US News
Bush lashes out at media for revealing terror finance database
Jun 26, 2006, 17:39 GMT
Washington - US President George W Bush on Monday said monitoring the financial transactions of suspected terrorists was essential to defending the United States and lashed out at the media for revealing a secret surveillance programme.
'The disclosure of this programme 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 programme and for a newspaper to publish it does great harm to the United States of America,' Bush said at the White House.
US media reported last week that shortly after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the US Treasury Department began issuing broad subpoenas to obtain information on transfers collected by a Belgian cooperative called Swift, or the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, that routes about 6 trillion dollars daily between banks, brokerages, stock exchanges and other institutions.
Swift would only provide more specific information about the individuals involved once the Treasury Department provided evidence that the transfer was linked to terrorism. Swift has large operations in the United States, but the monitoring did not include transfers within the United States.
'If you want to figure out what the terrorists are doing, you try to follow their money. And that's exactly what we're doing,' Bush said. 'And the fact that a newspaper disclosed it makes it harder to win this war on terror.'
The banking revelations followed reports in recent months that the super secret National Security Agency was collecting data on foreign calls to and from the United States, sparking criticism from civil rights groups.
© 2006 dpa - Deutsche Presse-AgenturCOMMENT
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Older Talkback
page: 1
I hope the government subpoenas the New York Times reporters and gets to the bottom of the leaks. The secret program has caught terrorist and represents another way to make life hard for terrorist. There is NO excuse or rationalization for printing that story. I wish people would stop hating Bush and start thinking about the country. All you brainwashed Bush haters will have your way. He will be out in 2008. Until then for once think beyond your hate of our president. Unless you are a little slow you can understand that you severly endanger every American when you release our methods of defending our country. Oh and it doesn't help our position in the world to consistently attack our president. Unless you want to speak maybe Arabic or Chinese. Don't think it could happen?? Think again. Every major civilization has collapsed or have been conquered. Even the liberals don't want that, or do they???
Even the brain challenged conservatives of America can't back a pResident who runs our military and economy into the ground, conducts illegal spying, is in bed with the war profiteers and oil companies and professes to respect known criminals like Tom Delay.
Defending an illegal regime like Bush and his crime cabal is downright un-American. These morons couldn't even defend America from the 911 attacks even when they were warned. There is no excuse for defending these chickenhawks.
These fake USA haters cant worry about global warming if Bush didnt fight these extremists. Unreal, these libs on here would be most affected by Radical Islamic rule. It is hard to find any of these people in real life where do they work?...I cant find anyone tht believes all this Bush rhetoric except Keith on pmsnbc and kids that watch MTV. Same goes for Global Warming no one will admit to believeing man is the cause of itbut if you watch the drive by media and read any letters to the editors all you get are these sheepish talking points that offer nothing, no plan no facts no nothing.
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DaveJun 27th, 2006 - 17:46:05
Bushoccio is an absolute moron. I wouldn't hire him to wash my truck or clean my toilet. He can't even screw up right.
Does he think that terrorist groups don't know we are trying to track them? Is this not like predicting the sun will set in the west? Maybe he thinks that everything the government does should be secret like in a good fascist state. Hmmm, the United States of Fascism. We are really close now!
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