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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...
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.
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
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
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,
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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?
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.
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.
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.
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!