Bush administration compiling massive database of bank records

Link: New exposure of US government spying Bush administration compiling massive database of bank records.

The Bush administration has been secretly tapping into a global network of confidential financial transactions and compiling a vast database of bank records. According to an article in the June 23 New York Times, the program was initiated shortly after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and has examined banking transactions involving tens of thousands of individuals in the US and internationally.

Through the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program, ordered by Bush 10 days after 9/11, the US Treasury Department has been collecting data from the world’s largest financial communications network—the Belgium-based Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or SWIFT. The Bush administration has authorized the program through administrative subpoenas under a little-known authority of the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).

Administration officials asked the Times not publish its story. When the Times went ahead with it, the White House denounced the newspaper, implying that by informing the American and international public of the massive and warrentless intrusion of privacy it was aiding and abetting the terrorists. “We are disappointed that once again the New York Times has chosen to expose a classified program that is working to protect Americans,” Bush administration spokeswoman Dana Perino said. “We know that Al Qaeda watches for any clue as to how we are fighting the war on terrorism and then they adapt.”

Comments

[rodkong]

I'm more afraid of Mastercard than I am of the Bush administration...the Bush Adminstration doesn't provide 3rd party marketers with my financial information and they're not calling me on Sunday night during dinner.

[pebird]

rodkong - isn't that the point, you're more afraid of a corporation than the government.

[rodkong]

Isn't it ironic that a Marxist blogger supports limitations on the government's powers? Wouldn't at tax laden society be prone to this sort of encroachment on privacy?

[Jodi]

Rodkong--but, the Bush administration takes advantage of the information provided to 3rd party marketeers.

Something interesting: Europeans have more privacy protection over their financial data than Americans (laws against selling the information to data brokers). I don't know why there have not been similar protections in the US.

Also, just because one is a Marxist doesn't mean that one supports some limitations on government powers (for crying out loud, the Soviets had a constitution and rights). And, there are different ways to write tax code that wouldn't contribute to the same privacy violations at play here. And, why regulate social inequality primarily through taxes anyway? One could also do it with caps on salaries and benefits.

[rodkong]

I agree that more must be done to protect our privacy, but given that we already disclose most of our financial information to our employers, credit card companies, and the government what separates this revelation from the current system? Yes, there is a slippery slope here, but what if the acquistion of secret financial transactions was used to uncover some broad conspiracy..i.e. the Oil for Aid program, maybe they implicate Halliburton. What are the positive implications? (I just saw Syriana last night)

The Europeans do a better job in terms of corporate regulation, but they sometimes go too far..France's hyper-regulation has forced divestment and has contributed to the growing unemployment. The Germans, on the other hand are a model for tort reform, they've placed caps on liability settlements. If this were enacted in the US we might see an affordable healthcare system.

So if you advocate limitations, what then separates you from a traditional liberal, or a populist (I'm thinking of T.R. or his cousin FDR)?

[Jodi]

Difference from liberal: I don't accept a right to property. Again, even socialists don't argue for a total state. We assert a different set of rights, duties, and responsibilities.

Not surprisingly, I disagree completely with your second paragraph. Re the first--that I give a credit card company my address does not mean that I consent to them trading information about what I purchase or how I use my credit card.

[rodkong]

maybe if we had salary caps, Warren Buffet wouldn't have given away $34 billion.

[peBird]

Maybe if we framed privacy (which is basically information) as a property right then figured out who owned your personal property and who could set the terms of its use we might have a starting point.

[Jodi]

PE Bird--but why do that? there are already legal notions of privacy. In fact, some argue that in a digital era we have a situation more complex for simple property rights so that rights of use, access, distribution, control become oddly encumbered and overdetermined when read in terms of private property. A right to sexual privacy, for example, need not rely on a notion of property. The same holds for a notion of informational privacy. One can easily link informational privacy to a basic notion of autonomy without going the way of property.

[peBird]

My thinking is that privacy is violated when information is exchange without permission. So, who controls? Who owns the information about me? Don't I? Shouldn't I? Without me the information would not exist.

Now, when we start talking about relationships where there is a notional equality (sexual privacy), then it gets complicated and the concept of property may break down.

But for my personal financial data, unless I willingly give up that right separate from the service I buy, then the companies are taking my property - my information.

Now, perhaps privacy is right that cannot be alienated/sold? Just like you don't have the right to sell yourself into slavery, perhaps you shouldn't have the right to sell your personal data.

I'm OK with that.

[Virgil Johnson]

Privacy although important is a secondary issue - why does the government need millions of financial records? Are there 150,000 terrorists attacking us or attempting to attack? Really people, the conversation on this post pushs naivete beyond the bounds of belief. That is all I have to say.

[rodkong]

I still don't understand how you can reconcile the difference between property (material possessions...a house and a car) and informational privacy (the means of funding the material possessions)? Informational privacy and material possessions are intrinsically contected to the individual. They cannot be separated into two spheres. Once you give up your right to property, you give up your autonomy and your right as an individual. The best example of this would be a celebrity. Once Linsey Lohan/Paris Hilton (whomever) enters the public domain, all of her actions are subject to public scrutiny. They're sexuality, homes, cars, and family are all open to the public. Have you ever seen The Fabulous Life of...on VH1?

[Jodi]

Rodkong--medical information, sexual information, information about one's political contributions, information about the blogs one reads, information about the lectures one hears, information about the books one checks out of the library, information about the places one travels, information about the phone calls one makes does not need to be conceptualized in terms of property; doing so spatializes and materializes information unnecessarily.

[peBird]

Virgil - privacy is a huge issue - as for the government, they have been spying on citizens for centuries, as you say, when you have 100,000's or millions of citizens being observed the quality of what spying is transformed.

Rodkong - I think you are advocating an individual's right to privacy, right?

This is a slippery area, as Lawrence Lessig has written with regard to intellectual capital, another non-material property formation.

My earlier discussion on information as property was an attempt to describe one way to frame the discussion so that the public might appreciate the issues.

If privacy as property can be exchanged, and it belongs to the individual then we can at least say that companies are stealing from us.

Regardless, I believe corporations are arguing that personal information is property - but they have the right to use it as they wish. I don't understand how they get away with it, but I don't understand how Bush was reelected either.

The point Jodi raised, which I had missed, was whether one should even conceive of privacy as a personal property right.

This more radical proposition (from my interpretation of Jodi's comment) is that privacy cannot be alienated, that is a right that cannot be sold.

While I agree with that in principle, I believe we may have to fight this battle using a language of property rights.

[rodkong]

Then what is the definition of property? A house? land? This is not 1794 or 1917...we no longer live in an agrarian based society. Property is defined by what we consume, what we purchase and sell. Property is money. So if we're handing the government our property in the form of taxes, what then is the difference between informational privacy and private property? If the Bush Adminstration was using illegal wiretapping and accessing the private financial information of members of the Christian Identiy (Ruby Ridge, Waco Texas, Oklahoma City) would that be a problem?

[Jodi]

Rodkong--yes that would be a problem. Rights are not rights just for the people I like.

Your other argument relies on a string of equivalences, the unstated ones being that we consume information and that information is money. If one rejects these equivalences (I don't think that information is money, despite the fact that sometimes people pay for information and I don't think that everything that one consumes is well described in terms of money) then one rejects your claim that informational privacy is the same as private property. So, I may own stock in Walt Disney. Then, there is that information. Those things are separate. Some people might want to pay for that information. That does not make that information property.

[Craig]

Like Jodi, I'm uncomfortable with the reduction of property to money. While money is a form of alienable property, it is also that form of property that can purchase other property. Houses, for instance, need to be converted into money (even if the conversion is virtual and not actual) for it be exchanged.

[rodkong]

I guess I'm having trouble understanding the basic function of socialism. How can you give up private property, but not give up personal privacy? Property isn't simply money or material possessions, it's also a matter of choice. Informational Privacy is also a choice. I can be a loud mouth or I can be as silent as a Quaker. Some people don't have a problem sharing their personal information in the elevator while talking on a cell phone.

I don't want the government spending money I earned, especially if they're spending it on programs that foster inequality. But where I want my money spent is different from where Joe Shmoe down the road wants his money spent. He'd rather spend his income on a set of golf clubs, a vacation, a Hummer, or a boob job for his wife. That is his choice...

[Jodi]

But property isn't simply a matter of choice. It is entrenched in a system wherein some own more than others, where this ownership enables them to exploit others. It relies on deep and embedded inequalities--not everyone has a choice for elective surgery or private clubs, say.

I also take your point to be that what I am calling informational privacy necessarily has a social and intersubjective dimension. This is true. No person is an isolated unit; what counts as a person is determined by social norms; what counts as information is also a matter of social norms. So, there is a social and collective aspect to matters of privacy and information.

In the 17th and early 18th centuries, matters of population growth and information about trade, licenses, buying and selling were considered state secrets. It took economic changes for these matters to become something like public information (basically, rising capitalists needed more information for buying, selling, trading, investing, etc). So, if you concern is one of what is essential private or social, then I'll say nothing is essentially either, that this isn't an issue of essences.

But, while it may be a matter of current political choices (choices of what policies and platforms to support) it is not the case that having or not having property is simply a matter of choice.

[Virgil Johnson]

I guess I will go to the next step in regard to this issue. Up until a hundred or more years ago only SLAVES carried forms of identification, because they were considered PROPERTY. Read the reinforcemnt of the constitution regarding slave property.

So identification/papers holds you accountable to whom? Essentially few know that they do NOT own anything. Who owned nothing in the past - slaves.

What do I mean by own? As it was orginally conceived, to own outright - with no FEES or DUTIES - "allodial" ownership. Go look it(allodial)up in your modern dictionary, wait a minute I'll save you some time, you won't find it.

What is GENOCIDE? It is not merely the killing of a race of people, it is the confoundation of a people's language - so as to erase a state of being (or, at least it used to be the definition of genocide a couple of hundred years ago, until citizenship was genocided). How many know what I am talking about - do you? You have been legally annexed from your heritage but do not even know it.

Why do we want "privacy," essentially? We want privacy because of the very form of our government (at least theoretically, and this is the biggest joke of all)- because it is a government of, by, and for the people. The onus of accountability is upon the servants (not masters) we chose to represent us. Without this knowledge you have no cornerstone for the government you say you have.

So you say you like your privacy, but you do not cite the reason for the privacy you wish? If you like your privacy for privacy's sake it is like an angry child that yells because another child is looking at it - no foundation. Are you outraged? Why? Do you even know why?

We have been double duped, by allowing the very definition of property and personhood to be confounded, slowly over time. We have allowed a role reversal between the people and our institutions. Do you think all this happened by accident? You are papered, defroked of personhood, stripped of ownership, and spied upon like an owned slave - does this give you any fuel for outrage? If not, I have nothing else to say. We all deserve to be swallowed alive by what we have allowed to happen without a whimper.