Okay, We're Back To SWIFT Not Being Secret

In another run through the SWIFT gauntlet, Walter Pincus defends the New York Times' exposure of national security secrets in Watching Finances Of Terror Suspects Discussed in 2002. The "continued" hed on A5 reads Assertions Against Media Doubted By Walter Pincus:

At a House subcommittee hearing five months after the Sept. 11 attacks, plans were openly discussed to give the government a highly secure, real-time electronic capability to request and receive data from financial institutions about suspected terrorists or terrorist organizations. The approach was closely similar to the effort described in news reports last month, which the Bush administration has said endangered national security.

Raise your hand if you remember the fabled hearing held by the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations in February of 2002.

Those were the days, my friend. Heady times.

Neubert said under the proposed system, government agencies would electronically send the names of suspected terrorists or terrorist organization to financial institutions "seeking account and/or transaction 'hits' which would be returned to the respective [government] organizations."

Pincus then provides a summary of financial tracking programs that terrorists are all supposed to be aware of--CHIPS, SWIFT, etc., I'm tempted to think this will be a good clip-it on some al Qaeda icebox.

Meanwhile all you mainstream media types need to conference call. Was SWIFT a secret, or wasn't it? I mean we had this conversation before, yes? If it wasn't a secret, why did Eric Lichtblau and James Risen write:

• Under a secret Bush administration program initiated weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, counterterrorism officials have gained access to financial records from a vast international database...
• Officials described the Swift program as the biggest and most far-reaching of several secret efforts to trace terrorist financing....
• Nearly 20 current and former government officials and industry executives discussed aspects of the Swift operation with The New York Times on condition of anonymity because the program remains classified.
• Swift executives have been uneasy at times about their secret role, the government and industry officials said....
• While the banking program is a closely held secret, administration officials have held classified briefings for some members of Congress and the Sept. 11 commission, the officials said....
• Swift's 25-member board of directors, made up of representatives from financial institutions around the world, was previously told of the program. The Group of 10's central banks, in major industrialized countries, which oversee Swift, were also informed. It is not clear if other network participants know that American intelligence officials can examine their message traffic.
• In terrorism prosecutions, intelligence officials have been careful to "sanitize," or hide the origins of evidence collected through the program to keep it secret, officials said.
• The idea for the Swift program, several officials recalled, grew out of a suggestion by a Wall Street executive, who told a senior Bush administration official about Swift's database. Few government officials knew much about the consortium, which is led by a Brooklyn native, Leonard H. Schrank, but they quickly discovered it offered unparalleled access to international transactions.
• Despite the controls, Swift executives became increasingly worried about their secret involvement with the American government, the officials said.

Pincus writes today:

The testimony was one of several examples where government and industry officials have publicly described how counterterrorism agencies access financial records to track terrorists and shut down their funding, leading some lawmakers and counterterrorism specialists to doubt assertions that the most recent revelations have significantly helped al-Qaeda or other terrorists by disclosing valuable new information.

Be sure to include that in your Pulizter application, guys!

UPDATE: Much thanks for the links, Mr. Media Blog at NRO. (and I fear my coding up there was too cute--Pincus's name doesn't appear in that hed, with or without a strike, so, er, just move on). As for Spruiell's citation of Pincus, I am amazed. Comments here. 

Comments

[Georg Felis]

Well, at least we know who's side Mr. Pincus has taken on the War on Terror. Certainly articles like this one will help keep New York off the terrorists hit lists. Not!