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

The Bush administration says we should not worry about inappropriate snooping into private citizens' affairs because the administration has hired people to audit its activities.

In other words, the wolves are now auditing themselves, to make sure that they only eat sheep when it is "appropriate."

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Jun 25 2006, 07:11 AM) [snapback]276452[/snapback]</div>

Financial data is not protected constitutionally, nor should it be.

The question is whether the NY Times should be held responsible for the release of classified data during wartime. I think they should.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fshagan @ Jun 25 2006, 12:05 PM) [snapback]276560[/snapback]</div>

This naive faith that the gov't should know everything about everybody, without independent and impartial oversight, scares the willies out of me.

To all those childishly trusting enough to think they they haven't got any financial data to hide:

Let's say that two years ago you mailed a check for $50 to the "International Aid For Starving Sudanese Children" in response to a mass mailed flyer you received. The flyer showed heart-breaking pictures and claimed the support of the Red Cross and the endorsement of the US gov't. You were feeling magnanimous that day and scribbled out a check. You even put a stamp over the postage paid logo to save them postage.

What didn't realize, nor COULD realize, because the gov't keeps everything secret, was that the "International Aid For Starving Sudanese Children" was a false front fund raising entity operated by bin Laden out of one of his cell's safe houses in Florida.

The gov't now has unimpeachable proof you sent financial aid to a known (to the gov't, on one of its secret lists) terrorist organization.

Still comfortable?

Now perhaps this would never be a problem for someone on the right because giving to charity violates the essence of the right's doctrine of self-reliance, so that no one on the right would ever give a dime to any charity under any circumstances, but for ordinary people who like to do a good deed once in a while, this scenario is an all too real possibility.

If you ain't scared, you ain't got your eyes open.

Mark Baird
Alameda CA

 

From what I heard on the news, the government was only monitoring transcactions to and from overseas banks and accounts of terror suspects.

Since most of us don't have overseas accounts or move money to and from foreign banks, I don't think most of us need to worry.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(barbaram @ Jun 25 2006, 04:03 PM) [snapback]276633[/snapback]</div>

It used to be that if you were "suspected" of something, the cops had to present some evidence to a judge, and the judge would decide if the evidence warranted an arrest or secret prying into your affairs.

Now, however, all the government has to do is claim (without any evidence whatsoever, with no checks or balances) that a person is a "terror" suspect, and he loses all his rights to due process, suddenly the government no longer has to present any evidence to a judge, suddenly that person can be tossed in jail forever and never get a phone call, a lawyer, or a hearing before a judge.

Yes, the government claims it's only investigating "terror" suspects, but without independent oversight by the courts, or any sort of checks or balances, they can actually do whatever they please. This is unconstitutional usurpation of power by the administration.

Sure, few of us have international dealings, but if they get away with this, next it will be interstate, and then it will local, and before you know it, they'll be investigating the Boy Scouts to make sure none of them is sending his allowance to the Sierra Club to protect wilderness areas from Big Oil. Because anybody who stands in the way of Big Oil is a threat to national security.

 

If only the guilty had any need for privacy, why did the framers of the Constituition put it in the Bill of Rights? Were they just stupid, and we need a new Constitution?

Your rights don't get taken away all at once. They're taken away oen by one, until you have nothing left but insurrection. A strength of our country is the ability for dissidents to disagree WITHOUT fear of reprisal. What was the famous quote (that I'm misquoting here...)

"When they came for **** I said nothing. When they came for **** I said nothing. When they came for me, there was no one left to say anything."

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(gschoen @ Jun 26 2006, 04:25 PM) [snapback]276973[/snapback]</div>

Still waiting for anyone to name one civil liberty we have had taken away from us.
Still waiting for anyone to name one lawsuit brought forth by any U.S. citizen related to any loss of Constitutionally granted rights or liberties.
Still would like to hear your opinion on Hamden vs. Rumsfeld; and your views of granting POW's we hold habeus corpus rights or protections afforded U.S. citizens.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dbermanmd @ Jun 26 2006, 04:35 PM) [snapback]276978[/snapback]</div>

I'm still waiting also!!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(airportkid @ Jun 25 2006, 12:43 PM) [snapback]276579[/snapback]</div>

You can certainly make an argument that privacy is absolute, and I'm actually sympathetic to that argument. However, the current law is that constitutional protections of privacy do not attach to financial transactions. If you would like to change that, you certainly can work on doing just that; that's how our system works.

We also have a principle in our law, and in our Constitution, that limits the effect of applying a standard "ex post facto" or "after the fact". You cannot claim that the Bush Administration violated constitutionally protected privacy rights prior to the point that you have established them. To do so is to be intellectually dishonest, as the beginning of this thread is ... by listing just the "incident" without any explanation, the post leads people to believe this is an erosion of civil rights.

It is not. We can make it a civil right, but it isn't as of now.

And, by the way, conservatives are usually found to be more generous with their money than liberals. The "red state" volunteerism is higher than the "blue state" volunteerism, as is charitable giving. And if you believe the lie that all Republicans are "rich", we are also paying more in taxes.

You can say liberals do give more to terrorists if you want.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Jun 26 2006, 10:10 AM) [snapback]276790[/snapback]</div>

Big Oil is the culprit!! Big Oil! Big Oil! What the hell is Big Oil??? Why does everyone hate Big Oil? Are we better off with Little Oil?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(barbaram @ Jun 25 2006, 07:03 PM) [snapback]276633[/snapback]</div>

darn it, i shouldnt wire $10000 to my cousin in China to help him start his business.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Clar @ Jun 26 2006, 04:14 PM) [snapback]277040[/snapback]</div>

All transactions $10,000 and over must be reported BY LAW. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency_transaction_report

Note also more information on the law requiring such transactions:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_Secrecy_Act

The important thing to remember is that the NY Times and LA Times are NOT saying this program violates any existing law, nor are they saying any rights are being violated. No authoritative source has claimed it violates law.

Their huge corporations will knowingly violate US law, during a time of war, and reveal as much as they can about our secret AND legal activities to prevent further terrorist attacks on our soil for their own ends. They do this because they are blinded by greed to sell more papers, and competitive zeal to win more Pulitzers, even if it means you and I will lie dying on the street in front of a crumbling building. Then they will take the government to task for "intelligence failures" that they helped precipitate.

At the very least, Congress should have a "Sense of the House" and a "Sense of the Senate" resolution deploring the elevation of greed and raw ambition above respect for the nation, and for the laws of the nation. Both the NY Times and the LA Times reporters should be called before a grand jury to disclose their sources, and if they don't, they should be jailed for contempt until they do. The people who leaked this program are traitors, and should be tried as such.

 

Part of the problem is a lot of people live in a "theoretical" world. Well, you're theoretical world is being invaded by REAL terrorists.

God help our wonderful country.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(imntacrook @ Jun 26 2006, 04:04 PM) [snapback]277032[/snapback]</div>

You are trivializing my point, which was that by accusing people of "terror" the government claims it can hold them indefinitely, without due process. And that the government can accuse anyone it does not like of being a terrorist. If there is no due process, we have no way of knowing if the person is actually a terrorist, or is just opposed to whatever corporation happens to have the government in its pocket at the moment. And if there is no due process, it could arrest you some day, because you happened to oppose some vested interest. It would tell everyone you are a terrorist, and because you are a terrorist, you have no right to go before a judge and argue that you are not a terrorist. And because the government accuses you of being a terrorist, it does not have to prove that you are a terrorist, because a "terror suspect" no longer has the right of due process.

That's the slippery slope. And that's what the Founding fathers wanted to prevent when they added the Bill of Rights to the Constitution. GWB does not like the Bill of Rights, so he uses "terror" as an excuse to try to dismantle it.

 

funny, i've always been under the impression that republicans were about the government keeping its *&$^ nose out of my business...

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(galaxee @ Jun 26 2006, 11:37 PM) [snapback]277178[/snapback]</div>

Ya know, over time I have noticed the "political/social" posts of yours getting more and more "left". Have you been gradually warming up to posting your true thoughts..or have you let the "lefties" on the forum influence you? Really, I am curious. From what you have described about your upbringing..it seems odd to me. You used to be much more "right" in social issues.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(barbaram @ Jun 25 2006, 04:03 PM) [snapback]276633[/snapback]</div>

It would be nice if that were so. This is from Newsweek (online, via MSNBC):

The disclosure of the overseas program—under which Treasury Department officials have tapped into the records of a vast Belgian-based international financial database called Swift (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications)—has kicked up a storm of controversy. Some critics have decried the program as another example of the administration's invasion of privacy in the name of the war on terror. At the same time, President Bush today condemned as "disgraceful" the disclosure of the operation, which intended to help the government track overseas money movements of suspected terrorists. "For people to leak that program, and for a newspaper to publish it, does great harm to the United States of America,†Bush told reporters in Washington.

But the international program is only one part of a much broader, if little publicized, Treasury Department effort to probe suspect financial records—including thousands of bank accounts, wire transfers and other transactions involving individuals, companies and nonprofit organizations inside the United States.

Under a section of the USA Patriot Act passed by Congress in the aftermath of the September 11 terror attacks, Treasury officials were given new powers to direct U.S. banks and other financial institutions to search their records for accounts or transactions involving any individuals or groups who come under scrutiny during investigations of terrorism and money laundering cases.

Although it has received little attention, the Patriot Act program has produced a wealth of previously unavailable financial data that has been shared with U.S. law enforcement agencies—without any notice to the account holders who are being investigated.

-------------- End of article quote --------------

With the administration's ability to take anybody, label them a "terrorist", and put them into indefinate limbo without any justification or due process, everyone has something to worry about (unless you trust the government to never make mistakes).

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(davidf @ Jun 26 2006, 11:52 PM) [snapback]277190[/snapback]</div>

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<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(galaxee @ Jun 26 2006, 11:37 PM) [snapback]277178[/snapback]</div>

That is very true - but we're not opposed to the government sticking its nose in the terrorists business!

 

:lol:

imntacrook for PRESIDENT!!!!


B)