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Unread 24 Jun 2006, 09:30   #1
xtrasyn
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US caught with hands in cookie jar and now angry at media

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5112484.stm

The US administration, following the sep. 11 attcks has compelled Swift, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, which links about 7,800 financial institutions around the world, to open its records, using subpoenas.


The New York Times, which revealed the programme, defended its coverage.
Executive editor Bill Keller said: "We remain convinced that the administration's extraordinary access to this vast repository of international financial data, however carefully targeted use of it may be, is a matter of public interest."


This has angered mr Cheney.

He said: "These are good, solid sound programmes. They are conducted in accordance with the laws of the land." He added: "What I find most disturbing is the fact that some in the media take it upon themselves to disclose vital national security programmes, thereby making it more difficult for us to prevent future attacks against the American people."

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Unread 25 Jun 2006, 05:20   #2
Tactitus
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Exclamation Re: US caught with hands in cookie jar and now angry at media

In it's expose, the New York Times conceded that the program was both legal and effective at capturing terrorists and shutting down their money transfers. In a subsequent editorial, the NYT justified publishing this classified information because they thought the program could be abused and should have more oversight--although they did not provide any examples of abuse or where the present amount of oversight failed or was otherwise inadequate. This seems to me like an absurdly low bar for revealing the specifics of classified programs because of course any program might be abused and more oversight can never hurt, right?

The NYT has apparently decided to overrule the elected branches of the government on a hypothetical and in so doing has surely destroyed the effectiveness of an ongoing counterterrorism program (terrorist organizations aren't likely to be routing any financial transactions through the SWIFT network anytime soon ).

It's almost as if the NYT is trying to get the government to file charges against them (perhaps to try to bolster their flagging circulation numbers).
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Unread 25 Jun 2006, 08:02   #3
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Re: US caught with hands in cookie jar and now angry at media

The fact that they found this information means that others may have eventually found it. If I were running a terrorist organization I would hope my intelligence gathering would be equal or greater than the media. Who knows, maybe the terrorist have influence with the NYT. The Bin Laden family is quite rich.
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Unread 25 Jun 2006, 09:16   #4
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Re: US caught with hands in cookie jar and now angry at media

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tactitus
In it's expose, the New York Times conceded that the program was both legal and effective at capturing terrorists and shutting down their money transfers. In a subsequent editorial, the NYT justified publishing this classified information because they thought the program could be abused and should have more oversight--although they did not provide any examples of abuse or where the present amount of oversight failed or was otherwise inadequate. This seems to me like an absurdly low bar for revealing the specifics of classified programs because of course any program might be abused and more oversight can never hurt, right?

No?! Unless you're not concerned that wiretaps on american citizens, even though legal and effective at capturing terrorists, could be abused if not given more oversight.

Saying the government shouldn't have more accountability on an issue like this, or that the level of its accountability shouldn't even be questioned is bizzare to say the least.
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Unread 25 Jun 2006, 18:36   #5
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Exclamation Re: US caught with hands in cookie jar and now angry at media

Quote:
Originally Posted by Travler
The fact that they found this information means that others may have eventually found it.
The NYT didn't find out about this program by diligently digging through publicly available documents available to everyone; they found out about it because government employees within the program went to the NYT and leaked them the information. I suppose it's possible that these government employees would have leaked the information directly to terrorist organizations if the NYT (or some other paper) hadn't published it, but that seems far less likely to me.
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Originally Posted by milo
No?! Unless you're not concerned that wiretaps on american citizens, even though legal and effective at capturing terrorists, could be abused if not given more oversight.
As I said, any government program could be abused (and you might even argue that--given enough time--it will be abused). But again, is that justification for publishing classified information on any or all counterterrorism programs before such abuse occurs? Ultimately, is the government allowed to have classified information or not?
Quote:
Saying the government shouldn't have more accountability on an issue like this, or that the level of its accountability shouldn't even be questioned is bizzare to say the least.
Well no one is saying that. We can certainly debate the accountability of covert government programs publicly in general terms without releasing the specific details that make these programs effective to begin with. We can also delegate responsibility to the various branches of government to oversee these programs; and by all means, expose these programs if and when they overstep their authority (though not before). But if you think the only way to make these programs accountable is by exposing them and effectively destroying them before they're abused, then what point is there in having them in the first place?
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Unread 25 Jun 2006, 18:55   #6
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Re: US caught with hands in cookie jar and now angry at media

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tactitus
As I said, any government program could be abused (and you might even argue that--given enough time--it will be abused).But again, is that justification for publishing classified information on any or all counterterrorism programs before such abuse occurs?
Yes?! im pretty dumbfounded here you seem to be saying you shouldn't question, or carry out invetigative journalism on issues of grave importance where you think faliures could occur simply because they haven't occured yet.

Quote:
Ultimately, is the government allowed to have classified information or not?
ideally no, and this wasn't about classified 'information' in the sense of they had some secret papers it was a secret programme to spy on people. Theres substantial difference between the two.

Quote:
Well no one is saying that. We can certainly debate the accountability of covert government programs publicly in general terms without releasing the specific details that make these programs effective to begin with.
how?

'we can talk about this thing we can't talk about and perhaps address issues about who answers to whom, but erm what were we talking about again?'

Quote:
We can also delegate responsibility to the various branches of government to oversee these programs; and by all means, expose these programs if and when they overstep their authority (though not before). But if you think the only way to make these programs accountable is by exposing them and effectively destroying them before they're abused, then what point is there in having them in the first place?
In terms of how id prefer things to be 'run' having one organ of the state overseeing another organ of the state, in complete secrecy, is about as welcome as them abolshing the vote.
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Unread 25 Jun 2006, 19:08   #7
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Re: US caught with hands in cookie jar and now angry at media

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tactitus
As I said, any government program could be abused (and you might even argue that--given enough time--it will be abused). But again, is that justification for publishing classified information on any or all counterterrorism programs before such abuse occurs? Ultimately, is the government allowed to have classified information or not?
Its not about classified information in general, its about this scheme in particular - we arent talking about protecting the identity of covert agents here. Subpoening a private organisation to get them to hand all their records over to the government just in case they 'might' contain something relevant to terrorists. This doesnt warrant disclosure and outrage?
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Unread 25 Jun 2006, 19:21   #8
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Re: US caught with hands in cookie jar and now angry at media

Come on now guys nobody locks the gate before the horse has bolted


I mean, we're not communists here are we?
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Unread 26 Jun 2006, 20:35   #9
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Exclamation Re: US caught with hands in cookie jar and now angry at media

Quote:
Originally Posted by milo
ideally no, and this wasn't about classified 'information' in the sense of they had some secret papers it was a secret programme to spy on people. Theres substantial difference between the two.
Counterterrorism operations are necessarily going to involve spying on people (unless you think we can persuade these terrorist groups to mail us their plans ahead of time) and spying necessarily involves secrecy (because the people you're spying on almost certainly don't want to be spied upon and will change their behavior if they know how they're being spied upon).
Quote:
'we can talk about this thing we can't talk about and perhaps address issues about who answers to whom, but erm what were we talking about again?'
If you think the government shouldn't spy on anyone, fine. That's at least a defensible, if extremely shortsighted (imho), position. If, on the other hand, you think the government can do some spying then you're going to have to figure out some guidelines ahead of time. You can't have a public debate on the specifics of each new operation. I'm sorry, but you just can't. If the government were to publicly ask, 'hey everybody, is it OK if we look at such-and-such financial data in the SWIFT network?' then the first thing that's going to happen is the terrorists will stop using the SWIFT network. The public's approval is no longer relevant. Game over.
Quote:
In terms of how id prefer things to be 'run' having one organ of the state overseeing another organ of the state, in complete secrecy, is about as welcome as them abolshing the vote.
Well if you've got a better plan for running covert operations that doesn't involve making them public before they start we'd all love to hear it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nodrog
Subpoening a private organisation to get them to hand all their records over to the government just in case they 'might' contain something relevant to terrorists. This doesnt warrant disclosure and outrage?
You are misinformed. They did not subpoena all the records. Only records for specific individuals or entities were subpoenaed.
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Unread 27 Jun 2006, 09:53   #10
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Re: US caught with hands in cookie jar and now angry at media

I think it is an outrage if you are only willing to look at ´terrorist´ info gathering.

I know some people who could wreak serious havoc with this data. Imagine the power of knowing the exact sales of a large companies products BEFORE half year numbers come out. You could exactly figure out wins and losses before the effects hit the stockmarket. Dangerous info. And that is only a small thing compared to what you could figure out.
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