to me, nor should it be to any terrorist. After 9/11, Ashcroft came out and said as much.
If the Bush Admin had been more open about non-National Security issues (like the Energy taskforce, etc) then I don't think this would have been a story. But as it is, it becomes a "What else are the snooping into that they are denying" type of thing.
Dear Government:
I'm going to buy some groceries this morning - possibly a coffee, too.
Then I'm going to have some lunch at Johnny's Uptown - probably a beer or three.
Then I'll be buying a steering wheel cover at Vatozone.
No plans to wire funds to terrorists.
Thank you for protecting me all my life, protecting me from El Salvadoran peasants and nuns.
Thank you for funding and arming the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan against the Russians. (oops - how'd THAT turn out a decade later?)
Thanks for checking out my phone records and bank business.
You're like a big brother...
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"Seachicken - it's what's for dinner" - me (until the 'Hawks sweep the Cards)
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