Bush calls disclosure of a program to secretly monitor the financial transactions of suspected terrorists “disgraceful”

Monday, June 26, 2006 21:21

Posted in category Bush, Politics, World Events

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.

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.

The President 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.”

Perhaps its time for us to stop broadcasting everything we are doing to the people that we’re trying to stop. Novel idea, isn’t it?

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