Data Mining Your Bank Records: The New Tool On Terrorism

[YouWantitWhen????]

Posted: 6/22/06 at 11:42pm

While this does not bother quite as much as the phone record aggregation practices currently employed by Shrub and D-Cell Dick, it still shows a pattern and practice of ignoring existing laws and standards when going after the evil-doers.

I actually believe financial transactions are more likely to yield results than random phone calls, but again, want some serious oversight on what the government is doing. What I really do not understand is why it is so difficult to go and get the appropriate FISA Subpoena. Presidents have done it before Bush, and Presidents (hopefully) will do it after Bush. The power, if used under proper supervision is there, they just want to exercise the power with limited, if any controls (in my opinion).

You decide what you think is best:

Bank Data Secretly Reviewed by U.S. to Fight Terror
By ERIC LICHTBLAU and JAMES RISEN

WASHINGTON, June 22 - 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.

"The capability here is awesome or, depending on where you're sitting, troubling," said one former senior counterterrorism official who considers the program valuable. While tight controls are in place, the official added, "The potential for abuse is enormous."


Bank Data Secretly Reviewed by U.S. to Fight Terror

[PalJoey]

Posted: 6/22/06 at 11:45pm

How long, O Lord, how long?

[SweetQintheLights]

Posted: 6/22/06 at 11:46pm

It's plain and simple. The. World. Is. Not. Safe.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 6/23/06 at 8:08am

I think it's simpler than that, SQ:

Without. Court. Authorization.