US defends tracking transactions

[brien]

Quote by: Mr.Vicchio That's been the case since before 9/11.... And that's for tax purposes not for tracking terror.

It doesn't matter. The fact remains the government has been tracking money as a way of prosecuting criminals since they prosecuted Al Capone for tax evasion. It is all about prosecuting criminals but spills over into the government's intrusion into my private banking practices.

[rmnunez]

There is no way to say 'thus and such' is preventing it.

No, we can't say for cdertain why the US hasn't suffered another 911, it could be because terrorists are more fearful of reprisals, maybe its due to enhanced security measures and scrutiny of passenger lists, perhaps its due to interception of finances, possibly potential martyrs have been identified through intelligence gathering, it could be they are waiting for some special date or opportunity. It is even possible terrorists no longer feel so bad about united statians and the western ways of these infidels.

[rmnunez]

The UN had long been active in the fight against international terrorism and had developed a wide range of international legal agreements that enabled the international community to take action to suppress terrorism and bring those responsible to justice, among which were 12 conventions. The Assembly's Sixth Committee was elaborating a convention for the suppression of acts of nuclear terrorism and a comprehensive convention on the elimination of terrorism. The day after the attack, the Assembly and the Security Council had adopted resolutions to condemn the attacks on the host country, and on 18 September the Council had adopted resolution 1373 (2001), under Chapter VII, deciding on wide-ranging steps aimed at the financing, political support and sanctuary for terrorism. http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2001/ga9929.doc.htm

Security Council Resolution on Sept 28 2001 calling for the sharing information to interdict terrorist finances: http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2001/sc7158.doc.htm

The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, International Organization os Securities Commissions and International Association of Insurance Supervisors Initiatives to Combar Money Laudering and the Financing of Terrorism (June, 2003): http://www.bis.org/publ/joint05.pdf

Same folks on Banking Secrecy and International Cooperation in Banking Supervision: http://www.bis.org/publ/bcbs00f.htm

From the EU:

The removal of banking secrecy provisions, in appropriate circumstances, is vital in order to combat money laundering. In October 2000, the EU Council of Ministers reaffirmed its position that fiscal and banking secrecy should not provide barriers to investigations on money-laundering and international cooperation. A Protocol to the EU Mutual legal Assistance Convention now ensures that banking secrecy provisions are not invoked as a reason to refuse a request for assistance from another Member State. http://ec.europa.eu/justice_home/fsj...ndering_en.htm

(subsequently made applicable to terrorism financing in addition to money laudering)

In the US:

"The Bank Secrecy Act authorizes the Treasury Department to require financial institutions to maintain records of personal financial transactions that 'have a high degree of usefulness in criminal, tax and regulatory investigations and proceedings.' It also authorizes the Treasury Department to require any financial institution to report any 'suspicious transaction relevant to a possible violation of law or regulation.' These reports, called Suspicious Activity Reports are filed with the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. "This is done secretly, without the consent or knowledge of bank customers, any time a financial institution decides that a transaction is 'suspicious.' The reports are made available electronically to every U.S. Attorney's Office and to 59 law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, Secret Service, and Customs Service. A law enforcement agency does not have to be suspicious of an actual crime before it accesses a report, and no court order, warrant, subpoena, or even written request is needed. Law enforcement agencies can, and allegedly do, download the entire harvest of new information from FinCEN whenever they want it." http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php...nk_Secrecy_Act

(The Banking Secrecy Act, commonly known as “Title 31”, we are told, dates back to 1970)

On the scandal over the NYT or lack thereof:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...701708_pf.html

[Boetie]

Has anyone seen that commercial where the guy asks, "What's in your wallet?"

To know the answer to that question ask Bush Jr.

[Rainbow]

US Treasury Secretary John Snow has defended a secret programme which has been tracking international money transactions for nearly five years. "This programme is an effective weapon in the larger war on terror," he said. The scheme, which has sifted huge amounts of data from an international banking consortium, was revealed by the New York Times newspaper on Friday. The US treasury says the programme was strictly confined to the records of suspected foreign terrorists. Although there is no direct connection, the programme has echoes of a recently revealed US surveillance programme in which millions of international and domestic phone calls and e-mails were monitored, correspondents say.

This - among other procedures - is part of intelligence services' activities.
Since it has been lasting for decades, there is not much field for sensation.

The questions :
- how is that possible some irresponsible guys have access to some sensitive informations
- what the publisher has achieved
In both cases, private factors overcame the case itself. Stupidity rules, so far.

[rmnunez]

Excerpts from the Wall Street Journal:

"Not everything is fit to print. There is to be regard for at least probable factual accuracy, for danger to innocent lives, for human decencies, and even, if cautiously, for nonpartisan considerations of the national interest." So wrote the great legal scholar, Alexander Bickel, about the duties of the press in his 1975 collection of essays "The Morality of Consent." We like to re-read Bickel to get our Constitutional bearings, and he's been especially useful since the New York Times decided last week to expose a major weapon in the US arsenal against terror financing. As Alexander Bickel wrote, the relationship between government and the press in the free society is an inevitable and essential contest. The government needs a certain amount of secrecy to function, especially on national security, and the press in its watchdog role tries to discover what it can. The government can't expect total secrecy, Bickel writes, "but the game similarly calls on the press to consider the responsibilities that its position implies. Not everything is fit to print." The obligation of the press is to take the government seriously when it makes a request not to publish. Is the motive mainly political? How important are the national security concerns? And how do those concerns balance against the public's right to know? The problem with the Times is that millions of Americans no longer believe that its editors would make those calculations in anything close to good faith. We certainly don't. On issue after issue, it has become clear that the Times believes the U.S. is not really at war, and in any case the Bush Administration lacks the legitimacy to wage it. So, for example, it promulgates a double standard on "leaks," deploring them in the case of Valerie Plame and demanding a special counsel when the leaker was presumably someone in the White House and the journalist a conservative columnist. But then it hails as heroic and public-spirited the leak to the Times itself that revealed the National Security Agency's al Qaeda wiretaps. Mr. Keller's open letter explaining his decision to expose the Treasury program all but admits that he did so because he doesn't agree with, or believe, the Bush Administration. "Since September 11, 2001, our government has launched broad and secret anti-terror monitoring programs without seeking authorizing legislation and without fully briefing the Congress," he writes, and "some officials who have been involved in these programs have spoken to the Times about their discomfort over the legality of the government's actions and over the adequacy of oversight." Since the Treasury story broke, as it happens, no one but Congressman Ed Markey and a few cranks have even objected to the program, much less claimed illegality.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editor...l?id=110008585

[underbear1]

Rep. Barney Frank got in some SERIOUS licks at republican blowhards in Congress when they chastised the NYT, in that silly non binding bill. Frank said, "Bush and others in this administration have repeatedly mentioned we were tracking the terrorist's money.........I guess it was a secret that involved BANKS.........What the hell did they think we were doing looking thru their pockets?"

thumbs up Bro, ya make us PROUD!

Barney's wit compared to most members of Congress is like he's shooting unarmed men.

[rmnunez]

The problem with the Times is that millions of Americans no longer believe that its editors would make those calculations in anything close to good faith. We certainly don't. On issue after issue, it has become clear that the Times believes the US is not really at war, and in any case the Bush Administration lacks the legitimacy to wage it.

This is a very dangerous thing for a newspaper to do, once people start to question the accuracy of a paper, they are likely to turn elsewhere to find out what's going on.

So, for example, it promulgates a double standard on "leaks," deploring them in the case of Valerie Plame and demanding a special counsel when the leaker was presumably someone in the White House and the journalist a conservative columnist. But then it hails as heroic and public-spirited the leak to the Times itself that revealed the National Security Agency's al Qaeda wiretaps.

I often found double standards viewed critically from the left, how come not in this case?

Mr. Keller's open letter explaining his decision to expose the Treasury program all but admits that he did so because he doesn't agree with, or believe, the Bush Administration. "Since September 11, 2001, our government has launched broad and secret anti-terror monitoring programs without seeking authorizing legislation and without fully briefing the Congress," he writes, and "some officials who have been involved in these programs have spoken to the Times about their discomfort over the legality of the government's actions and over the adequacy of oversight." Since the Treasury story broke, as it happens, no one but Congressman Ed Markey and a few cranks have even objected to the program, much less claimed illegality. Perhaps Mr. Keller has been listening to his boss, Times Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., who in a recent commencement address apologized to the graduates because his generation "had seen the horrors and futility of war and smelled the stench of corruption in government. "Our children, we vowed, would never know that. So, well, sorry. It wasn't supposed to be this way," the publisher continued. "You weren't supposed to be graduating into an America fighting a misbegotten war in a foreign land. You weren't supposed to be graduating into a world where we are still fighting for fundamental human rights," and so on. Forgive us if we conclude that a newspaper led by someone who speaks this way to college seniors has as a major goal not winning the war on terror but obstructing it.

If The NYT and its owner are not seeking to actually obstruct the US-led effort against international terrorism, at least they seem to be strongly opposed to it. Opposition to US foreign policy is no big deal, but when the US is actually at war it would be more important.