Bush condemns disclosure of secret anti-terror program

Program that searches bank records lawful, president says

 

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush on Monday sharply condemned the disclosure of a program to secretly monitor the financial transactions of suspected terrorists. "The disclosure of this program is disgraceful," he said.

 

"For people to leak that program and for a newspaper to publish it does great harm to the United States of America," Bush said, jabbing his finger for emphasis. He said the disclosure of the program "makes it harder to win this war on terror."

 

The program has been going on since shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. It was disclosed last week by the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times. (Full Story)

 

Using broad government subpoenas, the program allows U.S. counterterrorism analysts to obtain financial information from a vast database maintained by a company based in Belgium. It routes about 11 million financial transactions daily among 7,800 banks and other financial institutions in 200 countries.

 

"Congress was briefed and what we did was fully authorized under the law," Bush said, talking with reporters in the Roosevelt Room after meeting with groups that support U.S. troops in Iraq. (Watch what actor Gary Sinise said about troop aid talks with Bush -- 2:56)

 

"We're at war with a bunch of people who want to hurt the United States of America," the president said. "What we were doing was the right thing."

 

"The American people expect this government to protect our constitutional liberties and at the same time make sure we understand what the terrorists are trying to do," Bush said. He said that to figure out what terrorists plan to do, "You try to follow their money. And that's exactly what we're doing and the fact that a newspaper disclosed it makes it harder to win this war on terror."

 

Editor defends decision

In advance of Bush's remarks, the New York Times defended itself against criticism for disclosing the program.

 

In a note on the paper's Web site Sunday, Executive Editor Bill Keller said the Times spent weeks discussing with Bush administration officials whether to publish the report.

 

He said part of the government's argument was that the anti-terror program would no longer be effective if it became known, because international bankers would be unwilling to cooperate and terrorists would find other ways to move money.

 

"We don't know what the banking consortium will do, but we found this argument puzzling," Keller said, pointing out that the banks were under subpoena to provide the information. "The Bush Administration and America itself may be unpopular in Europe these days, but policing the byways of international terror seems to have pretty strong support everywhere."

 

Lawmaker: Times should be prosecuted

The note to readers was published the same day Rep. Peter King urged the Bush administration to prosecute the paper.

 

"We're at war, and for the Times to release information about secret operations and methods is treasonous," the New York Republican told The Associated Press.

 

Keller said the administration also argued "in a halfhearted way" that disclosure of the program "would lead terrorists to change tactics."

 

But Keller wrote that the Treasury Department has "trumpeted ... that the U.S. makes every effort to track international financing of terror. Terror financiers know this, which is why they have already moved as much as they can to cruder methods. But they also continue to use the international banking system, because it is immeasurably more efficient than toting suitcases of cash."

 

 

 

 

Find this article at:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/06/26/bush.terroristfinancing.ap/index.html

 

:lol: whatever happened to freedom of press???

whatever happened to intelligence and not telling the enemy your secrets....why dont we just announce every move we make to alqueada that way they'll be ready for us everytime...we didnt win ww1-2 by posting our stratigy in newspapers.

don't you think that without money.. they can't fund their operations??? I mean seriously, you're asking for the press to give up their right to inform the people of whom is watching their bank accounts???? They profile these accounts you know... just like the phone tapping.... I could be completely innocent of any 'terroristic activity' and just because my name is Muhammad my account info gets disclosed??? where is the right to privacy and the justice in that??

don't you think that without money.. they can't fund their operations??? I mean seriously' date=' you're asking for the press to give up their right to inform the people of whom is watching their bank accounts???? They profile these accounts you know... just like the phone tapping.... I could be completely innocent of any 'terroristic activity' and just because my name is Muhammad my account info gets disclosed??? where is the right to privacy and the justice in that??[/quote']

 

their not just informing the "people" their tipping off the terrorist. cops dont post when they will be having drug stings in the newspaper for a reason. its just plain stupid for them to print this....it only helps the terroris.t

cops divulge that type of informtion after the perps are caught... and they do inform people of certain ongoings... they just say 'we can't divuldge that information at this time'--- so the public knows something is going on... they just don't know what.

 

Besides.. you can't really compare the two.... because even cops need search warrents..

 

this is a violation of free speech. And the papers will prevail.

the papers and the terrorist...

:lol:

the program was legal, the program was working, the people in Congress that needed to know of the program were notified beforehand, and it was not hurting the citizens of the U.S. this program was a tool in fighting the war against radical islam, and now the NYT has compromised it in the name of "free speech". NYT is an irrelevent news source. bury the old gray lady. in concrete.

I could understand if they were telling on something illegal or wrong but thats not the case with this. its truly sad they did this, it only hurts us for no reason.

I suppose you both think the Editor-In-Chief should be tried for treason as well... lol

it's not really something to laugh about because the program was in place, working, and legal, and the NYT decided to tattle-tale on it's perceived "bully", though that bully was in the right. treason may be a bit too strong but something must be done to get the NYT staff to understand they were not elected to make the calls on protecting the country.

but everyone already knew this was going on... including terrorist operatives. It wasn't a bit secret... lol

if everyone knew it was going on, then why did the NYT put it on page 1?

?

She likes to avoid questions....its a skill she has...

^ uh no dear.. that would be you :nice: Besides... any moron could see I haven't been online since I posted that yesterday afternoon!! :P

 

 

--It was never publically published... however when they caught prvious operatives, they hae made that statement. Besides that.... if tapping phones was made public... it didn't stop terrorist from making plans did it??? Uh no... I don't think so.

 

blaming the press for uncovering yet another form of deceit by this adminisrtation is laughable. lol They're just bitter.

 

:P

^ uh no dear.. that would be you :nice: Besides... any moron could see I haven't been online since I posted that yesterday afternoon!! :P

 

 

--It was never publically published... however when they caught prvious operatives, they hae made that statement. Besides that.... if tapping phones was made public... it didn't stop terrorist from making plans did it??? Uh no... I don't think so.

 

blaming the press for uncovering yet another form of deceit by this adminisrtation is laughable. lol They're just bitter.

 

:P

 

So catching and stopping terrorist is deceit now??!! it was working it was making a difference it was legal and ethical and yet the newspaper exposed it for money...and you defend this...this just goes to show what ive been saying all along.

Okay here's my compromise on the situation...

 

The program might've been working, and it might not've actually been hurting anyone. I mean, in all honestly, woop dee doo the government could look at our bank transactions. If you're scared they're going to catch something bad, ease up: they're not looking for criminals, they're looking for terrorists.

 

But on the other hand, the NYT exposed the plan, big effing deal. History has shown us a constant battle between government and media over privacy of information. The New York Times printed the story - cough up another win for media. The terrorists know about it now, yeah... but we hadn't really caught any 'terrorists' while using this program, now had we? If anything, the NYT printing the story will slow down the transfer of funds between terrorists, since now they have to look for an alternate method.

Okay here's my compromise on the situation...

 

The program might've been working, and it might not've actually been hurting anyone. I mean, in all honestly, woop dee doo the government could look at our bank transactions. If you're scared they're going to catch something bad, ease up: they're not looking for criminals, they're looking for terrorists.

 

But on the other hand, the NYT exposed the plan, big effing deal. History has shown us a constant battle between government and media over privacy of information. The New York Times printed the story - cough up another win for media. The terrorists know about it now, yeah... but we hadn't really caught any 'terrorists' while using this program, now had we? If anything, the NYT printing the story will slow down the transfer of funds between terrorists, since now they have to look for an alternate method.

 

 

Big effing deal? it is...our newspapers didnt post battle plans and those type of things in ww2 or any other war. you didnt read on the front page "ALLIES LAUNCH D-DAY INVASION TOMORROW" you cant have this type of thing in a war and expect to win it. thats the big fucking deal.....the big deal is our own people are tipping off the enemy and the ONLY people who it helps are the NYT and the terrorist. it hurts our efforts to catch and stop the terrorist. but i guess to some thats not a big "effing" deal.

 

Sorry if anything it will greatly help the terrorist. their enemies own people are giving away their secrets in how their going after them. its truly sad...you know why not print all our national secrets in the news, fuck security and actually doing something about terrorism, writing a useless article about it is way better.....selling out your own national security all to piss off the president...gotta love the NYT....

 

DONT get me wrong here. im all for freedom of the press and im def not agaisnt a newspaper showing something illegal or unethical being done by our goverment. but its when thats not happening and the newspaper compromises our fight with the enemy all for a buck and to piss of our leader that they hate, it pisses me off as it should to every american.

“A Good Program…to Make Us Safer…Is Over.”

A September 11 commission co-chairman talks about the damage done by the latest New York Times leak.

 

By Byron York

 

Thomas Kean, the co-chairman of the September 11 Commission, was briefed several weeks ago about the Treasury Department’s terrorist-finance program, and after the session, Kean says, “I came away with the idea that this was a good program, one that was legal, one that was not violating anybody’s civil liberties…and something the U.S. government should be doing to make us safer.”

 

 

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MDZmOGQyNmVlNTQxNjk4ZmE5NmE5NjliNzY3MzNhMDI=

 

 

who needs terrorist when the extreme left is working even harder to fuck its own nation over....

^ you don't listen very well do you.....

 

 

 

the deceit is lying to the American public...... lol and whats so unethical about printing the truth????

What good is a country defending it's freedom if in the process of the defence, the freedom is lost?

 

It's not so much that accounts were being monitered. It's the extent of the monitering.

 

Yeah, not telling the world about the program is good and would have kept some of the dumbest terrorists in the dark for a little longer, but it's being done on the basis that it's only to stamp out terrorism. The problem is the precedent that's being set for the future. The government is asking people to give up their privacy and trust it. Fine for now.

 

But what about the future? What about the day that the government has wrongly turned on a specific group? Who knows what crazyness will pop up with future generations? If you were to zap someone from a hundred years ago here, they would think they were dumped on an alien planet because things have changed so much ideallogically as well as technologically. The same will most likely be true again a hundred years from now. We can't make assumptions about the consequences of current decisions thinking that everyone up top will always be trustworthy and have everyone's best intrests at heart.

 

By opening up something like this for the public to debate, at least there is the hope that the sorts of powers the US government has been taking up in the name of fighting terrorism will not be turned against us any time soon.

 

Maybe this is just classic Christian "they're going to come after us sooner or later" paranoia talking, but that's my two cents.

 

I'd rather not have my kids asking me why my generation gave up on privacy rights out of fear if things turn ugly in the future.

I try to keep my nose out of political disscussions, but this stuff just scares me out of my wits:

 

http://www.herald.ns.ca/Search/513023.html

This isnt a question of the goverment having too much power. this has NOTHING to do with that. it has to do with the NYT hurting our nation over something legall and something that was working. the goverment wasnt over stepping its boundries or anything...if it was i'd be all for them telling on it...otherwise there is no point and it ONLY hurts us.

^ you don't listen very well do you.....

 

 

 

the deceit is lying to the American public...... lol and whats so unethical about printing the truth????

 

screwing your nation over, tipping off your enemy??? but to some i guess thats not unethical.