It’s not deliberate. I can’t think of a single way for people to use the international banking system differently than they are likely already using it. You indicated you thought it was likely they would find another way. Help an unimaginative brother out.
Okay. So the government can have secrets. Good. Now, then, why was it so important that this one be revealed? and what was gained?
Should we have, as a general operating procedure, a secret force watching us all the time? No. Should we be able to erect secret forces in order to achieve tightly defined goals? Yes. I’d say we should have one going after pedophiles. And, certainly, terrorists.
Then I think we’ve reached a philisophical impasse. While the activities of some government entities need to be kept secret, I strongly disagree that the entities themselves should ever be secret. To me, it’s too high a price to pay.
But it isn’t a question of a general concept, it’s a question of specific information. If the government knows that terrorists are using banks A, B and C to launder funds for their operations, they can monitor the situation and perhaps acquire valuable information about what the terrorists are up to. But if the terrorists know that banks A, B and C are being watched, they can move their operations to banks X, Y and Z. Weeks, months or years worth of intelligence may be lost while the government re-acquires the target, assuming it ever can re-acquire the target. It’s one thing to know that you are almost certainly being watched; but having specific details as to how you’re being watched is much more valuable to you.
It is exasperating that anyone would claim not to understand this.
No, but in this particular case there’s virutally no equivalence whatsoever.
Try again.
If you think your cover’s been blown, you just create or find a different cover. If you think your accounts in one set of banks are being watched, you set up new accounts in different banks. If you think that the cops are watching the guy who launders your money, you find someone else to launder your money. If one neighborhood gets too hot, you move to another neighborhood. Is that really so hard to understand? Why in the world do you think they have to find an entirely new method to move their funds?
It is very hard for me to believe that you aren’t being willfully stupid.
And I’m sure they’d LOVE the fact that their memories are being exploited by people like you, asshat.
Der Trihs, you’re an embarassment to most of us lefties here. Shut up.
Leaper, for fuck’s sake, not everything is either or. Perspective, goddammit. Jesus, way to mix the slippery slope with the excluded middle-not everyone can combine logical fallacies so beautifully as you have.
Because, as I understand the situation, the Times did not report that the U.S. is monitoring Bank of America. It reported that the U.S. is monitoring all international banking transactions between the U.S. and somewhere else. How do you switch banks in that scenario?
How stupid can you be? I would assume they’re watching all of the banks. Not to mention, that sudden withdrawals would be a major red flag.
Jesus, you’re thick.
The equivalence is that sanctimonious, self-important fools damage valuable intelligence assets.
If you really can’t comprehend that the terror networks have the services of people intimately familiar with world financial systems as well as assistance from states such as Syria and Iran to help them find ways to move their money around, then you are the one who’s being thick.
Actually, it has been discussed pretty thoroughly in GD since the story broke.
As to the claims put forth by those who wish to take Bush and company at their word:
The fact that the administration and one of their Congressional lapdogs has made a big deal about going after the NYT while ignoring the fact that the WSJ was not even asked to withhold the story pretty much puts the lie to the idea that the administration’s complaints are serious. It is mere partisan showmanship. Appealing to competitive spirit or capitalism does not justify it. If it was truly a matter of national security, the WSJ should have sat on the story–or, at least, waited until the NYT story had already hit the streets and then been careful to publish no more information than the NYT instead of rushing to get their story out on the very same day. (And at the very least, if it had truly been a matter of national security, the government agency that made impassioned in-person pleas to two separate newspapers to suppress the story should have at least dropped a phone call or an e-mail to the WSJ–which they did not.) A story this big (or, at least, as big as it has become with the whining by the adminstration) is not really going to bring in less advertising revenue by having been published 24 hours later.
The program is not dead. There is no reason to believe that it is even compromised. Exactly the same transactions that were tracked by SWIFT last week will be tracked by SWIFT next week and the only way to avoid it is to send hundreds of couriers around the world with briefcases stuffed full of cash–and that would actually bring more such transfers to the surface as they got nailed in airport after airport, revealing not just the bank accounts but also the senders and receivers.
By doing this openly, there will be fewer cases where a Spain or an Italy will be forced by their voters to withdraw from the “War on Terror” because the voters are tired of having their country linked to the illegal machinations of the rogue government in Washington, D.C. (And if this story had been broken by El Mundo, Il Tempo, Stern, or Le Monde and they had not emphasized that no laws were being violated (that we know of, yet), there would have been a lot more pressure on various European governments to take action to prevent SWIFT from complying with the U.S. requests.)
Or did you mean the Undersecretary of Treasury for Enforcement, perhaps?
These are not the secrets that you are looking for.
Newsflash for the dishonest and the dense: mentioning does not equal exploiting. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re have a debate a a program that’s trying to stop another 3,000 people from being blown up.
Just how fucking dumb can you be?
Libby has been indicted. In other words, Fitz felt that there was sufficient evidence of deliberate misrepresentation to go for a “he lied to me” charge.
Because some people, inckluding the National Review (wow. I’m impressed) was calling for arrests and charges. Also, the real wingnuts were calling it treason and demanding long prison terms.
If so, it would be very useful. It could not only be used to catch terrorists, but also organized crime bosses. However, depending on whose reports you belive, there are tens of thousands of bank acounts being followed. Are there really that many Jackals or Godfathers out there? It doesn’t even have to be a secret program. I also have doubts about the security of the information (re the lost records from the Veterans Administration, and the records of national guard members that “disappeared”. It’s easy to flag large transactions. Just look for big dollar values, or whatever the signs of money laundering are. Then, get a warrant. Now that would be reasonable - however the dragnet apporach is no good.
Yes, nut no one has been charged with what he claimed. And there may not have even been a crime, leaving Libby to serve time for lying in a case in which no crime was committed.
Charges for what? The comment you responded to had to do with the recent financial tracking program.
They claim that it has worked. And I haven’t heard that refuted. Do you know different?
Apparently they do. No one addressed this comment:
I think that it may have been on Hardball today that they showed a clip of President Bush saying that the Treasury Department was monitoring international financial records. I will see if I can find a transcript or catch a rerun. The clip may have been from last September.
There was also a book published around June 20 that mentioned the financial monitoring. It takes quite a while to put a book through the publishing process so the info has been around for some time.
I’m for outing any President that appears to be in violation of the Constitution or is unable to explain sufficiently to the editors and publishers the necessity for longterm lying to the American public.
I certainly turned on a very liberal President for his war-related lies during the Sixties.
You don’t actually know anything about international finance, do you? You’re pretty much just making shit up in an attempt to smear liberals, right?
Right.
Treason. Violation of the Espionage Act.
Amazing.
Post #139.