A Penguin in the Orchard

More “Counterterrorism”

Haven’t we heard this before?

Bank Data Is Sifted by U.S. in Secret to Block Terror - New York Times

The program is limited, government officials say, to tracing transactions of people suspected of having ties to Al Qaeda by reviewing records from the nerve center of the global banking industry, a Belgian cooperative that routes about $6 trillion daily between banks, brokerages, stock exchanges and other institutions. The records mostly involve wire transfers and other methods of moving money overseas and into and out of the United States. Most routine financial transactions confined to this country are not in the database.

I can almost guarantee that within the next few weeks, the administration will be forced to admit that this program wasn’t just for “… people suspected of having ties to Al Qaeda …”

[tags]bank records, counterterrorism, surveillance[/tags]