Outrage voiced today by President Bush, whether feigned or genuine, over recent news that the U.S. Government is using bank data to track terrorists, is disturbing because it reveals how little the President knows about tracking terrorist financing. President Bush called:
the New York Times story revealing the administration’s monitoring of bank records “disgraceful,” and said the decision to publish details of the program “does great harm to the United States of America.”(snip)
What has the President's shorts in a knot is that this latest revelation may create a political problem for the Administration and could lead SWIFT to stop "sharing" the information with the CIA. But, to paraphrase Shakespeare, methinks the President doth protest too much. If his outrage was directed at all three media outlets and he announced a search for the leakers, I would give him the benefit of the doubt. But, I have learned from one of the reporters from the three outlets who published the story that the White House did not make a serious effort to get the story stopped (and no I was not a source for any of them and learned about the story the way the rest of America did). We have to entertain the possibility that this was deliberately leaked so the President and his Republican allies could try to refocus public attention on the evil "liberal" media.
The only "secret" I can see, based solely on my understanding of how financial investigations work, is the fact that the CIA has access to this data without any judicial oversight. This is the classic FBI vs. CIA connundrum. If you use a law enforcement approach you are subject to judicial oversight. If you are doing "international" intelligence you have no effective oversight; the key is not to get caught.
more
http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2006/jun/26/is_president_bush_swiftswift
http://www.swift.com/index.cfm?item_id=1008