A European Union working group is expected to conclude this week that the Bush administration’s monitoring of international financial transactions may violate European banking law and that an independent auditor should be required to prevent possible privacy abuses.
“We don’t see the legal basis under the European law, and we see the need for some changes.”
The program, started in secret by the Bush administration only weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, allows CIA analysts and other American intelligence officials to search for possible terrorist financing activity among many millions of largely international financial transactions that are processed by a Belgian data-banking cooperative, known as Swift.
The Bush administration has strongly defended the effectiveness and legality of the once-secret program, and it sharply criticized The New York Times for disclosing its existence in June.
But legal experts said the program appears to conflict more directly in Europe with banking privacy restrictions, issued by the European Union and others, that impose tighter restrictions on how private banking data can be shared.
“The main item from my point of view,” Schaar said, “is that the fundamental civil rights of the European citizens have to be safeguarded.”
Anyone remember when our nation was governed by politicians who said stuff like — “the fundamental rights of American citizens have to be safeguarded” — and they didn’t include a whole parcel of unpublished “findings” that amended those same civil liberties into boilerplate?
Well it’s true that in the same way with wire tapping scandal there is a reason for some concern. However, I think you’ll see more weird things coming from the EU. They’re a bunch of weird communists, if you ask me. I know, ‘cause I’m coming from there.
It seems that the right to privacy trumps the right to free speech in some cases, there. For example publicly reading uncomfortable passages from the Bible is a punishable offense as hate speech. And the Pope lives there! Muslims are allowed to demonstrate with inscriptions reading “You’ll have your 9/11” and so on. Oh, ja, and the Oper is canceling their performance out of the fear of being bombed!
So, I would not pay attention on their initiative of attempting to arrest the CIA for spying on them. It’s a LA LA land more then the original LA.
The article merely points out that there needs to be sufficient oversight, and “that tighter safeguards be enforced,” with hopes of stopping potential privacy abuses. The political cartoon should be changed from a man with a bucket of water, to a man with an umbrella; as these programs actually do generate results that help identify potential terrorists. So if you’re not for “taking the war to the terrorists” or taking an aggressive stance on preventing these fascists’ actions, I ask you what are you in favor of?
Good – about time.
#3
Agreed.
#2, …as these programs actually do generate results that help identify potential terrorists.
Would you care to share an example or two? The same with the telephone taps, care to share an example or two of any terrorists who were caught?
Or do you just feel safer knowing that Bush is watching out for bad guys for you while 95% of of all shipping containers aren’t inspected? Are you comfortable knowing that up to 1 million people will cross the Mexican border illegally this year? Do you feel better knowing that the electrical grid across most of the nation is in poor repair and very susceptible to attack or even just normal overload failure.
If we don’t know what they are talking to eachother about or who’s paying them…..how are we supposed to guard the eletrical grid and the ports?
I understand that the largest problem with the shipping containers is that the points of origin won’t install the detectors or whatever they are called. Maybe if we refused entry to any container lacking the proper point of origin inspection they would comply….but don’t hold your breath for that to happen.
If they are smart enough to hatch a terrorist plan, they are smart enough not to discuss it over the phone.
So again I ask, do you have an example where reading email, tapping phones, or searching financial statements has caught a terrorist?
In response to the relevant criticisms, as in the use of financial tracking systems not phone tapping ect., here is a quote from a worker inside the U.S. Treasury, — “Richard Newcomb , the head of the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control at the time, later publicly credited the president for enabling US law enforcement and intelligence agencies to nab suspected terrorists, including followers of “Hambali, ” Al Qaeda’s leader in Southeast Asia. The New York Times report said Hambali’s capture in 2003 came with the aid of information gleaned from SWIFT.”— As far as further proof just do a google search, but the really pertinent cases are doubtfully in the media, as this is, or at least was, secret information.
Uh, mxpwhatever — too bad the Thai police services who actually captured Hambali didn’t say anything at all like the dweebs patting themselves on the back for the Times.
In a society opposed to openness in government, you can claim to have accomplished lots of failed tasks. Like “Mission Accomplished”.
dear boy, is there a point in that statement, or just more cliche moveon.org one liners?
#10, ok, your one example just got shot down. I looked and couldn’t find any reference to a NYT article suggesting Hambali was captured using information gleaned from intercepting communications of any kind. Mind you, I limited my search to just under ½ hour, but if you had of provided a link then it would have been easier. If you can’t link your reference, then don’t expect me to go looking for it.
So what else do you bring to the table? Oh, right, you want ME to find the examples for you. So you want me to go on a hunt for information that doesn’t exist? Ya, like that is going to happen. Then when you don’t have anything, you resort to derogatory name calling.
Give an example of where the Administration’s telephone tapping, email interception, and financial record snooping has caught ONE terrorist.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/06/28/terrorist_funds_tracking_no_secret_some_say/?page=2
There’s the link to the Boston Globe article. There is an example of how tracking financial transactions helped located and bring to justice a terrorist. As far as unwarranted phone tapping, along with e-mail interception, I would have to agree with you but that is not the issue of this article. As a final point, do you really think that the U.S. government hasn’t been collecting phone call information prior to George W. Bush’s administration?