Fergie's Tech Blog

Patriot Act Also Reveals Domestic Financial Data

Michael Isikoff writes in Newsweek:

Over the last four years, U.S. law enforcement agencies have gained access to over 28,000 financial records inside the United States under a little known provision of the USA Patriot Act that parallels the secret international bank data program disclosed by news organizations last week, Treasury Department records show.

The disclosure of the overseas program—under which Treasury Department officials have tapped into the records of a vast Belgian-based international financial database called Swift (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications)—has kicked up a storm of controversy. Some critics have decried the program as another example of the administration's invasion of privacy in the name of the war on terror. At the same time, President Bush today condemned as "disgraceful" the disclosure of the operation, which intended to help the government track overseas money movements of suspected terrorists. "For people to leak that program, and for a newspaper to publish it, does great harm to the United States of America,” Bush told reporters in Washington.

But the international program is only one part of a much broader, if little publicized, Treasury Department effort to probe suspect financial records—including thousands of bank accounts, wire transfers and other transactions involving individuals, companies and nonprofit organizations inside the United States.

posted by Fergie @ 6/26/2006 09:05:00 PM