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U.S. Secretly Tapping Bank Databases
The Washington Post and New York Times are reporting on a Bush administration initiative that has tapped into a vast global database of confidential financial transactions for nearly five years. Relying on a presidential emergency declaration made under the International Emergency Economic Powers, the administration has been surveilling the data from the SWIFT database, which links about 7,800 banks and brokerages and handles billions of transactions a year. From the article:
Together with a hundredfold expansion of the FBI's use of "national security letters" to obtain communications and banking records, the secret NSA and Treasury programs have built unprecedented government databases of private transactions, most of them involving people who prove irrelevant to terrorism investigators.The NYTimes goes on to say that the joint CIA-Treasury 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. Still, the access to large amounts of confidential data was highly unusual, and concerns were raised about legal and privacy issues.
The fact that this is happening or the fact that this does not surprise me anymore. Every election year I tell myself I'll vote with my conscious and vote Libertarian. Screw that, I just want these f***ers OUT now.
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Bite Me Fanboy!!
It's not so secret any more!
Anyway...
Why don't companies announce immediately when they have been forced to do something by the government against their will (like Google)? As far as I was aware America is still a country where you can speak freely against the government without fear of punishment. Why not just admit it in public that you are being forced to hand over confidential information? If the banks are hiding it too, then they are as much to blame and should not be trusted.
Or is the government using threats to keep the banks quiet? If so, what threats do they use? And can anything be done about it to make sure it doesn't happen again?
I'll probably be modded down for this...
Hasn't this information been used for years in the "war" on drugs and organized crime? US customs regulations require a declaration if $10,000 or more is brought in or out of the country. As I understood things, from what I was told and read when I made such transfers in the last six or so years, you don't have to do this for international bank transfers, since the banks automatically pass on the information.
And we know from their illegal phone tapping practices, bloated do-not-fly lists etc, etc, that by now they've collected the names of pretty much every other American (not to mention nearly all other humans; remember, this is an international system; very heavily used by European banks, for one), and that with six degrees of separation, they all have enough ties to be part of the open investigations.
What isn't mentioned at all in this Washington Post article, which the New York Times does mention, are such snippets as:Read the entire New York Times article for more. Chilling.
Given the impact this has on Europeans involved in international transfers as well, if you're European, have you already contacted your bank to urge them to use their influence with SWIFT to make this stop?! There's never much to be done when there's the need to call or write congress critters, but with European privacy laws actually being worth something (in theory), here's a chance to voice very strong displeasure and make this stop!
It would be greatly appreciated by the Billions of us that don't live there if you Americans would do something about your current government.
America increasingly represents the antithesis of 'freedom' and personal liberty especially for those in other countries. They are innovators in the strategic reduction of civil rights, at home and elsewhere. Freedom is not a brand, it's a right and you don't have to be American to have it FFS.
take our word for it, we know Saddam has chemical weapons
Why take the US's word for it? Take the gassed villages' word for it. Or take the UN inspectors' word for it, since they saw, and in some cases partly demolished enormous stockpiles. Or, you could consider the 500 sarin and mustard gas shells recently disclosed. Whether or not Saddam had (and used) such weapons was never in any doubt, by the US, the UN, or anyone else. It's what he did with them that remains hard to hammer out, and that's what he was spending so much time and energy trying to hide from everyone, despite signing an agreement allowing full inspection. So, we found some, continue to find more, and know that truckloads of that stuff went off to Syria when he knew his days in charge were numbered. You know all of this, though, but you're still reciting the mantra because you think it helps you, rhetorically. It doesn't.
How do you suppose we track and clamp down on the international flow of cash between and for people like A-Q? By... tracking it. How do you think that bombers from Indonesia to Madrid to the US get their operating funds from the deeper pockets that provide it? Carrier pigeon?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
I'm more wondering what the honchos of UBS and Credit Suisse (who have representatives in the board of SWIFT) where thinking while this little scheme was going along.
You see, breeching customer confidentiality is protected by federal law in Switzerland and violating this penal code may draw jail time.
That doesn't mean that Swiss banks never provide foreign authorities with customer data, but such authorities must show that there's an ongoing investigation about a crime, or a felony. That's what actually pisses off a lot of foreign governments with stringent fiscal policies, since tax evasion is not a felony in Switzerland and is thus protected under the bank secrecy act.
If wholesale supplying of customer data to the US authorities is not a breech of this code, I don't know what is.
Mind you, that has nothing to do with the infamous Swiss number accounts so much beloved by bad authors. There are no anonymous bank accounts anymore in Switzerland and a numbered account only guarantees that your true identity is coded within the bank and only a few very high honchos know the true identity of the account owner.
Of course Credit Suisse (CSFB) as well as UBS are major players in the US' financial markets and they wouldn't want to piss the US authorities off; now would they?
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
OH, you're so right. After a little researh....
""In one," the article stated, "Airbus Industrie, the jet-liner consortium, lost out on a six billion dollar sale to Saudi Arabia after U.S authorities alerted Saudi authorities that Airbus was offering bribes." America's Boeing got the job. "
FOR SHAME. BAD US. BAD BAD BAD....
Errr, or not.
SWIFT is also HQ'd in Belgium, and the Belgies do not like being pushed around by bigger countries (legacy of being piggie in the middle for 2 world wars and several european ones). SWIFT will find itself under investigation in Belgium for this too (which could be fun if they fight a warrant to protect the US, the Belgian police are basically a full military outfit run by the judiciary).
Depends on how corrupt the current Belgian legislature is.
"Oops, I always forget the purpose of competition is to divide people into winners and losers." - Hobbes
The CIA and NSA did see 911 coming.
It's just that if it had not happened then the US public wouldn't have been so tolerant of their own sons and daughters dieing in countries like Afganistan and Iraq while trying to secure the rest of the worlds oil reserves.
In Afganistan they wanted to build a pipeline that the taliban never would have agreed to. In Iraq, well the largest oil field in the world speaks for itself.
Just look at what was happening to US defense expenditure before 911. It was going down as the majority of the population realised that there was no big bad communist Russia to fight anymore so there was no need for aircraft carriers and nuclear subs.
Now we have terrorists, an enemy who can never go bust like Russia did. And if you kill a terrorist, 10 more just spring up their place. It is a war the US can never win. Which obviously suits the people who make from money from war by selling defense equipment to the US govt.
The NSA and CIA let planes crash into the twin towers and that conveniently empty (for redecoration apparantly) wing of the pentagon. They did this as they knew it would result in massive increase in their budgets.
And before you dismiss this as a troll, just think what you might ignore if you were looking at redundancy from somewhere you had worked for 20 years. From a career you enjoyed, possibly with no other hope of employment in the same field. After all, who hires people with a 20 year gap on their CV which they are not allowed to discuss for reasons of national security.
If all I had to do to protect it was look the other way briefly, I might just do it if I had a wife and 3 kids to support.
But herein lies the problem, the people on the other side are more desperate the we are. Most of Iraq has a much lower standard of living than the US, the population is on the edge of starvation, disease is rife and on top of that the country is a war zone where you might just catch a stray bullet or bit of shrapnel and die. Now on top of that only thing your country has of value to trade with (oil) is in the hands of foriegn companies (the only ones with the expertise to extract it) who are allied with the foriegn invaders. Try putting yourself in this position and think of how determined you might be to throw those foriegn invaders out.
But my final point is more disturbing than all of this. We now NEED the CIA and NSA. We need them to stop some super pissed of terrorist obtaining a nuclear device from Pakistan (Definately have nukes unlike Iran) or Iran (Maybe have nukes but definately dont like us) and blowing us up with it. All they have to do is smuggle the nuke onto a plane bound for the US from some third world country.
I dont read
Uh oh you caught me!
:-(
You are right though, in reality I do not mind secret courts, phone tapping, bank tapping, warrantless searches, americans being held indefinatly without access to a lawyer or charges being filed, torture, secret prisons, war, CIA leaks, and our spending more money on defense than all other countries on the planet combined and doubled while our education and healthcare go down the toilet and we run up a defecit that cannot reasonably be paid in the next 5 generations.
Yup, red handed. Was just trying to annoy you, my bad.
Can we go back to blaming communism?
You know what I'm curious about? Whether the chap that set up 9/11 imagined this kind of outcome, even in his wildest dreams. I guess one man can in fact change the world, all he needs is some guns, a few planes and a couple of well-indoctrinated morons.
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
Right, there's no interest at all in avoiding another Taliban-like haven for government-sponsored terrorism,
:D After Hitler declared war on the US it is understandable that the US defended itself by joining the allies when they invaded Germany. It is true that the US was the third largest force and therefore a main part in the invasion of Germany. That is a little different from attacking one of your main allies. We all knew that Saddam no longer had WMD and the intelligence forces made that fact clear.
This is more than a little revisionist as Saddam was a good ally of ours. There was no terrorist activity in Iraq until after we invaded.
cash to organizations like Hamas, Islamic Jihad,
bs
and even to individual families of suicide bombers.
You may support the idea of punishing the parents for the crimes of the children but I do not. I think that his actions in compensating the victims of Israel's terrorist actions was honourable. I wish that there were more people that would stand up for the people against the state sponsored terrorists.
To say nothing of lobbing scud missles across borders,
Is that somehow different from us lobbing cruise missiles at him? You really do have some issues.
trying to annex Kuwait,
And when he asked if he could the US said 'we have no interest in that area'.... Maybe if he had been told 'NO' by his main ally he would not have done it..
Putting those oil reserves in the hands of constitutional democracies is certainly acting "for the oil,"
This may be a tricky one for you but question number one - What political system was in place in Iraq in 1990? I'll give you a clue. they had just had an election. Yeah, they could only choose people that Saddam said were good enough but now they can only choose people that GW says are good enough, do you really think that the Iraqi people see that as different?
That's like saying that when the US marched into Germany and liberated the concentration camps, that it was for the German beer.
Your absurd rant went right off course at the end
The US did turn up late in WWII with the beer and pizza but no one holds it against them because they were welcome along, but keep it in context. The only one there that was ultruistic was Britain as they declared war on Germany because what Germany was doing was wrong. Russia was the main force (they had also been attacked by Germany like the US) that went, Britain was the second force and yes the US did turn up for the party. Read the facts and don't learn history from Hollywood. Russia was the only one that did not avoid the concentration camps as we all knew the logistical problems that would be caused when we arrived at the gates. That is why the German officers had all left without being captured as it was days before we went back to the camps.
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
Which would be great if American companies like Haliburton didn't maintain shell subsidiaries in places like the Caiman Islands. These subsidiaries are apparently not bound by American law, even though they amount to a post office box whose contents are forwarded to the States. This is how Haliburton got away with dealing with Iran while it was illegal to do so, even selling them centrifuges used in their nuclear project.
In any case, the cozy relationship between the Saudi Royal family and American business and government amounts to bribe of a different type--information and contacts. George Bush Sr. worked for the Saudis while still receiving intelligence briefings, a right that all former presidents have but which has always been waived. Bush Sr. was the first former president to insist on getting them. You can bet that Bush Jr. will be getting them too--the President who walked hand in hand with Prince Bandar. And now those intelligence reports will include the banking information of competing companies. The money to be made here makes simple bribes miniscule by comparison. Not even Airbus is in the position to offer the kind of money that can be made by investing a billion dollars in a small company that is about to win a massive government contract.
Which means that even after Bush is out of office, he will still have his hand in the federal pie, and will be able to sell a piece of that pie to the highest bidder. Not bad for a spoiled dilletante with no talent for business. We're stuck with the bastard till the day he dies.
Is when Bush does something like this, people come out of the woodwork to explain how the intentions are good.
It doesn't matter if the administration's intentions are good. The point is we have a court system and separation of powers for a reason. And it is the law of the land.
No matter how good one's intentions are, if they violate this (by not getting actual subpoenas), they're comminting a grave crime, and creating a situation where one branch (in this case the one headed by one man) can begin to take control of the actions of the entire government.
It's a constitutional issue. And this is another egregious violation of it. This is beyond absurdity now. We the people created this government, we should have to put up with it not following the restrictions we set down upon it. These people should be ejected from office.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
But answer me this: what part of what he describes would be difficult for the USA government to do? Is it a good idea to simply let them have the power to do these things and assume they'll never exercise it?
It's not buying jets that you need, that would be fine. You need to do a search, and read up on all the pork-barrel projects used to funnel money into companies like boeing. For example, congress having the USAF lease 100 767 tankers from Boeing at a price billions of dollars above what it would have cost to buy them outright, and actually leaving the USAF with less tankers at the end of the day.
Oh no... it's the future.
The parent comment brings up some salient points. I unfortunately believe that his/her points only tangentially address the real problems we face now. Our nation and most importantly our government is showing all of the signs of age, as in biological age. It no longer functions effectively, but that is among the least of our problems, because the intent of Adams and Jefferson was that it would not. However, the problem is that is does not function effectively in representing the body politic. That was never intended. Our government was intended by those who wrote the Constitution ("Oh God, not that pain in the ass document again" as many in the Legislative and Executive branches say) to be inefficient in imposing its will on the populace. Back to aging, our society and culture seems to have bought into the idea that everything will be fine if only someone ELSE can take care of it for us. We are far too risk-averse, and on our way to proving Ben Franklin's quote about trading liberty for security true in the worst way. It is us, as a people, who bear the burden of responsibility for this. And it can bring us to our collective knees if it does not do us worse. My family came to this country long ago (about 175 years) and I cannot imagine my Grandparents, to say nothing of my Great-Grandparents, standing by and letting our rights be chivvied away as they are now. But the fact is that we do. More specifically, in the future we are going to face increasing encroachments on our right to be left alone, because of a fundamental flaw in jurisprudence. We can only expect privacy if it is "reasonable" in the current societal context, and with technology marching on, reasonable privacy is an ever shrinking circle. Could you imagine in the last century that you could not expect privacy in your own back yard. Well now Predator drones are flying overhead, so you cannot. It will go much farther than this. My bitch about this is done for now. I would only quote from one more free than I: "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their quick brown foxes running over lazy dogs and jumping away to the aid of their party." If we do not wake up and take the phrase "by the people and for the people" seriously, then we deserve what we get. I can find work anywhere, so what I'll do, if all is lost, is get away from this national and cultural self-destruction. Best of luck to the rest of you.
I don't trust atoms -- they make up stuff.
You are absolutely correct. But, consider how they have such power. It is the people of the United States who have given it to them. An interesting way that the government gains power is by assumption and acquiescence. If the government begins acting with power it does not have and the people acquiesce, the government has a new power as nothing is stopping it from acting so. And, if it did it in the first place, it is corrupt enough to do it if no one keeps it from doing it. If a thief goes about stealing and no one stops the thief, the thief now has the power to steal, that is, until such time as something is done. And, that is the same with the government. Something can be done. More work becomes necessary the for each moment that nothing is done, however.
Also, you should reconsider your position on political parties. You say that you are a Republican and those "in the White House" are not. But, what, precisely, is a Republican? What it means to be a Republican has changed a great many times over the years. The meaning of Republican is simply a function of the beliefs of those who label themselves Republican. To determine if you are a Republican or not, you must look at what those who claim to be Republicans think. It is quite obvious that you do not agree with the "party line," so you are not a Republican. But, when you say you are a Republican, you don't mean it in the sense that I have laid out. I understand that. You rather have a static set of beliefs that you think of as Republican beliefs and they are yours. So, in your own definition, you are a Republican.
But, that is a flawed definition, as that is not how Republican is defined. If you look at the wikipedia article for the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_(Uni ted_States)Republican Party of the United States, there is no set of beliefs that are Republican. (Of course, we must not lose sight of the fact that, not speaking of beliefs, you are a Republican if that is what you're registered as. That is obvious, but, you speak of beliefs. Thus, do I.) Though, the article does speak of historic beliefs, actions, etc. up to the present. Rather than trying to identify with a party in order to speak of what you believe, why do you not merely state what it is you believe? Of course, you can use peoples' understanding of the belief of various political parties as a shortcut, but that is different than identifying yourself as a member, as that says that you follow the party. To quickly give people the gist of my beliefs, I say that I generally agree with the beliefs of the Libertarian party. And, if elaboration is necessary, I will elaborate. But, what I do not say, is that I'm a Libertarian.
There is a difference between sharing the beliefs of a party and following the beliefs of the party. That is, there is a difference between a party's beliefs happening to describe yours, and a party's beliefs defining yours. You quite obviously do not follow the latter, as you have a set of beliefs and are sticking to them. But, though that is true, you still attempt to have the party define yours by making the party beliefs be your own. All this party business is ridiculous. What is the point of a party? I am not of a party.
I'm not bashing you, by the way. I'm just trying to help you sort out the party nonsense. From your comments on the current situation, you seem a rational person, which is somewhat rare.
AFAICT, he's understating the situation. The nazi link, e.g., is not merely by methodological similarity, but also because some very high level nazi's made deals at the time of the surrender...and some of them went to work on for the agnecy that later became the CIA. (Nazism was dead...and they were experienced anti-communists... over time they worked their way up in the ranks.)
A "secret police" is a very dangerous (and necessary?) part of government. They are rather like an immune system that way. If the design isn't perfect, they are likely to attack the organism that produced them. (Well, that analogy is stretect further than it can stand. Unlike an immune system, secret police forces are capable of "owning" thier own resources out of sight of their controllers...and that can cause them to act quite independently, and without much concern for their putative parent body.)
My personal preference would be to have a less powerful "secret police" even at the cost of allowing some "disease organisms" to slip in, but this is clearly a matter of degree. More careful oversight is another important consideration...but who will watch the watchers? Corruption is a historical habit of human organizations.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
No I'm asking for an education campaign so people will stop eating fatty unhealthy food dumbass.
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
Hint Ronald McDonald has killed quite literally thousands as times as many people as Osama Bin Laden,
chew on that for a while.
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
Is it a good idea to simply let them have the power to do these things and assume they'll never exercise it?
No. It is a fundamental law of human behaviour: All power gets used.
If you grant power to someone that power will eventually be used. History suggests sooner rather than later. Things you'd think would never happen in a million years have a way of being done well ahead of schedule. And any power will be used to the benefit of the people wielding it unless there are obvious negative consequences in doing so. Secret power is absolute power, because it can be used for anything with no consequences to the wielders.
And for anyone still using the "you have nothing to worry about if you've done nothing wrong" line, I would like to point out that that line requires assuming that the organs of the state Never Make Mistakes. Good luck with that.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
i worked, as an unclassified consultant, on a program in the early nineties which involved the commerce dept, the fbi, and various dod agencies to mine financial transaction records for all americans. checks, atms, credit cards, everything.
the data we saw had been anonymized, but they have been building tools to do this forever.
the excuse of the day was detecting money laundering to catch drug trafficers. its amazing how only the names change.
On another note, the fact that people, in general, have assumed the belief that someone ELSE will take care of things is indicative of deeper, more serious logical faults which allowed the people to believe such a ridiculous thing.
This is not a logical fault. People would take it upon themselves to fix things, to oversee the government, and all that. People do -- retirees and college students do.
But they are the only ones who can take the time. Everyone else is too busy working to have any attention or energy left over to deal with things. Everyone has to assume that someone else will take care of it, or else assume that it just won't be taken care of.
That is what is allowing our government to become corrupt. Over-work.
i'd hit it so hard, if you pulled me out you'd be the king of britain [bash.org]
Specter is like an airbag, he's designed soften the blow not stop the crash. He never takes action or does anything meaningful. He sabre-rattles for about 24 hours to get headlines in the paper and when most folks have blown their steam, he sits down like he's told to.
Stop giving him any credit. He's party to the problem.
1. Bush has written stacks of signing statements that are even better than vetos, since Congress & Senate don't get to revote on signing statements.
2. The Republicans have a slim (1 person) majority in the Senate, and a semi-slim (12 person) majority in the House. This may be why certain bills that do pass, pass by a slim majority.
3. Not all of Bush's great ideas get turned into law. Constitutional Amendment on gay marriage, Harriet Miers for Supreme Court, Bush's immigration plans, and so on
Maybe some of cluckshot's rambling is factual and relevant, but seriously, it's just riddled with crap.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!