The Latest Secret Program

Politics International Politics
1

I’ve lost count of the number of secret programs. Extensive executive powers and data gathering… that’s nice.

[quote=“NYT: Bank Data Secretly Reviewed by U.S. to Fight Terror”]Under a secret Bush administration program initiated weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, counterterrorism officials have gained access to financial records from a vast international database and examined banking transactions involving thousands of Americans and others in the United States, according to government and industry officials.

The program is limited, government officials say, to tracing transactions of people suspected of ties to Al Qaeda by reviewing records from the nerve center of the global banking industry, a Belgian cooperative that routes about $6 trillion daily between banks, brokerages, stock exchanges and other institutions. The records mostly involve wire transfers and other methods of moving money overseas or into and out of the United States. Most routine financial transactions confined to this country are not in the database.

Viewed by the Bush administration as a vital tool, the program has played a hidden role in domestic and foreign terrorism investigations since 2001 and helped in the capture of the most wanted Qaeda figure in Southeast Asia, the officials said. The program, run out of the Central Intelligence Agency and overseen by the Treasury Department, “has provided us with a unique and powerful window into the operations of terrorist networks and is, without doubt, a legal and proper use of our authorities,” Stuart Levey, an undersecretary at the Treasury Department, said in an interview Thursday.

The program is grounded in part on the president’s emergency economic powers, Mr. Levey said, and multiple safeguards have been imposed to protect against any unwarranted searches of Americans’ records.

The program, however, is a significant departure from typical practice in how the government acquires Americans’ financial records. Treasury officials did not seek individual court-approved warrants or subpoenas to examine specific transactions, instead relying on broad administrative subpoenas for millions of records from the cooperative, known as Swift.

That access to large amounts of sensitive data was highly unusual, several officials said, and stirred concerns inside the administration about legal and privacy issues.
[/quote]

2

I supose this is the part that bothers some people.

Me? I’ll quote Will Smith: Don’t start nuttin’, won’t be nuttin’.

3

I like the banditos-posing-as-lawmen line from The Treasure of the Sierra Madre better:

“We ain’t gotta show you no stinkin’ badges.”

4

I supose this is the part that bothers some people.

Me? I’ll quote Will Smith: Don’t start nuttin’, won’t be nuttin’.[/quote]

That’s the philosophy of prison life. Keep your nose clean and you’ll be fine.

5

Or alternatively, and depending on your bent, keeping your head down and your arse up.

HG

6

[quote=“Huang Guang Chen”]Or alternatively, and depending on your bent, keeping your head down and your arse up. HG[/quote]Ahh…this is what is referred to as the “Play Pu**y and you get f*ked” philosophy.

Finacial data collection, with worldwide collaboration, has been an aspect of the various world drug enforcement/anti-terrorist agencies beginning in the early 80’s.
The surge in cash receipts to the Cocaine cartels created a need for someplace to colect, stash, launder and distribute immense amounts of currency. Several well-known, and some lesser known, state actors began to discreetly make their services available.
As the various LEO’s sought to find a way to deal with this crime tsunami, some bright buld remembered the old adage - - “Follow the money.”
They did and found a brick wall errected by a large number of very old and established banking houses. “I’m so sorry Sir, but our rules forbid the release of that information without our having the clients signed statement of approval for the release of that specific information…‘click.’”
Shortly thereafter an inter-agency effort was mounted to force these various banking houses to halt their interference and allow access to this financial information. It worked.
This was the demise of the fabled…“Swiss #'d account” security. So the money was now being able to be used to track the activities of various groups and individuals under investigation. And it has worked. Worked especially well in forcing these people to come up with craftier ways to hide their gains.
Quite a few books were written about this in the late 80’s. Panama became a haven for this …since greatly reduced. Of course the Caymans were famous for this as well as a few other islands in the Carribean. Luxembourg and Belgium on the continent have been a notable presence for this. A very small bank in Nova Scotia - ScotiaBank - was taken over and became an enormous conduit of drug many. They funded the building of quite a few shopping malls in the USA in the late 80’s. Quite nice ones at that.

Really, its an old tool that has been dusted off, polished a bit and is showing its still useful.

[color=green]“Follow the money.”[/color]

7

Of course, nobody really minds the idea of the good guys following the bad guy’s money, or listening into Al Qaeda calls, or tracing through to numbers that are used by terrorists, or following a chain of info as it develops, etc. What bothers people is the indiscriminate loss of one’s privacy and the rapid expansion of these investigatory powers into areas that have no relation to terror. There is no “following” of anything if the government is simply going to take everybody’s information and go through it.

Within a couple of months of the Patriot Act being passed, the DOJ was already holding internal seminars on how to take advantage of the new rules in non-terror cases. Furthermore, in situations where I am not even suspected of any crime, going through my phone calls and finances with a fine-toothed comb is not fine with me, thank you.

Apparently the GOP won’t be happy until all Americans are wearing ear-tags and radio collars, until our every act can be monitored, classified and pigeonholed. Screw that.

8

Not much of a ‘secret’ now…

[quote]U.S. gets access to worldwide banking data
By JEANNINE AVERSA and KATHERINE SHRADER, Associated Press Writers 18 minutes ago

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.b[/b]
News Yahoo[/quote]

I question the actions of the The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and The Wall Street Journal for posting this information.
But thats just me. I’m not too fond of helping the enemy in a war time situation. Others may not have a problem with this terrorist assistance.

9

I guess I have to agree – it probably gives the terrorists an incredible sense of comfort to know that the U.S. government is wasting massive resources to comb through the banking records of everybody instead of focussing its efforts on Al Qaeda. For that matter, it’s a real shame that the media has to report on the “Duke” Cunningham saga – after all, it surely gives Osama Bin Laden warm fuzzies inside to think that Republican lawmakers are ensuring that our military gets equipment based on who bribes the best.

It’s also a crying shame that OBL has to know that Bush, when notified of the 9-11 WTC crashes, can think of nothing to do but to read a book about goats! Do you realize how the terrorists can capitalize on Bush’s extraordinary slow reaction time? They could take out the “leader of the free world” by simply chucking something heavy at him from across the room. Seven minutes later, Bush might think to move to the left or right… but it would be too late.

Perhaps the U.S. government should do the wise thing and focus its efforts back on the terrorists and improving its competency instead of wringing its hands over how embarrassingly they are wasting our resources to peep into average citizens’ lives.

10

define “average”

the average person doesn’t send lots of money overseas to “questionable accounts” does she?

11

define “average”

the average person doesn’t send lots of money overseas to “questionable accounts” does (s)he?[/quote]

I do but it’s not questionable, it’s just mine and it’s none of my (supposed) government’s business or anybody else’s for that matter. The U.S. is going too far but then it always does; making matters worse for itself and its now beleaguered citizens. What a sad country it has helped make itself. Land of the free?..my arse!

BroonAccount

12

define “average”

the average person doesn’t send lots of money overseas to “questionable accounts” does (s)he?[/quote]

I do but it’s not questionable, it’s just mine and it’s none of my (supposed) government’s business or anybody else’s for that matter. The U.S. is going too far but then it always does; making matters worse for itself and its now beleaguered citizens. What a sad country it has helped make itself. Land of the free?..my arse!

BroonAccount[/quote]

[quote]
I do but it’s not questionable[/quote]

End of story. Unless of course they are payments to the “rubber” factory in south east asia that specializes in female companions for lonely AQ troops in Afghanistan.

13

The reasonable voice of authoritarianism.

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The reasonable voice of authoritarianism.[/quote]

Very well said: you summed up the new U.S.A. in a nutshell. :bravo: The problems arise when the convictions of those doing the knocking, backed up by legislation obscure truth and reason and ride roughshod over the innocent.

There are words for this sort of “State”.

But they may be monitoring my pc…

BroonAgrees

15

OOoooooh! It makes me so ANGRY!
-Dickie-boy Cheney

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5112484.stm

Ha ha Dick… we know about it now.

Asshole.

16

What’s the big deal? Really?

Bush stated very early on that the US was going to seek to cut off funding to terrorists and terrorist organizations. Did you not hear Bush say that? If you did hear him say that, how do you folks think the government was going to go about cutting off funding to terrorists? If you didn’t hear Bush say that the US was going to seek to cut off funding to terrorists and terrorist organizations, then perhaps you folks were not paying very close attention.

How is any of this a surprise?

:s

17

The surprise is the lack of oversight, of checks on executive power. The shifting balance is worrisome.

18

[quote=“Tigerman”]
Bush stated very early on that the US was going to seek to cut off funding to terrorists and terrorist organizations. Did you not hear Bush say that? If you did hear him say that, how do you folks think the government was going to go about cutting off funding to terrorists? If you didn’t hear Bush say that the US was going to seek to cut off funding to terrorists and terrorist organizations, then perhaps you folks were not paying very close attention.

How is any of this a surprise?

:s[/quote]

Maybe I missed that, the problem is whenever I hear Bush speak I need to projectile vomit.

I wonder however, if the terrorists, missed Bush saying that. Or couldn’t just guess that of course wire transfers are monitored.

So really then, your question is to Dickie Cheney, why is he so upset when certainly any large and competent evil-doer already knew about it?

The question then becomes, since the program will be ineffective, why is it so important to trample on everyone’s privacy? Why do they have to listen to every phone call, read every email, and watch every bank transaction, when any competent terrorist probably already knows about it, and can find a way around it?

19

So the question once again becomes, can you please document all of the American citizens who have lost their rights under the Patriot Act other than Jose Padilla? What about the big tapping into telephone conversations story? Where did that go? Why aren’t we reading more in the press about it? Hmmmm? and the library books monitoring thing? oh dear. Big story that. What happened to it? Anything else? The allegations are always new and interesting but the followup on the fact that they never lead anywhere is getting to be a bit sparse I should think. What about all the Halliburton overcharging scandal? Anything new on that? The only thing that is worrisome is the excessively shifting “concern” and “allegations” from the nutbar left. Worrisome? Nah. Too ineffective and laughable. Tiresome. Yes, let’s settle for tiresome.

20

So the question once again becomes, can you please document all of the American citizens who have lost their rights under the Patriot Act other than Jose Padilla? What about the big tapping into telephone conversations story? Where did that go? Why aren’t we reading more in the press about it? Hmmmm? and the library books monitoring thing? oh dear. Big story that. What happened to it? Anything else? The allegations are always new and interesting but the followup on the fact that they never lead anywhere is getting to be a bit sparse I should think. What about all the Halliburton overcharging scandal? Anything new on that? The only thing that is worrisome is the excessively shifting “concern” and “allegations” from the nutbar left. Worrisome? Nah. Too ineffective and laughable. Tiresome. Yes, let’s settle for tiresome.[/quote]
Well, there’s the thousands of people on the “don’t fly” list for starters. Are you trying to say these things aren’t taking place? Or are you asking why they’re not in the news? They’re not in the news because of the conservative controlled media. I would agree thought that your posts are tiresome. But what can we expect from a Moonie. Or one of the 3 subscribers to his “washington times” newspaper. I wouldn’t even line my birdcage with it. Instead I use printouts of your posts.