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SWIFT Story, Slow Republicans

Certain Republicans have tried to make the case that it was okay for the White House to leak the identity of a CIA operative, during time of war, because it may have been generally known before and, in any case they say, she was no longer undercover. Hence, there was no need to investigate nor prosecute anyone, including the Vice President of the United States who, allegedly authorized the leak.

Hence, it is interesting to see some of these same Republicans reacting to the recent NY Times story about how the US has been monitoring financial transactions as a way to track terrorists.

These Republicans are calling for the prosecution of those at the Times as well as any individuals who may have leaked the information. The problem is, according to this Boston Globe article, the information was already widely disseminated by, now wait for it, the White House and others in the Bush administration. In fact, the administration has been crowing about how it was doing all these great things, including the specific operation reported in the Times, seemingly without care as to who might be listening.

Can you say Rush Limbaugh-level hypocrites? I knew that you could.

Aloha!

Comments (1)

sjon:

Swift is based in Brussels and reports to the Belgian National Bank. They knew all along and late last year they informed some government ministers. No one thought it important enough to mention to the press. And now those same ministers are reacting indignant and surprised.
The main thing is that Swift only handles international transaction information (and not even data about amounts) so most people (including journalists) here don't see the problem. They don't do international financial transactions so it doesn't concern them, now does it?
The point nobody sees or mentions is that the data from Swift is useless. Unless you can link it to other data gathered from other inter-banking organisations/connections. I think that if the CIA is interested in Swift it means it has access to the other data as well.

I am always losing bank statements, maybe I should call the CIA to get reprints :(

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