Byron York writes in National Review that Tom Kean, co-chair of the 9/11 Commission, fears that the terrorist finance tracking program, which was very effective and completely legal, is over:
Thomas Kean, the co-chairman of the September 11 Commission, was briefed several weeks ago about the Treasury Department’s terrorist-finance program, and after the session, Kean says, “I came away with the idea that this was a good program, one that was legal, one that was not violating anybody’s civil liberties…and something the U.S. government should be doing to make us safer.”
Kean tells National Review Online that the New York Times’s decision to expose the terrorist finance effort — Kean called Times executive editor Bill Keller in an attempt to persuade him not to publish — has done terrible damage to the program. “I think it’s over,” Kean says. “Terrorists read the newspapers. Once the program became known, then obviously the terrorists were not going to use these methods any more.”
There are a variety of ways to transport or transfer money; electronic transfers are just one means of doing it. Now the terrorists will find other ways to make their financial transactions, which will make it more difficult for us to track them.
The exposure of the terrorist-finance program was particularly troubling to Kean because the 9/11 Commission had given high marks to the administration’s efforts in the area of terrorist financing…the only area in which the administration scored an “A” — actually an “A-” — was in its efforts on terrorist financing. “The U.S. has won the support of key countries in tackling terrorism finance,” the commissioners wrote, “though there is still much to do in the Gulf States and in South Asia. The government has made significant strides in using terrorism finance as an intelligence tool.”
Now, a major part of that effort appears to have been compromised. “That’s the way it is in this war,” says Kean. “There are a number of programs we are using to try to disrupt terrorist activities, and you never know which one is going to be successful. We knew that this one already had been.”
Not anymore, thanks to the New York Times and other media outlets.
Let’s not forget that shortly after 9/11 the editors of the New York Times demanded that the Bush Administration follow the terrorists’ financial records as one method of fighting terror:
The Bush administration is preparing new laws to help track terrorists through their money-laundering activity and is readying an executive order freezing the assets of known terrorists. Much more is needed, including stricter regulations, the recruitment of specialized investigators and greater cooperation with foreign banking authorities. There must also must be closer coordination among America’s law enforcement, national security and financial regulatory agencies….If America is going to wage a new kind of war against terrorism, it must act on all fronts, including the financial one.
Isn’t interesting that the New York Times killed the very program it demanded President Bush create. And how will the Times react if the US were to be hit by terrorists again? How else – by blaming the Bush Administration for failing to prevent the attack.
Chalk up another win for the Democrats.
And the terrorists!
“F**k em’.”
Before you shut down the program, perhaps some of the large paper syndicates deserve a little SWIFT scrutiny as well?
I’m waiting for our liberal geniuses to show up and lecture us on how there was no harm done here.
Big mo, liberals will have no problem, no harm was done to the terrorists.
You mean we weren’t already looking at the means other than electronic transfers that terrorists use to move money?
And where is it written that “this will make it more difficult”, or was that just more rhetoric from the party behind in the polls?
Lee: What will your response be when the same traitorous bastards next divulge the other methods we use to track terriorist money? Is this just a game of “gotcha” for you and your ilk?
Big MoCall for a idiot, and they appear. Thanks Lee, right on time.
The NY Times interpretation of the First Admendment is that it is a death warrant for the rest of us. (…or prohibiting…freedom of speech, or of the press…)
“Or was that more rhetoric from the party behind in the polls”
Lee, you unimaginable dipshit!!
“What will your response be when the same traitorous bastards next divulge the other methods we use to track terriorist money?”
Hopefully our other programs don’t have the shortcomings that this one had, and then the NYT won’t feel the need to expose them.
But if there are more programs equally faulty, it wouldn’t be surprising to see them revealed by the NYTs, would it? It doesn’t take a genuis to figure out that the NYT won’t hesitate to reveal other faulty programs.
So now would be the time for the adminstration to clean up their act and address the concerns their critics have over the way we spy. Think they will? Do you think the GOP will call for a bi-partisan commision on “secrecy and privacy concerns” that will solicit and address concerns officials have over the way we spy?
Neither do I. It’ll take a wake-up call in this fall’s election to get this adminstration and the republican party back on the right track.
I wonder what Gen. William T. Sherman would think of today’s version of the New York Slimes? Back then, Sherman considered reporters to be spies, and treated them as such.
He once remarked that if he killed them all, there would be news from hell before breakfast.
My guess is he’d consider today’s Slimes’ editors to be no better than the crap that comes out of the rear of his horse.
He’d probably have the same opinion of the Slimes’ cheerleaders on this board.
“You mean we weren’t already looking at means other than electronic transfers that terrorists use to move money?”
We’d damn well better be, Lee. But unlike your worthless ilk, I have no great desire to be briefed on every last detail so as to render those programs useless.
“And where is it written that ‘this will make it more difficult’“
The co-chairman of the September 11 commission – remember, that ‘bipartisan’ commission you lefties had such a hard-on to establish – says “terrible damage” has been done to the program. Good enough? Or is he just a partisan Bushbot?
“or is that just more rhetoric from the party behind in the polls?”
Polls, schmolls. And there’s the difference. Clowns like you worry about polls and getting back in power. We worry about killing terrorists. But hey, don’t ever change, ya loveable treasonous lug.
Old Coot: “is this just a game of ‘gotcha’ for you and your ilk?”
It has been ever since the second tower fell, OC. Slavery, sodomy and sedition – the founding pillars of the Democrat party.
and it doesn’t take a “genius” to mispell “genuis” does it – lol!
Lee doesn’t understand the simple logic that everytime you nullify a tool, you have less tools to work with, and that makes things MORE DIFFICULT.
Thanks to turds like Lee and the NY Times, we’ll soon be limited to collecting intelligence by our ambassadors out to ask the terrorists nicely what they’re about to do.
Lee, I have been reading your comments here the past several days regarding this matter. For those out there (and I suspect you are one of them) who feel we should have never gone into Iraq, I feel it is still safe to assume that tracking terrorism can be considered an issue discussed independently of any reference to the Iraq war. If you, yourself, were responsible for monitoring terrorism threats to the USA and it’s allies, what measures do YOU feel are constitutionally permissible to effectively do this? Do you feel it can be effectively done in the public domain absent any classified operations of any kind? And when I mean classified operations I mean those that are effective only because they remain classified. I just want to get a sense from you what YOU think is permissible.
My previous post was simply to determine if Lee had any boundaries or even a tiny amount of common sense. His/her response tells me that he/she does not and I henceforth will ignore the fool, the only way to treat a person that is beneath contempt.
…we’ll soon be limited to collecting intelligence by our ambassadors out to ask the terrorists nicely what they’re about to do.
True, until we get enough democrats in power to do this job correctly.
Democrats are utterly incapable of doing the job at all, much less doing it correctly.
Where was it written that the MSM telling the world that we were using Osama Bin Laden cell phone to track him hurt our ability to track him? It was just a coincidence that he stopped using it a short time later.
Old Coot — Good call. I’ve already decided as such. Lee is so far gone over the edge that it’s not even worth expending the minute amount of brainpower needed to refute his sheer idiocy — or even read his garbage.
You’re all swimming in your own bile. In fact, you have no idea whether the NYT disclosure has damaged government capability to track terrorists or not. Unless you are part of the intelligence community, you lack the context and expertise to assess this matter accurately.
Lee your ignorance knows no bounds. Watching you mindlessly defend the reporting of this story has really exposed your utter lack of seriousness on the war on terror. As well as your total belief that anything perceived to hurt the Bush administration, regardless of how it hurts national security, is a good thing.
You say this program was faulty, but you’re the only one. According to every report out there, this program was working and working well. Yeah, some former and current officials say there was potential for abuse, but no abuse was ever cited. In fact, more safeguards were put in place. Now the head of the bi-partisan 9/11 commission says this program is no longer useful and you call his statement more party rhetoric.
You have more faith in the New York Times than in GWB’s attempts to protect our country. That is unbelievable. You are easily the most partisan person that comments on this website.
Pat you can join Lee on the irrelevant ignore list.. Goodbye… have a tortured life.
Lee at June 28, 2006 01:38 PM
Please, Lee, in all of your wisdom and that of the Times, please list the shortcomings. Please, because it was a legal program with oversight, where were the shortcomings?
Now Lee, I’m asking nicely, so try to address the question please.
Oh, and I would love to see your response to DaveD’s post of June 28, 2006 01:49 PM. I know your realyy busy, so when you get a chance.
BigMo. It was Hooker that arrested and was going to hang a “reporter” for releasing military secrets. Lincoln saved the clown but Gen Hooker for the “byline” on all reporting.
Freedom of Speech! Try saying a prayer in a public place. A big NO NO with the Kommiecrats. But get troops killed, release secrets is OK.
Our 2 representatives of the Kommiecrat hate league illustrate this. Say I wonder if they have recently deceased relatives in Pali???…
Too bad this was in the public domain before…
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/06/28/terrorist_funds_tracking_no_secret_some_say/?page=1
“There have been public references to SWIFT before,” said Roger Cressey, a senior White House counterterrorism official until 2003. “The White House is overreaching when they say [The New York Times committed] a crime against the war on terror. It has been in the public domain before.”
Sorry, but this administration doesn’t have the trust of the American people to not have info like this in the public domain. Especially since it’s been disclosed numerous times previously.
From JP2’s same article:
“I worked this stuff and I can guarantee that [revealing the SWIFT] information made a difference,” said Dennis Lormel, a retired FBI special agent who helped establish the bureau’s Terrorist Financing Operations Section before leaving government in 2003. “The disclosure will have an adverse impact on investigations. It was used in two specific instances where it helped to track terrorists. We also used it for lead value.”
Also, the Boston Globe is owned by the New York Times. So of course, they’d use one of their proxies to cover their asses.
Nice snip there jp2.
You carefully left out the part that all of the public references prior to the Times publishing were contained in government references and not plastered all over the media.
Also that those public references may have contained information about what the government wanted to do, but no specific details.
But then that wouldn’t fit the talking points then, would it?
Jeez Lee! Before you were in the depth of it and responding within minutes. Now someone asks you a straight forward question, actually a couple, and you disappear?
It’s been and hour and a half Lee, all I hear are crickets . . . .
I gotta reiterate the question, there, Lee.
What shortcomings. Feel free to be somewhat specific.
The problem with the NSA deal was no warrants, right?
This used warrants. Signed by a judge and everything.
I really hate to see so many good Republicans fall into the well like this. It is just a shame.
Y’all are being led down the primrose path and have no clue.
Our President refered to SWIFT (not by name but in context) and the data mining program in no less than a dozen speeches across this nation beginning in 2004.
It has been established US DOS policy for over three years. A number of easily accessable articles, press releases and other information services have been available regarding the financial data front in the war on terror on the info.us.gov site and elsewhere…
Here is a good one. The Money Trail:
The entire argument y’all are going on about stands upon the idea this information was “secret” when it was clearly not.
All you have left is the idea that no one, terrorists as well, knew about SWIFT until it was in the NY Times.
That seems rather unlikely, since SWIFT is the largest financial data broker in the world.
It has its own website.
It has a magazine. (Which is prominently displayed at my brokerage actually.)
The mining of financial data was not a “secret”.
I am deeply disheartened that so many obviously smart people have fallen for this obvious ruse.
Has your hatred blinded you so thuroughly?
And, before you start calling me a liberal and other “nasty words”…
Keep it to yourself. I’ve probably voted for more Republicans in my lifetime than most of you have seen birthdays. Including Dubya, twice, for which I’ve come to deeply regret.
The country is in danger, and flag burning is all they can talk about. And, y’all sit around and support them.
God have mercy on our souls.
Lee can’t bring it up, except to cite the NYT’s claims that they had anonymous sources express ‘concerns’.
Probably they used the very same source who provided the details on the SWIFT program.
Here’s another one. This stuff is all over the web and released via press release.
This is a non-story. But, y’all want it to be because all you see is red.
Old Time Religion – The louder critics of the NYTs action have chosen to ignore the facts. This is all about political and polls and elections.
Old Coot, I asked Lee point blank in a previous thread whether or not he was a terrorist sympathizer. He refused to answer. So I have no problem branding him as a traitorous idiot (if not just an outright troll).
Thanks, Old Time Religion. I was trying yesterday to tell these wingers that the program was not as “classified” as Bush et al were making it out to be. Apparently they think the terrorists don’t know how to use them internets, they only read the NYT.
Lee, my mother had her 96th birthday last April. She is as sharp and sentient as she always was… Thank the Lord. I grew up in a proud GOP household. Two years ago November I voted with my mother in her 19th consecutive election for President of the United States. Every single one of her votes was for the GOP candidate. All of them. (I must admit I voted for Truman in my very first election. He was the President in my eyes. He should remain so.)
Two months ago my mother was watching Bush speak on the television after a meal together. My wife was cleaning up and my mom looked at me and said: “I’ve only regreted voting for two Presidents. Hoover… and Bush. He’s not right in the head.”
It was an extrordinary admission actually. One I have only come to myself in the past few weeks.
I do not know when hatred became so rampant. I have a good and true life long friend who I am embarrassed to say, is just obsessed with Liberals and hating them. He sends me email after email of proof that they are “Godless” or “traitors”…
And, it scares the pants off of me. He is not the good man I knew. He is angry and mean.
He goes on and on about 9/11 and terror.
I regret my good father is not around. He was born in Austria and left with my mother in 1933. (They adopted me two years later. I was 6 years old.)
All those years, when I asked my dad why they left, he always said the same thing. “They weren’t right in the head.” “Who wasn’t right in the head Pa?”
“Everyone.”
channeling and summarizing:
‘the terrorists already knew we were monitoring their financial activities – this is no big deal’
‘these aren’t the financial records we went to war over’
‘these aren’t the financial records that committed 9/11’
‘the chimp-in-chief lied about the financial records’
‘it wasn’t effective anyway, we’d have caught the people we caught with it regardless’
‘if we leave them alone they’ll leave us alone’
‘everyone has already heard of SWIFT – therefore everyone already knew about our use of it to find terrorists’
‘everyone already knows of these telephone devices, therefore the terrorists already knew we were listening in on their calls, and you’re shocked that the Times printed it!’
have I pretty much summed it up?
wait, thought of another:
‘this wasn’t even real-time financial record monitoring, they were old financial records obtained via subpoena, so they weren’t even dangerous or useful anymore!’
Hey Old Timer:
Do you get the difference between discussing the finance monitoring program in general (the sources you cite) vs. revealing details of said program via leaks provided by insiders (the NYT article)?
If that’s not good enough, try this one on for size: why would the co-chairs of the bilateral 9/11 Commission both urge the NYT not to publish? If the articles you cited were so damaging, don’t you think that the co-chairs (or administration officals) would have protested??
You know, in a war, there’s a BIG difference between telling your enemies “we’re keeping an eye on you” (not very specific; keeps them guessing) and telling them “we’re keeping an eye on you with our night vision goggles every night between 1:00–4:00 AM” (very specific information). Which kind of info did the NYT provide our enemies?
You guys that support the left’s position say: “revealing this info wasn’t THAT big a deal.” Oh really. How do you know that?? I think I’d rather believe the people who have more information about this than we’ll EVER have. If they say that this monitoring and tracking system is now worthless (when prior to the NYT story it was valuable), then I’ll go with their assessment of the damage done.
Oops. I forgot. We can’t believe ANYTHING the Bush administration tells us, right?
Chalk up another win for the Democrats.
Posted by: ted at June 28, 2006 12:59 PM
—————————————————————
And the terrorists!
Posted by: The Listkeeper at June 28, 2006 01:03 PM
Damn guys, I didn’t know there was a difference.
Falze, your analysis of Lee, OTR, and JP2 utterly retarded analysis is dead on.
I asked Lee point blank in a previous thread whether or not he was a terrorist sympathizer. He refused to answer. So I have no problem branding him as a traitorous idiot (if not just an outright troll).
Cousin Dave, I’m an old man, but if Osama bin Laden was in front of me I’d muster the strength to put him to his final rest.
That said, your statement is certainly perflexing. You presume a great many things by Lee’s silence. Perhaps he reacted as I did and thought “what an arrogant ass.”
Is that all you see?
I’m ashamed more and more to call myself a Conservative, it you are one too.
Truly. Do you have any idea what you are saying? Because someone disagrees with you they are a teerrorist sympathizer?
Shameful.
There’s a pretty huge difference between talking about watching finances in a general matter, and naming specifics.
Not harmful: “We’re trying to track the movement of money between terrorist parties around the world.” This has been general knowledge for a while.
Harmful: “We’re tracking terrorist money transfers that utilize the SWIFT program.” Why? Because it names specifically what tool is used, and if you’re trying to elude notice, then you won’t want to use the banks in that program for your finances. While it may be one the most common program, not all banks are part of it. Use a non-SWIFT bank.
The devil’s in the details. Much like the difference between “We are going to liberate France.” and “We’re going to liberate France on June 6th by storming the beaches of Normandy, utilizing Naval Bombardment, Paratroopers, Rangers, Amphibious Crafts and a large number of soldiers.”
Why the NYT would go ahead and publish secret material (which it knew was secret) for an effective, lawful program with safeguards against abuse is just baffling. Since the previous leaks of classified intel haven’t been prosecuted, I guess they figured it’s all fair game in their war against the administration.
Lee’s claim that the democrats would do it better reeks of the Kerryesque “same but better” vagueness. How doesn’t matter. It’d magically be better just because a democrat was behind the wheel. Such tripe.
I asked Lee point blank in a previous thread whether or not he was a terrorist sympathizer. He refused to answer. So I have no problem branding him as a traitorous idiot (if not just an outright troll).
Cousin Dave, I’m an old man, but if Osama bin Laden was in front of me I’d muster the strength to put him to his final rest.
That said, your statement is certainly perflexing. You presume a great many things by Lee’s silence. Perhaps he reacted as I did and thought “what an arrogant ass.”
Or perhaps Lee did not even read your comment. Thought of that have you?
But, to start calling others traitors… You shame this great nation Cousin Dave. You shame it greatly.
I served my country in Korea, and saw many a thing which no man should ever had to witness. That’s a fact.
But call a fellow American a traitor for his beliefs? That’s un-American sir.
Is that all you see?
I’m ashamed more and more to call myself a Conservative, it you are one too.
Truly. Do you have any idea what you are saying? Because someone disagrees with you they are a teerrorist sympathizer?
Shameful.
Thanks, Thrush.
You said what I was trying to say in a much better manner.
Thrush,
Your analogy is just wrong.
Not harmful: “We’re trying to track the movement of money between terrorist parties around the world.” This has been general knowledge for a while.
Harmful: “We’re tracking terrorist money transfers that utilize the SWIFT program.” Why? Because it names specifically what tool is used, and if you’re trying to elude notice, then you won’t want to use the banks in that program for your finances. While it may be one the most common program, not all banks are part of it. Use a non-SWIFT bank.
This is wrong because when you use the SWIFT service, every transaction comes with a disclaimer which you have to sign. It reads: “SWIFT has a history of cooperating in good faith with authorities such as central banks, treasury departments, law enforcement agencies and appropriate international organisations, such as the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), in their efforts to combat abuse of the financial system for illegal activities.”
And, I’ve seen it in Arabic as well. (In the Holy Land of all places.)
You are grasping at straws.
This story just gets more and more ridiculous every second.
And, ummm, just for the record, the FATF program does not use only SWIFT. It monitors transfers by point of origin and destination as well from non-SWIFT services.
SWIFT was the one mentioned in the NYT articles.