http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/0...n110003.html

"Things were very difficult for [McCain]," he said. "He was horribly wounded in his extremities, and it was questionable if he would survive his experience. He set a high standard for himself because the Vietnamese tried to release him and he showed courage by refusing that to come about. We had an opportunity to watch a president in office, a Democrat who was extremely ineffective during those years. [McCain] learned an awful lot from that... General Clark spent a month in Vietnam, got badly wounded and was evacuated, that was his experience. I say let's hold the two of them up and compare them."

By Jason Miller

Thomas Paine's Corner

Let’s face it, my fellow freedom and burger loving Americans. It is becoming painfully obvious that our non-negotiable American Way of Life is increasingly under attack. Yet while our meat consumption may be a wedge issue our foes are using against us, it can also be our salvation.

I am lead counsel for the plaintiffs in Walker v. SWIFT, a class action lawsuit alleging violations of the Fourth Amendment and Right to Financial Privacy Act in connection with SWIFT's disclosure to the government of its entire database of financial records.

The case was filed a year ago after the program was publicly revealed.  Despite the public confirmations, Bush and the DOJ have signaled that they are contemplating throwing a cloak of secrecy over the case and asking the courts to dismiss it because it "threatens to divulge highly classified information." IMO, this would be an abuse of the privilege since the matter has been publicly confirmed by the Secretary of the Treasury, Bush, Cheney, and other executive department officials.

Two months ago a federal judge in Chicago found that our case could continue and denied a defense motion to dismiss.  The Chicago judge also transferred the case to Alexandria, VA.  Last Friday, the judge in Alexandria heard a motion from the defense to basically reverse the findings of the Chicago judge and asked him to dismiss the case.  

The hearing went well.  I'll post again when the judge rules.  Link to Times article and quotes after the jump.

I am plaintiffs' counsel in Walker v. SWIFT, a class action case challenging SWIFT's disclosure of its database to the government as illegal under the Fourth Amendment and federal Right to Financial Privacy Act.

SWIFT, which stands for "Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication", is a giant corporation based in Belgium and is the nerve center of the global financial industry.  

Last June the New York Times revealed that the U.S. Treasury Department and CIA approached SWIFT and asked for customer financial records in a manner outside the legal process.  SWIFT responded by giving the government its entire database.  The original article can be viewed here:

http://www.freepress.net/...

I posted a similar diary the day the judge ruled and was asked to re-post with more details.  Today my colleagues and I are sending out a press release, the text of which appears in the body of this message.  Please feel free to contact us if you have questions or want to get involved.

Hello, I am plaintiffs' counsel in Walker v. SWIFT, Northern District of Illinois, case no. 06 3447.  The case alleges that Brussels-based SWIFT violated the First and Fourth Amendments to the Constitution and the Right to Financial Privacy Act by illegally disclosing its entire database of financial records to the U.S government.

Today Chief Judge Holderman ruled that plaintiffs have standing to sue and can pursue their Fourth Amendment and Right to Financial Privacy Act claims against SWIFT.  I don't have a link to the orders but you can view them using the court's PACER system at http://pacer.psc.uscourts.gov/ and searching by case name or number, again 06 3447, Northern District of Illinois.

You may recall that the New York Times published a front page article about this last June then later "apologized" for running the story because it saw no possible legal basis for challenging the program.  

Bush, in another cowardly display, demonstrates, yet again, that political connections, not qualifications are the most important consideration for getting a position in his administration. Bush’s withdrawal of Sam Fox’s nomination minutes before he was to face the Senate and possibly more questions about his support for the disgraceful Swift Boat Veterans for Truth's despicable smear campaign, only to then turn around and announce that he plans to install Fox via a recess appointment, is the act of a coward. Let’s be clear, Fox’s nomination, withdrawal and recess appointment say more about Bush’s character than Fox’s.

More illegalities related to the Bush administration...

A report by an EU panel released Thursday said the bank data transfer agency SWIFT broke European privacy laws by handing over personal data to U.S. authorities for use in anti-terror investigations.

The Belgian-based company, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, "committed violations of data protection laws" by secretly transferring data to the United States, without properly informing Belgian authorities, the EU's data protection panel said.

Apparently we aren't made safe enough by a President that breaks US law; we need to be able to break European laws as well.

[NY Times]  A European Union panel has serious doubts about the legality of a Bush administration program that monitors international financial transactions, the group's leader said Monday, and plans to recommend tighter controls to prevent privacy abuses.

The advisory panel is not asking that the program be ended but will recommend changes that will bring the program in line with banking and privacy laws in Europe.  For background, please read my previous article on the program, US Treasury's Secret Terrorist Tracking Program.

Democrats are always under attack for being "weak" on "national security." The premise is that we can't fight the "war on terror" as well as the Republicans. But Republicans are silent about the real war, the war for Democracy. That's because they are the mouthpiece for neo-conservatives. And, it is the neocons that are waging war on democracy. They are well on their way to winning it.

That's why we need to reaffirm our democratic principles and institutions and fight our own war, the War for Democracy.

Here's the link to the Congressional Committee website:

http://clerk.house.gov/...

As I expected, committee Republicans acted typically, oozing feigned righteous indignation, stubbornly ignoring those stubborn little facts, all the while sticking pins and needles into homemade voodoo dolls of Bill Keller under the table.

Bin Laden's Finances Are Moving Target

By John Mintz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 28, 1998; Page A01

.......On one point U.S. officials are certain: They hold out no hope of finding bin Laden assets in the United States. He has advocated a boycott of this country for years. But they are scouring Britain for bin Laden bank accounts used to finance a Saudi dissident organization there, terrorism experts said.

The CIA and agents with Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network also will try to lay tripwires to find out when bin Laden moves funds by plugging into the computerized systems of bank transaction monitoring services – operated by the Federal Reserve and private organizations called SWIFT and CHIPS – that record the billions of dollars coursing through the global banking system daily. .......

On the whole, they present a decent argument that is fully conveyed in the opening sentence, "It is the business -- and the responsibility -- of the press to reveal secrets." How I wish the press would undertake that responsibility more often. A full reading of the article, however, seems to water down the premise. They describe the journalist's dilemma as, "choosing between the risk that would result from disclosure and the parallel risk of keeping the public in the dark." But the risk of keeping the public in the dark, while significant, is not the only risk that lack of disclosure portends.

Cross posted at...

When the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Los Angeles Times reported that SWIFT data was being used to track terrorist finances, Dennis Lormel, the former head of the FBI's terrorist financial investigative unit, helped lead the charge accusing the media of undermining our nation's security.  Rule of thumb, PEOPLE WHO LIVE IN GLASS HOUSES SHOULD NOT THROW ROCKS.

More below

http://fox17.trb.com/... fox43.trb.com q13.trb.com fox61.trb.com

http://fox59.trb.com/...
From the Baltimore Sun
Authorities trying to track money back to bin Laden

September 21, 2001

.......Funding on that scale would not necessarily have required large international bank transfers of the kind often seen in cases involving drug cartels or corrupt regimes. That could limit the ability of the National Security Agency to follow the money through its electronic intercepts of such transactions, which are carried out by the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT), headquartered in Belgium........

Andrew Rettman at the EUobserver.com makes some interesting observations:

The SWIFT case mirrors the 2000 ECHELON scandal, in which revelations by investigative reporter Duncan Campbell said the US exploited its security relations with the UK to eavesdrop on EU firms.
Mr Campbell showed that the US derailed a deal between EU aviation firm Airbus and Saudi Arabia using the ECHELON phone-snooping system, leading the EU in 2004 to invest €12 million in data encryption research under the so-called SECOQS project.

Recent developments in Europe show an advancing interest in uncovering the complicity of some EU member states in secret programs carried out by the United States on European soil.  The CIA's "black site" rendition program has led to the arrests of two Italian intelligence officers involved with the kidnapping of Abu Omar.  Also, yesterday the European parliament voted to require information on the Treasury Department's secret program to tap the international financial transaction database of SWIFT.

Both of these programs present potential legal problems for EU member states.  In the rendition story, Poland and Romania are accused of secretly housing prisoners and violating human rights standards.  As for the banking transaction program, it is possible that Brussels, the home of SWIFT, may have violated Europe's privacy laws.