The War Over "War Secrets": Why The NY Times Is Not Treasonous (Op/Ed)

Originally posted by Long Lance

Remember the Plame leak? If anything is treason, then this was.

REPLY: This has no bearing on the thread. However please do the research. Plame wasn't covert; no law was broken, and on and on.... In any case, even if what you wish to be true actually was, it's the breaking of a law, and does not fall under the wording of treason.

"There have been public references to SWIFT before," said Roger Cressey, a senior White House counterterrorism official until 2003.

REPLY: This is true and accurate. The real issue here is "the means by which the program was implimented', NOT the program, itself. THAT is what was presented by the NYT, and that is what is aiding the enemy, and might be considered treason.... possibly sedition.

Originally posted by zenlover28
[Duzey..i'm not wishing to debate you here on this which is why I didn't reply earlier.

Honestly, I don't want to debate this either. I'll leave you all to it. This is my last post on this topic and I hope the rest of you enjoy your discussion.

Just before I go: I am actually familiar with SWIFT and the tracking of laundered money. 12 years ago my employer (currency trader) got busted for that very thing, so I have first-hand experience is how the authorities and governments track this sort of thing. They have no need for SWIFT, as all SWIFT's information comes from the institutions who are members.

Why use SWIFT if you don't need to? Because you can access other countries financial records that would be protected by their laws without asking that country first? Maybe? Dunno.

Of course you say that SWIFT isn't the same SWIFT, just has the same name, does the same thing, and is the same thing, you just decide not to read it because it would expose the truth.

REPLY: You can believe what you want to, but this isn't the same as providing the DETAILS of how our counterinteligence is tracking terrorist money.

"Cooperating in the global fight against abuse of the financial system for illegal activities."

REPLY: That is true and is a good thing.
Swift doesn't just mean tracking terrorist money. It includes the mis-management or corruption amongst corporations and banking institutions, as the paragraph below describes:

[outside source] "SWIFT is the financial industry-owned co-operative supplying secure, standardised messaging services and interface software to 7,800 financial institutions in more than 200 countries. SWIFT's worldwide community includes banks, broker/dealers and investment managers, as well as their market infrastructures in payments, securities, treasury and trade."

GET A GRIP!!!

Originally posted by zappafan1

REPLY: This has no bearing on the thread. However please do the research. Plame wasn't covert; no law was broken, and on and on.... In any case, even if what you wish to be true actually was, it's the breaking of a law, and does not fall under the wording of treason.

Irrelevant, because financial surveillance is nothing new either, treason and even the definition of crime doesn't need to follow the lines of (current) law, think nuremberg trials. if people play along with any legislature thrown in their faces then this planet is in desperate need of a comet.

if this is a campaign to endorse censorship, it's a bit pointless anyway, because most corporate and gov't people would rather bite their tongues off before they say a single word that is simply true.

[edit on 29-6-2006 by Long Lance]

I'm really not trying to undermine your intelligence of SWIFT, Duzey. I guess i'm just having a hard time following you on this. They use it because it is the agreed upon method by the majority of the international community, no? Everything is highly documented and it is done by searches and then subpoenas are issued for the info, no? Or is this not how it works? Perhaps in trying to figure this out I have misinformed myself.

Edited to add: Just to make sure that we are on the same page here, we are both talking about transactions that involve the U.S. correct?

[edit on 29-6-2006 by zenlover28]

Originally posted by marg6043
We already know thanks to leaks that the Bush administration is not only listening to supposedly terrorist but also regular citizens.

Huh? No way! Who are those poor unfortunate regular citizens? List them please!

Originally posted by marg6043
And I am supposed to sit down and wave my flag to yet another sign of the abuse of power.

Powers that are supposedly legal because the Bush administration say so.

No different than with President Roosevelt's extraordinary executive powers to authorize or legalize extraordinary, even very controversial measures in wartime??

Did New York Times ever exposed what Roosevelt's secret programs during World War II?

Originally posted by marg6043
Do you really believe that? That is only the bad guys? How trusting are you of the dirty corrupt politicians that are making laws and holding our political system. Wake up and smell the realities of dirty, bad and corrupt political system that has gotten hold of our country.

You are missing the entire point of the secrecy that is not so secret and the sensationalism of something that doesn’t deserved.

Marg, marg, my dear marg... I believe you are missing the point of what I'm trying to say. Your paranoia about dirty politicians and corrupted political system in our country is very understandable. But you know what? Americans have survived the very worst politicians in the past, corrupting or taking advantages of the political system and so on. It's the same old song we're still singing. Please show me the very best UNCORRUPTED politicians and the very best (UNCORRUPTED) political system anywhere in the world and I might award you a vote for WATS!

The system is NEVER perfect. Politicians make do with what they have in the political system and look for ways either to improvise or change whatever that seem problematic or controversial for the people. It isn't about the secrecy and sensationalism of this SWIFT/NYTimes case, it's about finding and using whatever tools it can HELP us to combat terrorist financial networks.

I can set up a beauty salon as a front to make money to buy or procure weapons and materials to use against the government or the people. Those ladies with bad hair days would spend loads of money to have their hairs fixed daily! Imagine their undiscoverable horror that I have been using their money to buy bomb materials or donate money to terrorist groups overseas, all through a secret financial networking set up by very smart people overseas.

Wait Zappa, now you ADMIT it's the same SWIFT?

IT HAS A PUBLIC WEBSITE AND MAGAZINE THAT TELLS YOU EXACTLY WHAT THEY DO!!!!

How, what, who, did the NYT expose!

Answer:
NO ONE

all through a secret financial networking set up by very smart people overseas.

The same smart people that sit in corporate meetings with very large amounts of US holdings, while walking publicly holding hands with the administration in their oil deals.

But they will never be caught because our administration sleeps with the enemy after dining in splendor at the white house.

Tell me how many financiers has been caught?

Pity.

zenlover28,

You're not supposed to ask me questions after I said I was done with the subject. It makes me look wishy-washy when I respond to you.

I'll try to be a little clearer.

SWIFT is a co-operative whose members are from the financial industry. One of core services is SWIFTnet, the messaging service that financial institutions from across the world use. Because they are the clearinghouse for the transactions and information, they retain all the data from worldwide members who use their services.

The SWIFT program or whatever the heck the NYT wrote about is the the US government accessing these records through a US susidiary. Any information gained from SWIFT is the same info they could get from the financial institutions themselves, or in my case, my government.

Originally posted by zenlover28
Just to make sure that we are on the same page here, we are both talking about transactions that involve the U.S. correct?

If it only involved the US, I wouldn't be discussing it with you. SWIFT retains financial data from across the globe. If the US only looked at the US data, great. Well, not great, but not an infringement of my rights.

Originally posted by Duzey

You're not supposed to ask me questions after I said I was done with the subject. It makes me look wishy-washy when I respond to you.

Sorry...in case you haven't noticed I love to ask questions. LOL

If it only involved the US, I wouldn't be discussing it with you. SWIFT retains financial data from across the globe. If the US only looked at the US data, great. Well, not great, but not an infringement of my rights.

This is where you're losing me. We're not talking about them accessing your bank account here. I thought this involved actual transactions. Like say a suspected terrorist sending money from Europe or wherever to say a Mosque in the U.S.? Maybe i'm completely and totally lost here. It's not an uncommon occurrence.

edited to remove a word for clarity

[edit on 29-6-2006 by zenlover28]

Originally posted by marg6043

all through a secret financial networking set up by very smart people overseas.

The same smart people that sit in corporate meetings with very large amounts of US holdings, while walking publicly holding hands with the administration in their oil deals.

Nothing new and controversy about that. It's the nature of business and politics since the early day of colonial America. Most of the founding fathers of the US were businessmen. What's your point?

Originally posted by zenlover28
This is where you're losing me. We're not talking about them just accessing your bank account here. I thought this involved actual transactions. Like say a suspected terrorist sending money from Europe or wherever to say a Mosque in the U.S.?

SWIFT covers a lot more than just wire transfers. If you get paid by direct deposit, it goes through SWIFTnet. If you buy travellers cheques at a bank, it goes through SWIFTnet. If you have an account with a brokerage, chances are it's on SWIFTnet. If you have a stock certificate in your name, it's on SWIFTnet from the transfer agency.

A refresher from the NYT article:

Data from the Brussels-based banking consortium, formally known as the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, has allowed officials from the C.I.A., the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other agencies to examine "tens of thousands" of financial transactions, Mr. Levey said.

While many of those transactions have occurred entirely on foreign soil, officials have also been keenly interested in international transfers of money by individuals, businesses, charities and other groups under suspicion inside the United States, officials said. A small fraction of Swift's records involve transactions entirely within this country, but Treasury officials said they were uncertain whether any had been examined.

How are they defining financial transaction? That's what I want to know.

As for why the NYT printed the story, I don't know. If it's true that it was all according to plan, I'm more perplexed by your govt than before. It's one thing to sneak around behind someone's back and check up on them, it's another thing to tell them you're doing it. If the US govt wants to look at transactions that involve a Canadian and non-US party, they could just get the permission they need and go through FINTRAC. The information is all there for the asking, providing they have the right paperwork.

So I ask, why go to all the trouble of doing this when you could just ask? So far I've come up with four possibilities 1) they didn't want the other countries to know 2) they wouldn't have been entitled to the info 3) our governments knew about it and don't care 4) because they can. And those only took me a minute to think of.

All I know is that as a non-US citizen, I have the luxury of allowing this to be an issue for me. I can't vote for either side.



*edited for tiny things







[edit on 29-6-2006 by Duzey]

Whoa. Apparently the "entirely on foreign soil" tidbit did not initially register with me, Duzey. I'm not sure what I was thinking that meant when I initially read this. Thank you so much for pointing this out to me. It makes me look at the entire picture differently now. This is more than likely the reason they did not want this story in print. Wow.

The House on thursday voted to pass a Resolution condeming news organizations that "place American lives in danger" by leaking "sensitive Material.

House vote slaps news organizations
Resolution blasts stories on terrorist tracking program

Thursday, June 29, 2006; Posted: 8:51 p.m. EDT (00:51 GMT)


WASHINGTON (AP) -- The House on Thursday approved a Republican-crafted resolution condemning news organizations for revealing a covert government program to track terrorist financing, saying the disclosure had "placed the lives of Americans in danger."

The resolution, passed 227-183 on a largely party-line vote, did not specifically name the news organizations, but it was aimed at The New York Times and other news media that last week reported on a secret CIA-Treasury program to track millions of financial records in search of terrorists.

Most Democrats opposed the measure, protesting language in it that asserts that the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program was "rooted in sound legal authority" and that members of Congress had been appropriately briefed on the program.

It would seem they are going to try to kill three birds with one stone.
1.)they are trying to kill any voice that could bring to light; any illegalities that the govt may be doing
2.)they are trying to validate the programs "legality"
3..) helping (from a Republican point of view) to show the Democrats weakness and inability to "defend" our nation... Of course this last "bird" is purely for show as both parties are but two sides of the same coin(IMHO)

So...It seems SkepticOverlord, your hypotheosis is at least failry accurate given this development. Good work

One problem, NYT didn't leak anything...
Unless them reporting on a website and magazine is leaking...
ALso reporting on what the President has been saying in Public since Sept. 24th 2001 is leaking...
Then that means whenever Fox News showed the President during those speeches where he talked about SWIFT they were leaking...
Fox News Committed TREASON!!!!!

Here is the link
www.crooksandliars.com...
This is Video of the President talking about SWIFT, and the website, and the magazine, so forth.

[edit on 30-6-2006 by Johnny Ohm]

Originally posted by Johnny Ohm
Here is the link
www.crooksandliars.com...
This is Video of the President talking about SWIFT, and the website, and the magazine, so forth.

Good find this is exactly the problem.. its like selective memory going on.. which leads me to agree evermore with the hypotheosis that this is staged from the very start.

Originally posted by Johnny Ohm

"One problem, NYT didn't leak anything...:

The NYT is the one who said it was secret, not I. However, as I linked to:
[link] www.abovetopsecret.com... [/link]
the NYT has a history of being anti-American.

You kids need to get over this ridiculous idea that "critical of the Bush administration" == "anti American". By that standard, the majority of the population of the country is now "anti-American". Let me guess, if the majority of Americans are "anti-American"... I guess they're all traitors spurred on by the treachery of the dreaded "liberal media"...

"Did New York Times ever exposed what Roosevelt's secret programs during World War II?

REPLY: Well, the NYT is famous for exposing secret progs, (see [link] www.abovetopsecret.com... [/link]
but in reference to what you mention, above, the Chicago Tribune at the time leaked info about our ability to track and decipher Japanese codes, and (rightfully) Roosevelt sent Federal marshals to the CT and arrested a couple people. Since we were at war, the sentence was death. The case was dropped ONLY BECAUSE it was determined the Japanese didn't change their code (meaning they didn't read the CT paper.)

We spend billions to prevent the Wests enemies from gaining information about our programs/activities, and all the enemy has to do is pick up a paper, or, now, watch out satellite TV transmissions. Damn shame.