BushCo Hath Become Chicken Little

This week we had the President and Vice President both breathlessly telling us that the New York Times report on the tracking of Bank Records has done great damage to our War on Terra (tm).

The Sky is Falling! The New York Times violated national securty. Now the terrorist know our game plan. Now they just might take their ball - and go home!

Wait a minute, isn't that a good thing?

And quite possibly if the Bush Administration hadn't already played the "National Security" card too many times for rather dubious causes - The New York Times, the LA Times and the Wall Street Journal just might have believed them this time.

And if they go after the Bill Keller for this, why don't they go after Novak for Plame?

Bush Says Bank Disclosure was Disgraceful

"Congress was briefed," Mr. Bush said. "And what we did was fully authorized under the law. And the disclosure of this program is disgraceful. We're at war with a bunch of people who want to hurt the United States of America, and for people to leak that program, and for a newspaper to publish it, does great harm to the United States of America."

Cheney was incensed.

"What I find most disturbing about these stories is the fact that some of the news media take it upon themselves to disclose vital national security programs, thereby making it more difficult for us to prevent future attacks against the American people," Mr. Cheney said, in impromptu remarks at a fund-raising luncheon for a Republican Congressional candidate in Chicago. "That offends me."

Official WH Press Shill Tony Snow jump feet first into the fray:

[T]he New York Times and other news organizations ought to think long and hard about whether a public's right to know in some cases might override somebody's right to live, and whether in fact the publications of these could place in jeopardy the safety of fellow Americans.

Rep Peter King immediate rejects the legtimacy of any an all private enterprises as he attacks the Times.

[N]o one elected the New York Times to do anything. And the New York Times is putting its own arrogant elitest left wing agenda before the interests of the American people, and I'm calling on the Attorney General to begin a criminal investigation and prosecution of the New York Times -- its reporters, the editors who worked on this, and the publisher. We're in a time of war, Chris, and what they've done has violated the Espionage Act, the COMINT act.

And of course, it was only a matter of time before some of BushCo lackey's and boot-lickers started to throw around the "T" word. From Think Progress.

The right-wing echo chamber is taking the argument a step further. Appearing on MSNBC's Hardball, talk show host Melanie Morgan said that New York Times editor Bill Keller is guilty of treason and that "Keller and his associates" should be thrown "in prison for 20 years.

So in the wake of this onslaught what does Bill Keller have to say for himself?

"I think it would be arrogant for us to pre-empt the work of Congress and the courts by deciding these programs are perfectly legal and abuse-proof, based entirely on the word of the government."

It is the place of Congress and the Courts to decide the legality of these issues - not the Press, and Not the President!

What Keller is betraying here is that once where the New York TImes was willing to hold a vital story for months without reporting it -- a story like say, the Illegal Wiretapping out Tens of Thousands of Americans which was held for over year, making it a non-factor in the 2004 elections -- but now, those days are long gone.

The protestations from the Bush Administration that "This is a Vital Program, that must remain covert" were a load of crap then, so why shouldn't the NYT presume they're a load of crap now?

Despite the protestations of Rep. King, the NYTimes did not neccesarily say that there weren't ANY legal or privacy issues with Bank Data program.

The program, however, is a significant departure from typical practice in how the government acquires Americans' financial records. Treasury officials did not seek individual court-approved warrants or subpoenas to examine specific transactions, instead relying on broad administrative subpoenas for millions of records from the cooperative, known as Swift.

That access to large amounts of confidential data was highly unusual, several officials said, and stirred concerns inside the administration about legal and privacy issues.

"The capability here is awesome or, depending on where you're sitting, troubling," said one former senior counterterrorism official who considers the program valuable. While tight controls are in place, the official added, "the potential for abuse is enormous."

But lets assume that, for once, the Bush Administration was actually doing it's job properly. Their argument now is that with this program disclosed it will be "harder for them" to catch terrorists. But what they ignore is that now that terrorist know they're finances can be tracked - they are less likely to use international banking sources they previuos thought were "Safe", and their ability to transfer money and actually conduct terrorist activities have been curtained by this disclosure!

Yes, they'll change tactics and possibly find other sources -- and the U.S. Government will just have to Keep up with them. It seems to me that this was exactly what the Patriot Act was all about wasn't it? In fact there are provisions right in the Act for this kind of tracking.

In 2002 the Security and Exchange Commission presented a speech on their review of anti-money laundering activities in accordance with the Patriot Act.

Screening Wire Transfers. We found that reviewing individual wire transfers -- in and of themselves -- in many cases did not constitute a meaningful exercise. Firms with more successful programs had well-trained firm personnel that were educated on what to look for when screening money movements, such as: rapid journaling of assets between related accounts, transaction patterns where no securities investments were made before funds were wired out of the account, and several ostensibly unrelated entities sharing addresses. One firm utilized a computer system that detected patterns in wire activity and flagged accounts with multiple transfers to an unrelated account and large wires in and out with little or no corresponding securities purchases or sales. In addition, the more successful firms had the capability to conduct a historical review of account activity before processing a wire transfer.

In 2005 the Justice Department trumpted the Patriot Acts Foreign Money-Laundering provisions with helping catch and deter potential terrorists.

Ban on Unlicensed Foreign-Money Transfers

Section 373 of the Patriot Act makes it illegal to run an unlicensed foreign-money transmittal business. Prosecutors say they used this provision to bring charges against Yehuda Abraham, an unlicensed money transmitter, for his role in helping to arrange the transfer of funds in a thwarted arms sale.

The Justice Department says Abraham's services were used by Hermant Lakhani, a British arms dealer. Lakhani was arrested in August 2003, after attempting to complete the sale of a shoulder-fired missile to a government cooperating witness who was posing as a member of a terrorist group.

The Justice Department says the Patriot Act allowed prosecutors to quickly bring a case against Abraham, bypassing the issues that have typically plagued similar cases in the past. Abraham pleaded guilty to running an illegal money-transfer company in March 2004.

So is the fact that the Government is tracking Foreign Money-Laundering really news? If the government call tell NPR about this -- why can't the NYTimes talk about it?

The obvious answer is that the scope and scale of this program was previously undisclosed - it was still a secret - but since it was so ripe for potential abuse, should it have been disclosed just so that some oversight by Congress and the Courts can be exercised?

Well, duh!

But naturally, the Bush Administartion doesn't see it that way. They seem to be out for blood, and Alberto Gonzales previous hints that he just might start prosecuting journalists for the NSA and Secret Prisons leak may not be empty threats.

But one wonders, if they weren't able to go after Scooter Libby under the Espionage Act when he revealed the ID of a Covert CIA operative to Matt Cooper and Judith Miller, how are they going to go after Bill Keller? Clearly the NYT received their information from people inside the Bush Administration, shouldn't those people be the primary targets for revealing classified information - and wouldn't any potentially investigation of them have to be handled by an Special Council just like - Patrict Fitzgerald?

Is that really what the White House wants?

Robert Novak was warned by the CIA not to reveal Plames identity, just as Keller and the NYT were warned off by administration officials, but he's not facing charges for violating the Intelligence Agents Identities Act -- what's the difference here, other that fact that the President wanted one illegal leak to occur but not the other?

Oh wait, maybe that's it right there, eh?

Just how close is that sky getting now Georgie?

Update: In addition to the Bank Tapping Reports I found, the Boston Globe has apparently found that the entirew Swift Program was previously disclosed - by the Bush Administration itself.

News reports disclosing the Bush administration's use of a special bank surveillance program to track terrorist financing spurred outrage in the White House and on Capitol Hill, but some specialists pointed out yesterday that the government itself has publicly discussed its stepped-up efforts to monitor terrorist finances since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

But a search of public records -- government documents posted on the Internet, congressional testimony, guidelines for bank examiners, and even an executive order President Bush signed in September 2001 -- describe how US authorities have openly sought new tools to track terrorist financing since 2001. That includes getting access to information about terrorist-linked wire transfers and other transactions, including those that travel through SWIFT.

``There have been public references to SWIFT before," said Roger Cressey, a senior White House counterterrorism official until 2003. ``The White House is overreaching when they say a crime against the war on terror. It has been in the public domain before."

Oops.

Vyan