By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Wednesday, June 28, 2006; 1:40 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...5041100879.html
QUOTE
When asked to back up the White House accusation that a recent New York Times story put American lives at risk by disclosing vital secrets to terrorists, the best press secretary Tony Snow could do yesterday was this: "I am absolutely sure they didn't know about SWIFT."
SWIFT, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, is the international banking cooperative that quietly allowed the Treasury Department and the CIA to examine hundreds of thousands of private banking records from around the world.
But the existence of SWIFT itself has not exactly been a secret. Certainly not to anyone who had an Internet connection.
SWIFT has a Web site, at swift.com .
It's a very informative Web site. For instance, this page describes how "SWIFT has a history of cooperating in good faith with authorities such as central banks, treasury departments, law enforcement agencies and appropriate international organisations, such as the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), in their efforts to combat abuse of the financial system for illegal activities."
(And yes, FATF has its own Web site, too.)
An e-mail from White House Briefing reader Tim O'Keefe tipped me off to just how nutty it is to suggest that SWIFT keeps a low profile. Among other things, he explained, "SWIFT also happens to put on the largest financial services trade show in the world every year," he wrote. "Swift also puts out a lovely magazine ."
Furthermore, as I noted in Monday's column , it has been my personal experience that your garden-variety wire-transfer form mentions SWIFT. Mine warned: "With respect to payment orders executed through SWIFT, the SWIFT operating rules shall govern the payment orders."
I wrote in yesterday's column that in spite of leveling a monstrous charge against the New York Times -- of putting American lives at risk and aiding the enemy -- the White House has never definitively explained how any of these disclosures actually impair the pursuit of terrorists.
The question came up again in yesterday's press briefing , and Snow -- as he did on Friday -- cited SWIFT as Exhibit A. There was no Exhibit B.
"Q Tony, regarding the disclosure last week of the SWIFT monitoring program, I understand the theoretical argument that this impedes the ability to conduct intelligence, but does the White House know for a fact that it's demonstrably changed and lessened the ability --
"MR. SNOW: We took this up yesterday, which is, you're not going to be able to assess definitively within a day. But I think what you're likely to have is negative confirmation in the sense people change their behavior. . . .
"So we really don't have any basis right now for knowing exactly how it's influenced things, but I think it is safe to say that once you provide a piece of intelligence, people on the inside act on it. . . .
"Q I guess what I'm asking is -- and I'm sorry for not being specific enough -- but is there the belief that even though terrorists had clearly been tipped off from the very beginning by the President that there was going to be an aggressive attempt to get as much financial information as possible, that they did not know about the SWIFT Bank?
"MR. SNOW: I am absolutely sure they didn't know about SWIFT. There are -- when you have key government officials around the world saying, we didn't know about it -- there may have been a lot of activity, but it is a program that was not well-known, including among people who have pretty high positions in the banking industry. So, yes, this is not the sort of thing that everybody knew."
At Friday's briefing , Snow actually mocked reporters who suggested that SWIFT was not exactly operating covertly.
"Q But the existence of this organization is no secret. . . .
"MR. SNOW: Are you kidding? Are you talking about Swift? When did you know about Swift before? . . .
"Q Let me ask a follow up. Are you saying that the financial experts in the terrorist ranks would not know about an organization that works for 7,800 different financial institutions in 200 countries?
"MR. SNOW: I'm saying, yes. I think that a lot of people didn't know about the existence of Swift."
SWIFT, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, is the international banking cooperative that quietly allowed the Treasury Department and the CIA to examine hundreds of thousands of private banking records from around the world.
But the existence of SWIFT itself has not exactly been a secret. Certainly not to anyone who had an Internet connection.
SWIFT has a Web site, at swift.com .
It's a very informative Web site. For instance, this page describes how "SWIFT has a history of cooperating in good faith with authorities such as central banks, treasury departments, law enforcement agencies and appropriate international organisations, such as the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), in their efforts to combat abuse of the financial system for illegal activities."
(And yes, FATF has its own Web site, too.)
An e-mail from White House Briefing reader Tim O'Keefe tipped me off to just how nutty it is to suggest that SWIFT keeps a low profile. Among other things, he explained, "SWIFT also happens to put on the largest financial services trade show in the world every year," he wrote. "Swift also puts out a lovely magazine ."
Furthermore, as I noted in Monday's column , it has been my personal experience that your garden-variety wire-transfer form mentions SWIFT. Mine warned: "With respect to payment orders executed through SWIFT, the SWIFT operating rules shall govern the payment orders."
I wrote in yesterday's column that in spite of leveling a monstrous charge against the New York Times -- of putting American lives at risk and aiding the enemy -- the White House has never definitively explained how any of these disclosures actually impair the pursuit of terrorists.
The question came up again in yesterday's press briefing , and Snow -- as he did on Friday -- cited SWIFT as Exhibit A. There was no Exhibit B.
"Q Tony, regarding the disclosure last week of the SWIFT monitoring program, I understand the theoretical argument that this impedes the ability to conduct intelligence, but does the White House know for a fact that it's demonstrably changed and lessened the ability --
"MR. SNOW: We took this up yesterday, which is, you're not going to be able to assess definitively within a day. But I think what you're likely to have is negative confirmation in the sense people change their behavior. . . .
"So we really don't have any basis right now for knowing exactly how it's influenced things, but I think it is safe to say that once you provide a piece of intelligence, people on the inside act on it. . . .
"Q I guess what I'm asking is -- and I'm sorry for not being specific enough -- but is there the belief that even though terrorists had clearly been tipped off from the very beginning by the President that there was going to be an aggressive attempt to get as much financial information as possible, that they did not know about the SWIFT Bank?
"MR. SNOW: I am absolutely sure they didn't know about SWIFT. There are -- when you have key government officials around the world saying, we didn't know about it -- there may have been a lot of activity, but it is a program that was not well-known, including among people who have pretty high positions in the banking industry. So, yes, this is not the sort of thing that everybody knew."
At Friday's briefing , Snow actually mocked reporters who suggested that SWIFT was not exactly operating covertly.
"Q But the existence of this organization is no secret. . . .
"MR. SNOW: Are you kidding? Are you talking about Swift? When did you know about Swift before? . . .
"Q Let me ask a follow up. Are you saying that the financial experts in the terrorist ranks would not know about an organization that works for 7,800 different financial institutions in 200 countries?
"MR. SNOW: I'm saying, yes. I think that a lot of people didn't know about the existence of Swift."
Found this article while following up on Cheney's "impromptu remarks" on The New York Times story which revealed a secret program to examine public banking records by collaborating with an international private sector communications contractor called SWIFT. Like other mole operations, provides messaging software which secretly gathers information from its clients, then allows national security agencies to sift through their private "Data Bank" of financial communications. Information is gathered and divulged without a warrant or specifc investigation, but rather as "fishing" though private information in order to "prevent future attacks against the American people", according to Cheney. Remind's me of the the Ptech FAA/NAS computer access scandal first discovered and exposed by whistleblower Indira Singh.
The posted article above concerning SWIFT was picked up by the washingtonpost.com, but it's actually part of a blog by Dan Froomkin.
