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.

Comments

Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Folks -- if they don't have enough intelligence to invade the right country then I doubt they have enough intelligence to monitor bank records. They can't even manage to look after their own federal spending, why do they need to look after mine?

Re: Wow

[Ash Vince]

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.

Re: Wow

[SillyNickName4me]

First of all, I do agree about the danger you are warning against, but I also think you are not entirely appreciating that you fell into the trap yourself as well.

For those who don't believe this just test a few facts. These people know full well that Al Qaeda doesn't use the modern banking system. These people know full well that their efforts have little or no effect on Al Qaeda. At the same time these people refuse to do border enforcement or any of the requested security measures already law in the USA which would protect the people from real terrorism. Where for example is the phone number where a US Citizen may call and have an illegal or undesirable alien (One who is acting badly for those who don't understand) promptly and properly dealt with under law. Where I live, if I call the Sheriff I may see an officer in 1 hour or so depending on the time of day. If I called about a real live Al Qaeda member to the US Border Patrol or ICE the call would never be responded to. There are only 65 ICE agents actually empowered to make arrests in the USA as a whole. Surely this tells the truth about the real intent here. It is pretty undeniable.

If you actually look at the 9/11 attacks as well as to other similar situations, you'll find that the only terrorists you are going to catch at the border are those trying to flee the country afterward, and even that is extremely unlikely. You'd also see that those who planned and executed the attacks were not illegal foreigners. Hence, similar to the situation you pointed out yourself, such actions would have virtually zero effect on terrorism.

All the screaming and arguing about illegal immigrants is really yet another way to divert attention away from what is really happening.

Re:Wow

[Doc Ruby]

They had the intelligence, and the power to cherrypick, to invade the country, Iraq, that was right for them. The Bush administration is the Iran/Contra administration . All these people made their bones in the 1980s CIA/NSA cocaine and guns conspiracy. That hijacked American foreign policy to wage secret wars in Central America. To raise money for secret wars elsewhere, like in Africa, and Osama bin Laden's Afghanistan. With secret Saudi funding and Iranian funding. As seed money for robbing the Savings and Loans of over a $TRILLION (in 1980s dollars: our GDP was 1/4 what it is today).

These same people, like Poindexter, Negroponte, Bolton and so many others, wrench our country into invading Iraq to the benefit of Saudi Arabia and Iran, giving the NSA and CIA powers previously forbidden by our constititional democratic republic. While spying on all Americans for the political power that ensures their corporate backers will make all the money they want, forever.

They're pulling it off. As measured by $TRILLIONS in profits and unlimited power, killing thousands around the world and leaving our country to rot. How can we possibly deny that they're smart, that they're doing it all on purpose, that it's malice, even evil, that is driving all their actions? Because the truth is too much to admit, especially since we like to believe what we see in the media: the Republican government works for us, not themselves and their corporate masters.

Re: Wow

[Memnos]

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.

Re: Wow

[heinousjay]

I'm not speaking to the original point, but

I suspect you are indeed part of the majority which dismisses arguments based on who is making the argument and not based on the merrits of that argument. At least, your posts are strongly suggesting this.

When ranting and raving on the internet without presenting any sort of corroboration, indeed with not even leads toward information that may serve as a basis of evidence, dismissal is pretty much the only option. Anyone can post anything, and chasing down the rainbows of paranoia isn't a productive activity. After all, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

This whole situation is kind of like the OJ defense: claim the administration is so incompetent as to be unable to conduct the normal business of the country, while at the same time masterfully organizing the biggest conspiracy in history completely successfully? Something doesn't fit.

Secretly?

[MarkByers]

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?

Re:Secretly?

[Broken Bottle]

"Do your reasearch and don't believe everything you read in the papers. This program DID have congretional oversight and is perfectly leagal as a practical extention of the Patriot Act."

Show me the article that verifies this claim. The interview I heard yesterday with Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Stuart Levy mentioned nothing of the sort. This program, like a startling number of Bush's post 9/11 "anti terrorist" intelligence initiatives, has NO court oversight. Levy described a situation in which SWIFT agents and "an outside auditing firm" could monitor database searches in real time and could halt the search if they felt it was suspect or needed further justification from the government. That's it. If your name is on a list of suspected terrorist / collaborators, correctly or incorrectly, the the White House has given itself the privledge of sifting through your financial data. And your phone calls. And god knows what else we don't know about. And it all happens without the courts being aware.

Who puts a stop to programs like this if it's being abused? The "gang of 8" senators that had been informed about the domestic wiretapping program have admitted that the reports they get about that program don't go into any great detail. Are we just supposed to trust the Bush White House to say, "Gee, we've sepped over the line here, please shut us down?" These are the same people that selectively chose intellegence reports that supported their desire to invade Iraq. Once they got their, they retroactively changes their justifications for being there and then capped it all by saying "Well, is it a bad thing that Sahdam is gone? Would you prefer he be in power?"

This is a democracy with explicit checks and ballances between the three branches of government setup to prevent precisely what is occuring. Why should we trust him to be the final arbitar of what programs are legal and which would be overstepping his bounds within the law when he and his team have shown such a knack for the creative justification of every questionable looking program they've enacted that has come to light?

Re:A message from the right

[EGSonikku]

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?

Re:Not used to track individuals

[glennrrr]

If you follow the links in the Instapundit posting you get to this description of the SWIFT system.

A SWIFT consists of a one-page document containing the name and code of the originating bank, the date and time, the address and code of the receiving bank, the name and internal code of the officer initiating the transmission, the names and numbers of the accounts involved in the transfer, a description of the asset being transferred, the MT category of the transmission, and acceptable, standardized phrases as described above.

Re:Corporate advantage?

[houghi]

Does anyone else worry that the USA might use its intelligent services to give its corporate entities an advantage over foreign ones?

It already happend. Echelon was used to get Boeing an advatage over Airbus.

http://www.converge.org.nz/pma/sislock.htm
http://www.meta-religion.com/Secret_societies/Cons piracies/Echelon/echelon.htm
http://www.fas.org/irp/news/2000/07/irp-000724-ech elon.htm
http://tinyurl.com/zuxan (google link)

echo $FREEDOM

[delire]

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.

Re:quick success

[FrankNputer]

Or, you could consider the 500 sarin and mustard gas shells recently disclosed

Um, don't you mean the pre-Gulf War shells that were found in 2003, reported on in 2004, and waved around last week in a poor attempt to justify the war in an election year? Just sayin'...

Re:quick success

[EasyTarget]

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.

Just a wild suggestion... Maybe he actually destroyed them?

He didn't want a war because he knew he'd end up dead.. as will hopefully soon happen. Actually destroying these weapons, which he had no realistic prospect of using without instant obliteration now he was no longer a US ally against Iran, would certainly have been in his best interests.

But I do not dispute his desire and willingness to make and use them.. nor his future intention to do so either! Just his practical ability.

PS: The '500' mustard and sarin shells (disclosed in 1999, only wight ring prats call it recent, although the real figure is more like 650+) should be set against 50,000+ which the UN accepts were destroyed..

Re:quick success

[elrous0]

I always love that response: "We didn't find WMD's? Well then, he must have moved them." That's the perfect bulletproof argument. You can use it for unicorns too: "We haven't seen any? Well then, they must be hiding."

Mod me down all you want. It's still true.

-Eric

Not taking it sitting down

[Tony]

So far it seems though, and I say this as a foreign observer, that America is taking it all sitting down.

We're not taking it sitting down. We're taking it in the ass, bent over the lap of a bound lady liberty. And the funny thing is, there's a bunch of folks saying they absolutely love it, because George Bush said they love it.

"C'mon, you know you love it!" he says. But still they don't squirm like he likes, so he says, "Terrorism! 9/11!"

And then they orgasm. "Oooo, I just love you, Mr. President!" And they say, "Those other people who don't love getting raped in the ass by their government are nothing but liberal crybabies." Because it's easier for them to call names and ignore the waxing fascism than it is for them to admit the truth: they support a fascist regime that has not made us one iota safer.

They, the party that once called for reduced government interference in our lives, are whining about how fucking great it is that the government is more involved in our lives to the point where they know how we spend our money and whom we call, and they are telling us how to think.

So, no. We're not taking it sitting down. We can't sit down. Our asses are sore.

Color me unsurprised

[l5rfanboy]

Does it fail to surprise anyone else that CNN and other major media (I mean, 'news') outlets aren't reporting on this? Then again, they're so busy reporting on Kidman and Urban's desires for a normal wedding, Anna Nicole Smith's inheritance rival dying, and Reese Witherspoon suing someone over a false pregnancy story (all on CNN.com). Who has time for this kind of news when there's all that out there! Such decisions!

I will be interested in seeing the BBC's take on the matter.

NPR Interview

[HardCase]

The news program All Things Considered interviewed the undersecretary responsible for the program yesterday (6/24/06). The interviewer didn't really pull any punches and the answers were pretty interesting. I highly recommend going to NPR's web site and listening to it.

When asked what layers of security were in place to prevent misuse, the reply was that in order to perform a search, the analyst had to show that the individual or group being queried had been identified as having a potential terrorism link. That request had to be vetted by a supervisor, then by a representative from SWIFT. Then, when the query is performed, if no evidence is found, then the information is discarded at the analyst's level. A government auditing team reviews the information that is gleaned and a third party auditing team (from Booz Allen) audits the government.

The undersecretary said that they did remove an analyst earlier this year for abusing the system. The auditing system caught him.

The undersecretary also said that about 10% of the searches performed provided evidence of links to terrorist organizations. That, he said, was a very high rate compared to other intelligence methods.

For me, personally, if that's the way that the government is using the SWIFT database, I don't have a problem with it. If the queries are targeted, as opposed to a broad sweep, it strikes me as a legitimate use of an intelligence asset.

Interestingly enough, the general attitude of the security and privacy experts that ATC interviewed was fairly positive about the program.

-h-

And that was mod'ed +5?

[khasim]

Why bother watching Fox? Better perhaps to take advantage of the BBC's reporting. Take a moment and any of their coverage. It's hard not to notice the actual facts of chemical weapon use. Which, of course, rather requires the existence of the same.

Look at the YEAR in which they were used.

If Saddam had them 20 years ago, that does NOT make him a threat TODAY.

No one is saying that Saddam did not have chemical weapons at any time in the past. We know he did. We were the ones who were helping him develop them for use in the Iraq/Iran war.

And your articles are rather long on descriptions of Saddam lounging by a pool in a speedo ... and rather short on facts about chemical weapons.

Right, there's no interest at all in avoiding another Taliban-like haven for government-sponsored terrorism, as is found in Iran.

Dude, Iraq fought Iran.

Iraq was a secular totalitarian state.

There was NO danger of them changing to a Theocracy while Saddam was alive.

So just leaving Saddam and the sanctions in place would have achieved your stated goal without the loss of a single US soldier's life.

That sort of retrograde, destabilizing influence on the entire middle east certainly does impact oil flow (for the entire world, in case you're not paying attention), and allowing it to thrive is unacceptable on a lot of levels, not just as it relates to oil.

If it's not about oil, then make the case without mentioning oil.

Because you cannot do so, without fantasy scenarios that Saddam's existance would have prevented, it is/was/will be about the oil.

And before you start mentioning Saddam as some sort of not-so-bad alternative to the extremist jihaddi types, remember that he was busy shipping (along with press releases!) cash to organizations like Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and even to individual families of suicide bombers.

So? No one is saying he was an angel. Just that he was not a threat to the United States of America or our allies.

Do not confuse "bad person" with "threat to the US".

To say nothing of lobbing scud missles across borders, trying to annex Kuwait, and so on.

Do you have some kind of calendar-phobia?

You keep bringing up actions from years before the last invasion. What he did in 1990 has no bearing on whether we should invade in 2003. There were THIRTEEN YEARS between those two events.

"For oil" is a tidy bit of sophistry, though, that must feel convenient.

I don't know about "feel convenient", but it certainly fits the established facts.

But the real issue with the oil is that it lies in a place where its value is being sought by medieval-minded theocratic crazies that use that single source of revenue to keep places like Iran running backwards from history.

And again you support the position that it was about the oil. Or, more exactly, about who controls the oil.

So, be as sarcastic/flippant as you want to be about it. The fact remains that you do not have a justification that does NOT involve the oil.

Putting those oil reserves in the hands of constitutional democracies is certainly acting "for the oil," but not in the way you so cravenly describe.

Oil does not vote. Oil does not elect representatives. There is nothing noble about going to war for oil. Therefore, saying that the war was for oil cannot be "craven".

That's like saying that when the US marched into Germany and liberated the concentration camps, that it was for the German beer.

Only in your mind, only in your mind.

Germany was actively invading other countries and attacking our ally England.

Iraq had

For everybody who thinks this guy is paranoid...

[Anonymous Coward]

...I think he's paranoid too.

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?

I'm Calling Bullshit

[Memnos]

I am a physicist and I consult on national vulnerability, and I can tell you that a terrorist will not come through an airport with any radionuclides. That is patently ridiculous. What is far more likely to happen is that someone with a bunch of money will find someone in Russia with little to no money (who formerly worked for the Strategic Rocket Forces) to provide them with a working (if decrepit) tactical nuke. Then, they would have some shipping company bring the container to New York or Miami and set it off. That's just to let you know about what OUR nightmares are -- and in the future, post about what you know.