Why no threads about treasonous New York Times revealing national secrets again?

[Kuciwalker]

Why would they have tried to prevent the NYT reporting it, I mean.

[Drake Tungsten]

It's obviously all an elaborate Karl Rove plot.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


Once again: if all of this information was common knowledge, why was it front-page news?

It wasn;t common knowledge to the every day readers of the NY Timnes. Americans have the attention span of flies. This is not news to terrorist financiers thought, since they have an incentive to be "educated" on the topic.

[Drake Tungsten]

It was apparently news to European officials...

The European Commission has already said that EU law does not cover the handing over of financial data by Swift. The European Parliament will debate the US action on Monday.

Belgium Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt has ordered an investigation into the activities of Swift, which is regulated by the Belgian central bank and is subject to Belgian law.

The United States came to an agreement with Swift immediately after 9/11. It was this agreement that the New York Times publicised last month, drawing the ire and fury of the White House.

http://archive.gulfnews.com/articles/06/07/02/10050876.html

So, SWIFT was apparently little known amongst US officials before a Wall Street insider clued them in, and little known to the American public and European officials until the NYT spilled the beans. Yet every terrorist on earth already knew about it, thereby making the uneccessary release of classified information on the program ok...

[Kuciwalker]

To be fair to GePap, most European Union officials are probably clueless too.

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

You say the information gathered has a lag time. Well what a shocker. Given the vast amount of information (11 million SWIFT transactions a day) of course there is going to be a lag time. It doesn't matter though because the paper trail remains. The information that you transferred money to a group six month ago is still valid information that could be used in court if you were doing something illegal.

It doesn't matter if you've blown yourself up by then.

A completely pointless comment. Regardless of whether the NYT published the story, the data processing takes time. The disclosure that there is a time lag does not help terrorists.

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

All of this was known to terrorists because some terrorists had been convicted with this information.

From the NYT article itself:

In terrorism prosecutions, intelligence officials have been careful to "sanitize," or hide the origins of evidence collected through the program to keep it secret, officials said.

The terrorists did not know the mechanism of the U.S. spying, but they knew the U.S. had financial records. As has been said many times before, wat was sanitized was how those records were obtained.

The rightist spin that the terrorists did not know that financial information was being monitored is a complete lie.

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

Forth time beating down this strawman. Average guy didn't know but terrorists and people who pay attention did know.

Then why would so many people care about it being revealed?

One reason is because the Bush folks did not know how the public would react. They had taken a beating on the phone tapping so they may well have been worried how the public would react to the government spying on their bank transactions.

A second reason is that the Bush administration routinely blocks the press from mundane information. Bush has done the fewest news conferences in recent U.S. presidential history. He has shown an unwillingess to talk to the press.

A third reason they don't want it reveal is because it is labelled as classified and the bureaucracy doesn't like anything that challenges its labels.

[Kuciwalker]

One reason is because the Bush folks did not know how the public would react. They had taken a beating on the phone tapping so they may well have been worried how the public would react to the government spying on their bank transactions.

And the Democrats trying to convince the papers not to publish thought the same?

A second reason is that the Bush administration routinely blocks the press from mundane information. Bush has done the fewest news conferences in recent U.S. presidential history. He has shown an unwillingess to talk to the press.

A third reason they don't want it reveal is because it is labelled as classified and the bureaucracy doesn't like anything that challenges its labels.

Which is why a many people in the Treasury Department, CIA, and Congress, from both sides of the aisle, tried to convince the NYT not to publish. Just because they don't like anything classified at all being released, and to protect Bush from contact with the press...

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Oerdin
The fact remains that the New York Times did not expose any sources or methods which Al Qaeda hadn't already responded to years ago. Al Qaeda stopped using western style banks and started using Islamic money couriers in 2002-2003. They did so because they knew the west was watching normal bank accounts.

Al Quaeda is no longer a top down organization with smart educated guys running its operations. It is now a moral support agency with random fvckwits in charge of "its" operations, many from countries with extremely poor educational institutions, low literacy levels and poor to non-existent internet connectivity. These people may well have not been able to connect the dots regarding the abilities of the U.S. to track financial transactions, and there is certainly little chance of the vast majority being aware of SWIFT or the fact that the U.S. was privy to everything going through it.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Why would they have tried to prevent the NYT reporting it, I mean.

For the same reason they never want to divulge any information. They're friggan control freaks who don't think the American public have any right to know anything except what they tell us.

[Ramo]

iii) Wire transfer information is not available in real time, but only after a lag of several weeks.

iv) Nor is it logistically possible to get real-time information on credit-card purchases - of, for example, fertilizer or timing devices.

[...]

Doesn't that strike you as potentially useful information - especially points iii and vi?

iii is potentially useful information? Is the National Review insane? Wait, I know the answer to that already so let me rephrase that; how can anyone fathom the real time monitoring of exchanges between virtually every commercial bank in the world?

As for iv, yes a program that monitors bank transfers does not monitor credit card purchases. Which say absolutely nothing on the existence of a program that monitors credit card transfers. That sure is useful to the terrorists. :b

Why did we catch Hambali in 2003 then, a year after this program was supposed to have become common knowledge among terrorists?

Because, as I pointed out earlier, there's an issue of laziness. It is much easier to transfer money through a bank than most other means, and there's ultimately a low probability that any one transfer is going to be caught.

Once again, if the Bush Admin trumpets the fact that we're monitoring terrorist finances repeatedly - through the Treasury Dept, through his campaign for re-election, etc. (gain, Bush put out a press release before the election saying that they've tracked almost $150 million in terrorist finances), how is it at all a big deal if the NYT puts out something to the same effect. If they refuse to pay attention to the former, why are they going to pay attention to the latter?

The National Review, as sad as that article was, made a much more cogent point than this nonsense.

[Ramo]

It is now a moral support agency with random fvckwits in charge of "its" operations, many from countries with extremely poor educational institutions, low literacy levels and poor to non-existent internet connectivity.

If this is true, how would the Times article make any difference at all?

[Drake Tungsten]

Because, as I pointed out earlier, there's an issue of laziness. It is much easier to transfer money through a bank than most other means, and there's ultimately a low probability that any one transfer is going to be caught.

So you're saying that this program would be of use even if every terrorist knew it existed, given that terrorists (who are only human) get lazy and make mistakes? How exactly does this bolster your argument that revealing the SWIFT program wasn't a mistake by the NYT?

[Ramo]

It doesn't (at least, directly). I was answering your question.

[Drake Tungsten]

I approve of your answer then.