The Bush Administration has been caught snooping into the financial records of thousands of Americans. Run by the CIA, the super-secret snooping program should convince you to give up any and all illusions that you have something called privacy.
But if you want to hold on to those illusions, do stay tuned for future revelations about surveillance cameras in your home.
The Rightwing bloggers are pissed again. As they see it, the story is not that the Bush Administration has once again been caught secretly snooping into the private business of Americans.
Rather, the story is that the New York Times Blabbermouths Strike Again!
Imagine that. A press that informs citizens about the actions of their government.
What will they think of next?
I'm not sure exactly when rightwingers first became champions of government secrecy, but I checked the 2004 Republican Party Platform and it's not in there.
They really need to put "Championing Government Secrecy" into the new improved Republican platform.
New York Times:
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, 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 under secretary at the Treasury Department, said in an interview on 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.
Nearly 20 current and former government officials and industry executives discussed aspects of the Swift operation with The New York Times on condition of anonymity because the program remains classified. Some of those officials expressed reservations about the program, saying that what they viewed as an urgent, temporary measure had become permanent nearly five years later without specific Congressional approval or formal authorization.
Treasury officials said Swift was exempt from American laws restricting government access to private financial records because the cooperative was considered a messaging service, not a bank or financial institution.
But at the outset of the operation, Treasury and Justice Department lawyers debated whether the program had to comply with such laws before concluding that it did not, people with knowledge of the debate said. Several outside banking experts, however, say that financial privacy laws are murky and sometimes contradictory and that the program raises difficult legal and public policy questions. . .
While the banking program is a closely held secret, administration officials have held classified briefings for some members of Congress and the Sept. 11 commission, the officials said. More lawmakers were briefed in recent weeks, after the administration learned The Times was making inquiries for this article.
Bush Spying on America NSA CIA Swift Republicans New York Times
