US tracking all international payments/remittances

eek. · Jun 23, 2006

For those of you not familiar with SWIFT, it's a pretty darned big system
...actually it doesn't get any bigger really.

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<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=629 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD colSpan=3>US secretly tracked bank records

</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top width=416><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=203 align=right border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>

Tens of thousands of transactions were scrutinised

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>US officials have confirmed the existence of a secret programme which has been tracking international money transactions for nearly five years.
The scheme, which has sifted huge amounts of data from an international banking consortium, was revealed by the New York Times newspaper on Friday.
The US Treasury says the programme was strictly confined to the records of suspected foreign terrorists.
US officials have insisted it was "a legal and proper use" of their powers. 
Although there is no direct connection, the programme has echoes of a recently revealed US surveillance programme in which millions of international and domestic phone calls and e-mails were monitored.
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</TD><TD class=sibtbg> The administration's extraordinary access to this vast repository of international financial data... is a matter of public interest

Bill Keller
New York Times

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The financial tracking scheme was initiated in the aftermath of the 11 September 2001 attacks on the US using emergency powers invoked by President George W Bush, the New York Times revealed.
It spoke to some 20 anonymous current or former government officials or industry executives.
Swift
The government used powers of administrative subpoena to compel the Brussels-based banking co-operative, Swift, to open its records.
Swift - the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication - links about 7,800 financial institutions around the world, including virtually every major bank and brokerage. It is said to handle about $6 trillion (£3.24 trillion) daily, mostly through wire transfers.
The programme was run by the CIA and overseen by the Treasury department.
Officials said when the programme began, the records of Muslims with names which resembled those of suspected al-Qaeda members were collected.
But they said its scope had narrowed after intelligence operatives were flooded with information, much of it useless.
'Robust controls'
The officials said the programme had helped in the capture of a senior al-Qaeda figure in Southeast Asia.
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</TD><TD class=sibtbg> We are disappointed... the New York Times has chosen to expose a classified programme that is working to protect Americans

Dana Perino,
White House spokeswoman

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
Stuart Levey, undersecretary of the Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, confirmed the existence of the programme after it became clear the New York Times was set to publish the story.
He told the Washington Post newspaper the government had "put into place very robust controls to make sure we are only using this information for anti-terrorism purposes".
"We can only search the data we receive in furtherance of a terrorism lead. In fact, the analysts who have access to the data can't even access the database unless they type in the search they want to do and articulate why it's connected to terrorism."
Mr Levey said the programme was "without doubt a legal and proper use of our authorities".
White House fire
But there were reservations among some officials who worked on the programme, with some suggesting it was inappropriate for an urgent, apparently temporary programme to remain in operation for years without formal or congressional authorisation.
Meanwhile, the New York Times came under fire from the White House for revealing the programme.
"We are disappointed that once again the New York Times has chosen to expose a classified programme that is working to protect Americans," said spokeswoman Dana Perino. "We know that al-Qaeda watches for any clue as to how we are fighting the war on terrorism and then they adapt, which increases the challenge to our intelligence and law enforcement officials." But the newspaper's executive editor Bill Keller said: "We remain convinced that the administration's extraordinary access to this vast repository of international financial data, however carefully targeted use of it may be, is a matter of public interest."
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/5110282.stm

Anti-liberal · Jun 23, 2006

This was the headline story for The Al-New York Times today, while the Miami 7 bust was buried on page 22. NYT continues to shill and abet for Islamofascism. I would wipe my ass with that rag. I got a call a little while ago by a phone solicitor who wished to sell me a subscription to the New York Treasonous Times. Needless to say, I verbally tore the phone soliciter a new asshole, exercising my freedom of speech.

xpanda · Jun 23, 2006

Since the Feds can't even guarantee the security of people's personal information, this is most definitely a matter of public interest.

Government hit by rash of data breaches
By HOPE YEN, Associated Press Writer Thu Jun 22, 8:01 PM ET

WASHINGTON - The government agency charged with fighting identity theft said Thursday it had lost two government laptops containing sensitive personal data, the latest in a series of breaches encompassing millions of people.

(snip)

"Basically these were attorneys who were going to file a lawsuit, and they had relevant evidence on their laptops," Winston said, noting that the FTC employees did not violate security procedures by storing the password-protected laptops in their cars.

"We will be reassessing what procedures we have to make sure reasonable measures are taken to protect data," he said.

The disclosure comes amid a widening data breach that is expected to cost the government hundreds of millions of dollars. In all, five government agencies have reported data theft, including the Veterans Affairs Department, which on May 22 acknowledged losing data on up to 26.5 million veterans.

Among them:

• At the Agriculture Department, a hacker who broke into the computer system, obtaining names, Social Security numbers and photos of 26,000 Washington-area employees and contractors. Victims will be offered free credit monitoring for a year after the break-in in early June.

• At Health and Human Services, personal information for nearly 17,000 Medicare beneficiaries may have been compromised in April when an insurance company employee called up the data through a hotel computer and then failed to delete the file.

• At Energy, Social Security numbers and other data for nearly 1,500 people working for the National Nuclear Security Administration may have been compromised when a hacker gained entry to its computer system last fall. Officials said June 12 they had learned only recently of the breach.

(snip)

"The worst-case scenario is that the veterans file finds its way to a public distribution source, such as the Internet," said Mike Cook, a co-founder of a company specializing in data breaches.

"If this happens, the stolen identities will lose their connection to the VA data breach and groups of fraudsters might actively trade that data among the fraud community," he said. "More people might have access and could misuse those identities on a grander scale."

(snip)

There have been no reports of identity theft so far from the VA data breach, one of the nation's largest. But Nicholson acknowledged this week that authorities — who believe the burglars were not specifically targeting the sensitive data — are nowhere close to apprehending those responsible.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060623/ap_on_hi_te/data_thefts

kingbill · Jun 23, 2006

Anti-liberal said:
This was the headline story for The Al-New York Times today, while the Miami 7 bust was buried on page 22.

They should be busting these guys every day. It's shouldn't be front page news when law enforcement is doing what they are supposed to do.

SENDITIN · Jun 23, 2006

Since the Feds can't even guarantee the security of people's personal information, this is most definitely a matter of public interest.

I think Microsoft Windows XP has the same problem.

xpanda · Jun 23, 2006

SENDITIN said:
Since the Feds can't even guarantee the security of people's personal information, this is most definitely a matter of public interest.

I think Microsoft Windows XP has the same problem.

Of course the difference is, no one is being coerced, forced, tricked, or required by law to use Windows XP.

But, hey, if you want to compare voluntary use of insecure operating systems to involuntary servitude of insecure gov't data collection initiatives, go ahead.

So, what exactly is it, again, that you hate about socialists?

Conan · Jun 23, 2006

I fugure the NYT is trying to cozy up to every terrorist it can so they won't be the next to get hammered by the next plane or WMD (probably originally from Iraq) to hit the Big Apple. Why else tip off the terrorists to what's happening? It's not even unconstitutional or illegal in any way. So what's their beef? There can't be one. They are out for themselves first and foremost, the chickenshits.