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Whoa! I almost let this go.
What makes you think the NSA and SWIFT programs are something the President has done to advance our objectives in the war in Afghanistan?
I recognized it a long time ago.
Unless you can produce an American citizen that has been harmed by any of these programs I'm going to say that, while there may be reasonable disagreement over the President's exercise of authority in these programs, that they are questions that should wait until after hostilities have cease or, at the very least, until you have a harmed party, with standing, that can bring suit.
Otherwise, you're just screeching in the wind and undermining the prosecution of a war.
Whoa! I almost let this go.
What makes you think the NSA and SWIFT programs are something the President has done to advance our objectives in the war in Afghanistan?
No harm, no foul?
It's interesting to read a proposal that the Cons ution be so lightly disregarded.
I don't. I said quite unequivocally that I support the action the President has taken in Afghanistan. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here.
The action in Afghanistan involves the use of and is dependent upon intelligence programs such as SWIFT and the NSA Surveillance programs.
I don't think the Cons ution has been lightly disregarded; either in the Article II powers of the President or the Fourth Amendment protections against UNREASONABLE searches or seizures.
It's not a "no harm, no foul" position, it's a position that recognizes there are disagreements over this but, unless it's causing harm, let's resolve the disagreement at a time when our bickering doesn't undermine a valuable intelligence asset during a time of war.
I know, it's not as "catchy" as no harm, no foul; but, it's my position. And, the position of many.
Again, what public interest was served by the New York Times leak of the SWIFT Program?
I'm still trying to understand the public interest served by revealing the SWIFT program.
The New York Times would now have us believe that everyone but you and me knew about the “closely held” SWIFT surveillance program. Well, you, me, and Hambali the Bali Bomber, whom we arrested in 2003:
Let’s look at the public record and put a name to one of those “persons”, shall we? I happened upon this CBC broadcast story about the strange journeys of an apparent Al-Qaeda bag man, Canadian Mohammed Mansour Jabarah, who helped Hambali plan the Bali nightclub bombing in 2002:
It looks like Jabarah and the unnamed Al-Qaeda money man in Kuala Lumpur may have been the other two parties identified by Swift surveillance, and that Jabarah was the “link” who met with Hambali in Thailand and tipped off the authorities. In which case that makes at least four terrorists identified by the program.
The fourth being (according to Risen and Lichtblau) Uzair Paracha, a Pakistani man arrested in Manhattan in 2003 and thought to be a financial conduit for Al-Qaeda. Curiously, authorities attributed Paracha’s arrest to information received from the interrogation of Al-Qaeda mastermind Khaled Sheikh Mohammed*, and not to the surveillance of the Swift data, the closely-held open secret that everybody knew about, except for you, me, and four terrorists (apparently including Al-Qaeda’s chief financial officer in Southeast Asia, whom you would think would know about this sort of thing if anybody would.)
Oh, maybe we should make that five, because Paracha’s father Saifullah Paracha, was arrested in Thailand and is now in Guantanamo:
So maybe the authorities thought that if the program had already caught three money men, a courier, and a major terrorist organizer there might be one or two more Al-Qaeda operatives somewhere in the world who hadn’t gotten the memo about the Swift program surveillance…and so it might be a good idea to keep it a secret.
Then, if you watched the "Vent," by Mic e Malkin, I linked to in another thread you find out not only were the Parachas financing terror, they were helping terrorist Majid Khan return illegally into the country to carry out the gas station bombing. Paracha Jr. even posed as Khan on the phone to INS and picked up Khan’s mail in Baltimore.
In other words, SWIFT monitoring not only led to the arrests of the five or six terrorists detailed here, but if it brought Uzair Paracha to light…
…then SWIFT monitoring disrupted a terrorist attack on the United States.
But the terrorists won’t be so careless next time. Thanks, New York Times!
You know, looking back over that CBC story linked above, I notice that Mohammed Mansour Jabarah’s brother Abdul Rahman Jabarah was also an Al Qaeda operative who was killed by Saudi police in 2003. His father told him in 2002 that the Canadian police were looking for him. Since Mohammed Jabarah was apparently discovered through Swift monitoring, and was being tracked and followed, and both brothers were wanted by the time they met in Dubai in January 2002, it seems logical that Swift surveillance of one Jabarah brother led to the revelation of the other as well—bringing the total to six terrorists probably identified and/or stopped by the secret Swift program. How many more leads these six that we know about turned up, we’ll never know—especially since all of their associates are now busily covering their tracks now that they realize how the Infidel Crusader CIA has been tracking them down and picking them off.
"Thanks, New York Times!"
and WSJ, the ing hippies!
Have any of you ever wired money overseas? ime, a simple phone call to my bank the in US or other countries is not enough. There must be a face-to-facd, or a fax or other backing do ent and and verifications before the bank will execute the transfer order.
Could any terrorist, charged with handling al-Quaida funds, be so stupid and uninstructed by the al-Qaida leaders, and already living a paranoid life in the shadows, as NOT to know every that EFT was not being recorded and monitored?
If any terrorist were so stupid, he is now necessarily informed ONLY because of the press? GMAFB
The right-wingers are trying extremely desparately to blow this affair up as a fog to try cover all all the horrible news from Iraq, still bloodily in its eternal "last throes" of insurgency, sectarian civil war, infiltrated Iraqi police/army, and a defunct, still-born Iraqi government.
Last edited by boutons_; 07-12-2006 at 05:44 PM.
::bump::
Or go to the nearest money exchange guy and he will handle it for a
slight fee. There is a name for these folks, but cant think of it right
off hand. Banks aren't the only way to handle international transfer of
funds.
Yeah, the Muslims have a fairly intricate system of moving money back and forth.
And, yes boutons, they're that stupid. Read some of the posts, we actually captured a fairly big terrorist using SWIFT.
But, that's really all beside the point because, I'm only really wanting the answer to one question.
What public interest was served by revealing the SWIFT program after the government made a case for not doing so?
I might do otherwise, but Yoni has me on ignore because he knows that I will kick his rhetorical ass.
SOOOOO I will simply stick to satirizing him, and showing him for the fool that he is.
Ignoring the bit about the administration bragging about the program long before the story?
http://mediamatters.org/items/200606290006Further, as Media Matters for America previously noted, the cooperative effort to track terrorist financing between the banking consortium known as the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) and the U.S. government was a matter of public record long before the Times detailed the Treasury program, and government officials have previously stated that a shift had been observed in the way terror suspects moved money. Levey, the Treasury Department's undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, testified before Congress on September 22, 2004, that the government had begun "working closely" with the international Financial Action Task Force to interdict terrorist organizations' increased use of cash. Levey said, "As the formal and informal financial sectors become increasingly inhospitable to financiers of terrorism, we have witnessed an increasing reliance by Al Qaida and terrorist groups on cash couriers. The movement of money via cash couriers is now one of the principal methods that terrorists use to move funds.
But Bob Kerrey, a member of the 9/11 commission and former Democratic senator from Nebraska, took a different view, saying that if the news reports drive terrorists out of the banking system, that could actually help the counterterrorism cause.
"If we tell people who are potential criminals that we have a lot of police on the beat, that's a substantial deterrent," said Mr. Kerrey, now president of New School University. If terrorists decide it is too risky to move money through official channels, "that's very good, because it's much, much harder to move money in other ways," Mr. Kerrey said.
There is growing debate about whether the disclosures aided terrorists or added to the government's burden. Victor Comras, a retired diplomat and consultant on terrorism financing, said he finds it "doubtful" that the disclosure had much impact because many terrorists have taken steps in recent years to mask their transactions, aware they might be under surveillance.
"I can understand why people are upset when any classified information is leaked, but I wouldn't call this a major damage to our national security or to the war on terror," Comras said in an interview. "A terrorist would have to be pretty dumb not to know that this was happening."
Quite frankly, I don't really mind the SWIFT program. It seems to be a fairly good thing from all that I have read.
It is the illegal wire taps that piss me off, and quite frankly scare the bejeesus out of me for the simple fact that the administration has proven itself to not care about the law. Nixon thought he was above the law too, and executive overreaching should worry anybody with common sense.
It only takes one fire at the Reichstag... Machtergreifung anyone?
Last edited by RandomGuy; 07-14-2006 at 09:07 PM.
I'm sure everyone is impressed by your internet forum machismo.
Why thank you.
Oh yeah. I'm impressed.
It's the Tom Tommorrow Cartoons we should worry about.
(amused)
It was very obvious bait. I would love to actually mull things over in a more grown up fashion.
BUT
The ignore thing makes it hard to make a point. It is the equivalent of putting ones fingers in ones ears, closing one's eyes and saying "NYA-LA-LA-LA, I can't hear you."
As I said, if there is no engagement, there is only satire. Or maybe the creation of a few alter-egos
(amused)
It was very obvious bait. I would love to actually mull things over in a more grown up fashion.
BUT
The ignore thing makes it hard to make a point. It is the equivalent of putting ones fingers in ones ears, closing one's eyes and saying "NYA-LA-LA-LA, I can't hear you."
As I said, if there is no engagement, there is only satire. Or maybe the creation of a few alter-egos
I don't know why Yoni ignores you, but i noticed that it could be that when you debate, you are a very pretentious person and are very ingenious.
Ingenious? Are you sure you know the definition of that word?
I put him on ignore because he epitomizes my signature.
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