The furor over New York Times reporting on international banking monitors via the Belgium SWIFT system are just blow-hards spitting dust into the wind.
If this was such a double-secret burn-before-reading program, then why did I learned of this "classified" method two years before GwB himself announced "his" initiative a few short months after 9-11 and four years before his Treasury Dept takes a gaggle of reporters overseas just to strut the money-tracking acumen "they" created...
These goats gloat when the "leak" is on their to-do list, but clutch chest and fein mortal wounds to the sheep when "leaks" aren't.
Maybe Steve Colbert can start minting the political version of an Oscar.
Back when we had a functioning economy I was living the life of an international man of mystery jet-setting 'tween continents while running the development group of an Amsterdam broadband iTV startup, eCity. I found out about this dark secret one gloomy day after crossing the somewhat seedy Rembrandtplein to duck out of the rain and into my favorite party-coupon {guilders} dispenser, ABN-Amro. Inside, I met a bank teller who informed me in typical Dutch fashion that my funds transfer from local Netherlands account to overseas American one "Iz not poss-ee-ble." A few inquiries and she cheerily explained I simply needed the S.W.I.F.T codes my bank used, the upper limits before extra notice would be generated, and the rationale behind it of the Drug Warzzz and other long-standing anti-Mafioso measures that had brought all this about.
Is it the contention of this administration, and it's lackeys, that cuffs and subpoenas be sent out across this planet to snare these dangerous "leakers" hiding behind counters & furtively darting from shadow to gloomy corner sneakily subverting the worlds' financial system by explaining a public system?
The real question is, why this and now?
Obviously they are hitting a few goals by ratcheting up the rhetoric in prep for fall as well as pimping their record bad poll numbers, but really it comes down to this: My spidey-sense is tingling that serious reporters are hot on the trail of a vast Big Uber Brotherness spy ring meant more for future political hatchet jobs here at home than fighting terrorsts abroad. The spinners-o-lies running their campaign are trying to get out in front of disclosures Yet To Come. A few years ago the public spake spittle on a certain nefarious Iran-Contra criminal figure known as John Poindexter for his Total Information Awareness program: a domestic spying system that was supposedly disbanded upon direct express judgement from Congress against this Presidency.
Can you spell COMPARTMENTALIZATION?
Diffuse and nondescript, our government shadow-wielders delight in obscure methods to fund their pet projects despite ostensible Propaganda Corps releases meant to salve raw civic wounds.
Time will tell, but I am feeling certain this will be revealed all too soon. My speculation is based on tid-bits over the wires, and my own murky - but reliable - intuition for sniffing out bull-shite, as well as some personal insight into how our defense contractor funding systems works {'cause I was one when 9-11 had occurred}. The psuedo-shock these wing-nuts display over this SWIFT "revelation" belie serious worry.
They are blowing smoke and it's coming from their own asses.