[Infowarrior] - White House Says Tracking Bank Data Deters Terror

[Richard Forno]

June 23, 2006
White House Says Tracking Bank Data Deters Terror
By ERIC LICHTBLAU and SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/23/washington/23cnd-react.html?ei=5094&en=9d9
f4dbd36e17ed4&hp=&ex=1151121600&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print

WASHINGTON, June 23 ‹ The White House on Friday vigorously defended a secret
program of combing through a vast international data base containing banking
transactions involving thousands of Americans. Vice President Dick Cheney
and other officials said the program, whose existence was revealed today in
an article in The New York Times, was both legal and necessary to deter
terrorism.

Treasury Secretary John Snow, in his first public remarks about the program,
called it "government at its best." He told reporters that the operation,
first disclosed today in The New York Times, was carefully controlled to
trace only those transactions with an identifiable link to possible
terrorist activity.

"There can't be any doubt about the fact that the program is an effective
weapon, an effective weapon in the larger war on terror," he said. "It's for
that reason that these disclosures of the particular sources and methods are
so regrettable."

Separately, President Bush's spokesman, Tony Snow, said the program complies
with "the letter and spirit of the law." He said members of Congressional
intelligence committees had been apprised of the program, though he did not
provide specifics.

Mr. Snow derided criticisms of the program as "entirely abstract in nature."
He said it had been subjected to outside auditing, and that the president
did not need to seek authorization from Congress for it.

"Let me tell you why this is important: it works," Mr. Snow said. "It is
sought only for terrorism investigations. A series of safeguards have been
put in place."

The banking consortium, known as Swift, that maintains the database gave no
sign today that it was rethinking its relationship with the American
government, despite the sudden glare of publicity aimed at an organization
that generally keeps a very low profile.

Prior to publication of the article, some backers of the program had
expressed concerns that Swift, based in Brussels, could be prompted to pull
out of the program if its role were revealed ‹ particularly in light of
sharp anti-American sentiments in parts of Europe. But an official with
Swift, speaking on condition of anonymity, said today that there had been
"no discussions" about a withdrawal.

Still, there were indications of possible disagreements between Swift and
the American government over the group's role and how it came to cooperate.

Swift has said that its role in the program was never voluntary, that it was
obligated to comply with a valid subpoena presented by American officials,
and that it worked to narrow the range of data it provided.

But Secretary Snow offered a different account at a news conference today.
He said that after the Sept. 11 attacks, Treasury officials initially
presented Swift with "really narrowly crafted subpoenas all tied to
terrorism," only to be told by Swift that it did not have the ability to
"extract the particular information from their broad data base."

"So they said, 'we'll give you all the data,' " Secretary Snow said.

News of the program's existence renewed concerns about civil liberties first
raised last year when The Times reported on another secret program,
conducted by the National Security Agency, involving eavesdropping on
telephone communications without court warrants.

Both disclosures prompted complaints to the administration from members of
Congress, who are calling for more oversight, and from advocates for civil
liberties.

"I am very concerned that the Bush Administration may be once again
violating the Constitutional rights of innocent Americans, as part of
another secret program created in the aftermath of the Sept. 11th attacks,"
Representative Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat who has made privacy a
signature issue, said in a statement.

The executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, Anthony D.
Romero, condemned the program, calling it "another example of the Bush
administration's abuse of power."

But Mr. Snow, the White House press secretary, said Americans by and large
supported the eavesdropping program.

"You can go ahead and look at your own polling, and you will find that
Americans ‹ if somebody says, 'Do you want a program that listens in on
people who have been identified as al Qaeda terrorists?' ‹ the answer would
be, 'Yes, I would like to do that. I would like to find data on it.' "

The press secretary made his remarks during a lengthy morning briefing,
during which he at times grew uncharacteristically testy. At one point, he
accused news organizations like CNN, The New York Times and The Los Angeles
Times of collecting personal data from visitors to their web sites without
disclosing it. At another, he grew exasperated when Helen Thomas, a longtime
White House correspondent, interrupted him, and told her to "stop heckling
and let me conduct the press conference."