Did It Matter If SWIFT Was A Secret?

Scott Shane of the Times manages to present both sides of the debate in evaluating whether the Times disclosure of the SWIFT monitoring program may have harmed national security.

He opens with the argument we tackled in an earlier post, reminding us that "follow the money" had been a public goal of the Administration since 9/11:

Ever since President Bush vowed days after the Sept. 11 attacks to "follow the money as a trail to the terrorists," the government has made no secret of its efforts to hunt down the bank accounts of Al Qaeda and its allies.

However, by paragraph eight he pivots to the point we were emphasizing (and which Administration officials had emphasized to Times Executive Editor Bill Keller) - publicity might make it difficult for Europeans to continue to cooperate:

Experts on terror financing are divided in their views of the impact of the revelations. Some say the harm in last week's publications in The Times, The Los Angeles Times and The Wall Street Journal may have been less in tipping off terrorists than in putting publicity-shy bankers in an uncomfortable spotlight.

"I would be surprised if terrorists didn't know that we were doing everything we can to track their financial transactions, since the administration has been very vocal about that fact," said William F. Wechsler, a former Treasury and National Security Council official who specialized in tracking terrorism financing.

But Mr. Wechsler said the disclosure might nonetheless hamper intelligence collection by making financial institutions resistant to requests for access to records.

"I wouldn't be surprised if these recent articles have made it more difficult to get cooperation from our friends in Europe, since it may make their cooperation with the U.S. less politically palatable," Mr. Wechsler said.

Though privacy advocates have denounced the examination of banking transactions, the Swift consortium has defended its cooperation with the counterterrorism program and has not indicated any intention to stop cooperating with the broad administrative subpoenas issued to obtain its data.

Andy McCarthy is quoted offering a different take:

A former federal prosecutor who handled major terrorism cases, Andrew C. McCarthy, said he believed that the greatest harm from news reports about such classified programs was the message that Americans could not keep secrets.

"If foreign intelligence services think anything they tell us will end up in the newspapers, they'll stop sharing so much information," said Mr. McCarthy, now a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington.

And Bob Kerrey of the New School and the 9/11 Commission is offered making a back-door plea to keep the program alive:

But Bob Kerrey, a member of the 9/11 commission and former Democratic senator from Nebraska, took a different view, saying that if the news reports drive terrorists out of the banking system, that could actually help the counterterrorism cause.

"If we tell people who are potential criminals that we have a lot of police on the beat, that's a substantial deterrent," said Mr. Kerrey, now president of New School University. If terrorists decide it is too risky to move money through official channels, "that's very good, because it's much, much harder to move money in other ways," Mr. Kerrey said.

The Times reporting is clear - this is a good program; ending it would harm national security; publicity may kill it.

This was a much better effort by the Times than was produced by yesterday's Clownhouse Group led by Glenn Greenwald.  Let's reprint his challenge:

That is why not a single person who ever sermonizes righteously about the traitors at the Times can ever identify what ought to be the first fact that is identified when accusing someone of harming national security -- namely, the disclosure of facts which (a) would enable the terrorists to avoid surveillance detection and (b) was not previously known. Those facts simply do not exist, which is why nobody ever identifies them.

And for more flavor, let's reprint his bold assertion from Tuesday, when he first warmed to this theme (his emphasis):

(1) There is not a single sentence in the Times banking report that could even arguably "help the terrorists."

It appears that Scott Shane, Bob Kerrey and others managed to find that single sentence.  Arguably.

WORTH MOCKING SOMEWHERE:  Bob Novak had one chat with a CIA press flack, concluded the guy's heart was not in it, and published his column outing Valerie Plame.  He has been criticized for not acceding instantly and unquestioningly to the CIA request.

The Times met with and heard from numerous Administration officials over a period of weeks.  They decided that some of the Administration arguments were "half-hearted", and proceeded to publish.

Let's see - is it fair to point out that Bob Novak may have had a point when he said that the CIA did not push too hard?  Here is Novak from Oct 2003; CIA press spokesperson Bill Harlow from the WaPo, July 27, 2005; and Novak responds.  My thoughts here.

Comments

[Tim]

This, along with the Hamdan ruling this a.m.., and other incidents demonstrate America's Left is utterly committed to giving our enemies every consideration and advantage they need to kill more Americans.

But we dare not question their patriotism, do we?

[Lurker]

Expect alot of uproar over this and I don't think anything can be done to change this ruling. Allah has trouble interpreting the ruling. "They have to try Hamdan in the federal court but try him for what?"

[Semanticleo]

Patriotism?

If you want to see REAL patriotism, you should watch House Republicans use floor time to condemn the Times. What other pressing issues
can they address? Flag burning? All-American
in it's implications.

http://www.thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/062806/nytimes.html

[Twok]

It is true that this type of treasonous behavior by the NYT ultimately does make our couterterrrorism efforts stronger.

But it is very dangerous for Americans to still be unaware of those among us who actively side with terrorists, and get away with it.

[Jos Bleau]

The defense of the Times rests on the argument that they were (A) too incompetant to know that the program wasn't secret or (B) knew that the program wasn't terribly secret but presented it as such anyway - that is, that the Times lied.

[Other Tom]

I listened intently to Tony Snow's responses to O'Reilly's questions last night concerning possible criminal investigations into the leakers. He most assuredly did not rule them out; he simply said that they would not be initiated by the president. Anyone who feels certain that no such investigations have been initiated should go back and give careful consideration to what the Attorney General has had to say on the subject.

[Neo]

Methinks Bob Kerrey's point is wishful thinking. The terrorists know that the program is effective over, as the "right thinking" crowd in Europe will bend over backward to put their thumbs in America's eye.

If I were a terrorist, I'd wait a week then transfer everything I need for the next 6 months.

[BumperStickerist]

Remember Tom,

That Greenwald writes something doesn't make it foolish. It just increases the likelihood by a factor of ten.

Cheers.

[LHFM]

The argument that some are making -- that the terrorists must know we are targeting their financial arrangements, and therefore the revelations don't have any effect -- is a foolish one. There are high costs associated with avoiding the ordinary financial channels, and terrorists are very likely to use them unless they have good reason to think they are being monitored. (Like a splashy betrayal in the Times.) A similar example is wiretapping, observed during the decade when I was a federal prosecutor. Most criminals have an idea that law enforcement COULD tap their phones, but they keep on using phones anyway because the costs of trying to change phones all the time in most cases are too high absent actual signs of wiretapping. Once they have a reason to think they are being tapped, they drop the phones and get new ones. Until then, they keep going and take their chances. This situation is no different. I'm sure terrorists have an idea that anything they do might be surveilled, but unless they think they ARE being surveilled, they will keep on using those particular methods.

[Al Maviva]

If terrorists decide it is too risky to move money through official channels, "that's very good, because it's much, much harder to move money in other ways," Mr. Kerrey said.

While that's a nice notion in theory, driving the terror masters out of the regulated finance industry, where we can watch them, into the underground, is not necessarily helpful. The informal money transfer ("Hawala") system is impervious to government regulation and surveillance, and while it is less efficient it still works well enough to effect money transfers across international borders. Moreover, traditional methods of white collar crime money laundering still work pretty well, including bearer bonds, various types of convertible instruments and compact real assets (precious metals, diamonds, etc), which are pretty easily smuggled and converted to cash. The idea that driving AQ (and other terrorist) financiers out of the light and into the back alleys is going to help in the GWOT, seems less than self-evident. While the transactional costs (in time and efficiency) are probably higher in the back alleys, and it may require new forms of white collar corruption to accomplish the same money transfers, I should think the terrorists have a sizeable advantage in the long run from operating in back alleys where clean cut G-men find it hard to travel.

[Paul Schlick]

Speeders know that the Highway Patrol uses speed traps, yet using speed traps still catches speeders … unless someone publishes the locations of the speed traps.

Criminals know that the police use informants, yet using informants still catches criminals … unless someone publishes the names of the informants.

Racketeers know that the FBI uses sting operations, yet using sting operations still catches racketeers … unless someone publishes the details of the sting operations.

Terrorists may know that counter-terrorist officials use financial tracking programs, yet using financial tracking programs still catches terrorists … unless someone publishes the details of the tracking program.

Glenn Greenwald may be too dim a bulb to see the obvious but you'd think the brilliant lights at The New York Times could comprehend something so simple ... unless becoming a "journalist" isn't as mentally demanding as journalists have been telling us all these years.

Now, there's a scoop worthy of The New York Times!

[PWT]

You forget that Novak's acctions disclosed the identity of the sole CIA agent that had prevented rogue nations from acquiring nuclear weapons. The threat she repelled was imminent as can be seen by the tragic bombings in OH, PA and FL.

[Carol Herman]

ONE: It's out of the bag.

TWO: It may be better to out-source the stuff we need to do to keep us safe from terrorists. No. I'm not kidding. But a small company that depended on its livelihood for funding its own survival could be better equipped? Let alone, why depend on it being here?

Most foreign countries have wall-to-wall spies, anyway. If you went to moscow, for instance, and you just counted off every third person you saw ... you'd probably be identifying spooks. They spend a lot to keep human intelligence intertwined with their system.

As a matter of fact, off topic, but talking about russians; today's news is that they complained about syrian 'fly-over' by Israeli jets, that rattled more than assad's windows. It reached him in his underpants.

But people don't know that russia sells a lot of its military technology to arabs. And, the "fly-over" showed the arabs with money to spare; that giving it to the russians buys them very shoddy "defense" systems.

So? Today the arabs know they're not getting their money's worth from the russians. While our tax money, needed for our defense, gets wasted by congress critters.

We could design a better accounting system, ya know?

[Mister Snitch!]

Could we all please refrain from precious little asides such as 'Clownhouse'? The left does this constantly, particularly in references to Bush. It's cloying, it's tiresome, and let's face it – it's sophomoric. Let them degrade their 'chimpy' arguments in that manner, but don't join that lazy chorus. You'll only send the message that your arguments are poorly reasoned and palatable only to the drinkers of the kool-aid (another cliche I hope not to read again, by the way).

[boris]

please refrain

One method of dealing with obnoxious behavior is responding in kind. Never take tit for tat off the table. Analysis of the prisoners dilema provides the proof.

Failure to understand this simple variation of the golden rule is automatic entry as a contender for the Darwin award.

[boris]

The other side is famous for invoking rules like "no hitting below the belt" then wearing their belt like a hat.

[Michael]

In all of the recriminations against the NYT, none of which seems to include the LAT nor the WSJ, an important fact is missing. Someone at the White House is talking to reporters. There is a mole in the administration and no one seems to care to find out who it is.
How much money and time was spent to find out who "outed" Mrs Wilson?
If this is such a breach of national security, warrenting charges of espionage against Mr Keller and his staff, then there should be a Justice Department investigation into who is leaking classified information in the White House.
If this was such a secret operation then the pool of people who knew about it must be rather small. Round them up, put them under oath, and interoggate them.
I don't think the administration is too hot to move in this direction because, in my gut, I don't think they want to find out. I'll tell you why.
It has been reported that this proram has been highly effective, at least in the beginning, in identifying links used to pass money via electronic means. It started very shortly after September 2001. While there are still some "hits" coming across the wires, for the most part it has served it's pupose, and is not as effective as it was. Al Qaeda are many things but stupid is not one of them. As their people were identiied and arrested it must have occured to them that wiring money was not a safe course of action. That said politics now comes into my theory.
The NYT has been a thorn in the side of the Bush team since day one. Even though they did use Judith Miller to plant the story about the aluminum tubes in the Times and then cited the article as jounalistic proof that Hussein was reconstituting his nuclear program.
The same mole (prehaps) outed the warrentless wiretaps and now the payback was on. But how?
The SWIFT program was winding down, it wasn't illegal, it was a tool used in the war on terrorism so leak it to the Times. Try to dissuade them from running it ( the WSJ stated the administration did not ask them to hold the story, though they won't go into detail on editing nor reporting procedures at their paper) and then blast the Times when they do, and you knew they would, run it. The elitist leftist media is putting American lives at risk!
It is so Rovian. And hence the reluctance on the part of the administration on finding out who in the White House who is trafficking in national secrets

[PeterUK]

"Patriotism?

If you want to see REAL patriotism, you should watch House Republicans use floor time to condemn the Times."

Well,there we have it from the horses ass,the implication that it is unpatriotic to condemn the NYT.

[Black Jack]

People do the strangest things:

Recall the first attempt to blow up the World Trade Center, the terrorists were caught when one of them tried to recover the cash deposit they put down on the rental truck they'd filled with explosives and parked in the Tower's basement parking lot.

The most important principle in fighting terrorism is: Follow the money, cash is the lifeblood of terrorism. They can't function without it. That's why the Two Timers treachery is so damaging to our national security. The terrorists will attack again, and their allies in American journalism are busy preparing the way.

The NY Times is the self-appointed enabler of terrorism, an enemy of freedom, and an agency of International anti-Americanism. They should not be allowed to continue. If our political leaders haven't got the courage to prevent the NY Times from getting us all killed, then we need new leaders who will actually fight against our enemies, both foreign and domestic.

[PeterUK]

Sorry,but al Qaeda are stupid,they kicked a bull in the balls and stood there in the field going "Nyah Na Ny Nyah, Nyah" A quick appraisal of Pearl Harbour might have given them a clue,but no,they were too wound up with their warrior ethos,so they started a war on a lie...that they could win.

[David Walser]

Michael - Many of us are plenty upset with those who leaked this information to the two Times. Several have posted here and elsewhere that they should be caught and punished. However, the fact we are upset with the unidentified leakers does not mean we cannot be upset with the NYT. For the record, as part of a plea deal, I'd be willing to see Keller get off with no jail time if he were to name his sources and testify against them at trial.

Also, as has been discussed elsewhere, the NYT is in a special category that does not include the LAT or the WSJ. It was the NYT that decided to print the story, after being warned it would harm national security. Neither the LAT nor the WSJ had time to come to a conclusion on that question. (Once the NYT posted the story to its web page, there was no question what the other papers would do.)

[maryrose]

The behavior and rationalization about this is deplorable. Hillary's vote allowing flag burning is going to come back and bite her. Politicians can be such fools. It is a wonder they got elected in the first place.

[Forbes]

Black Jack: While your "follow the money" tactic is worthy, the facts cited in the WTC '93 bombing pointed to an alternative conclusion.

Jim Fox, who headed the investigation as head of the New York FBI field office, concluded that the effort to recover the rental truck deposit was a "false flag" operation, intended to send investigators off in wrong directions, ending in "dead ends."

As the driver was recruited at the last days prior to the bombing, he had little knowledge about the bombing plot and cell operation--except what the others told him. In others words, he was a "plant." And as the others in the cell had getaway plans, safe houses, and plane tickets prepared in advance, the driver was left to fend for himself with no resources, except to recover the truck rental deposit--so as to leave the impression of incompetance, and plant the (false) evidence to which the driver was privey.

This led Fox, who had previous experience in FBI counter-intelligence, to conclude that a foreign government had been involved in training some of the cell members, due to nature of the methods and tactics used by the cell.

Obviously, these details are a small part of the '93 story.

[Tom Maguire]

Could we all please refrain from precious little asides such as 'Clownhouse'? The left does this constantly, particularly in references to Bush. It's cloying, it's tiresome, and let's face it – it's sophomoric.

Great idea, but - I can resist anything except temptation.

[OneProblem]

Hmmm. Maybe we shouldn't publish anything that might make people uncomfortable with what they're doing. Oh, wait.

If bankers lose their spine because their actions are in the public light, blame the bankers - not the Times. I like papers AND blogs watchdogging my institutions.

Let's indict jellyfish Euro bankers for treason, not the Times!

[Forbes]

Actually TM, some of us enjoy the asides that are precious and little, it's the tsunami of ad hominem and personal invective that drowns us in cloying and tiresome sophomores.

[bud]

How long before a car bomb, etc, targets some of the Europeans that have been aiding the US effort.

Will Bill Keller personally attend their funerals?

email is human readable -aloud.

[clarice]

More bad news for Pinch

A new poll bears bad tidings for the New York Times.

Most Americans support the government program to track possible terrorist funding, one of the few areas where majorities of both parties agree. In addition, the public thinks people who leak classified information—as well as news organizations that publish it—should face criminal charges. On Iraq, more than half want U.S. troops to stay and finish the job.

These are just some of the findings of the new national telephone poll of 900 registered voters conducted from June 27 to June 28 by Opinion Dynamics Corporation for FOX News. The poll has a 3-point error margin.

http://americanthinker.com/comments.php?comments_id=5480

[Barney Frank]

"Could we all please refrain from precious little asides such as 'Clownhouse'? The left does this constantly, particularly in references to Bush. It's cloying, it's tiresome, and let's face it – it's sophomoric."

If this were the Oxford debating society perhaps, but its not. Ridicule has a long and honorable history.
Shoot, half the reason I read this blog is to see what sobriquet PeterUK is bestowing on some drive-by halfwit.

[JM Hanes]

Mister Snitch!

"It's cloying, it's tiresome, and let's face it – it's sophomoric"

Agree with you there MrS! If you could just skip over 'em, it wouldn't be so annoying, but most of the time you've already stopped to translate 'em back before you realize you're wasting your time on somebody else's idea of cutesy pie.

[PeterUK]

It is our solemn duty to subject them to derision,if they didn't want to be insulted they wouldn't be liberals.
Look at Dementedleo for example,locked away with the ointment, only a laptop,the NYT and her piles for company,what kind of life is that for a cretin?
Here she can individuate herself before the mocking multitudes,teeming millions of internet users intimately aquainted with her personal problems.It is a kindness,otherwise she would be on Jerry Springer,images of her...well images, would be beamed across the world,people would recognise her in the street,"How are the haemorrhoids?" they would cry,much better this way.Cruel to be kind.

[JM Hanes]

"Cruel to be kind."

LOL!

[clarice]

I l*o*v*e.PUK...

[Barney Frank]

See what I mean?
Author, author, Peter!

[PeterUK]

Some say,one should never resort to ad hominems,but to paraphrase the old dictum,"You are what you eat", "You are what you think",gross as it might seem,the internet is a distillation of peoples thoughts,"The medium is the message","The messenger is the message"

[Semanticleo]

golf clap

[PeterUK]

Oh dear Semanticleo,you haven't caught another round of applause have you?

[John Boyle]

The problem is not that European bankers will go shy of the program, but that privacy wattchdogs in Europe, much more powerful and extreme in that Socialist environment than even here, will create enough political pressure to end the program altogether. It is not that the program's usefulness will be compromised by exposure, but that it will be completely ended.

Note from this linked article that the cooperation of 194 countries had to be obtained to make this work, and that it took a long time to set up. And now Belgium, the host country for SWIFT, is making noises that will no doubt sink the program:

http://powerlineblog.com/archives/014540.php

Here is more international blowback from the Times' treason, from a Soros funded outfit:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/27/AR2006062701912.html?referrer=emailarticle

[PeterUK]

John Boyle,
It raise the question of who has the most to lose by financial monitoring,Joe Sixpack is hardly likely to be transfering significant sums of money about the planet.

[lurker]

Douglas Farah

"My friend Dennis Lormel and others are correct in stating that programs to attack terror finance must be differentiated and viewed in their many different elements. Which is why what is striking in the current debate is not what is said but what is not discussed.

What is not being discussed is the non-formal methods of money transfer, with the accompanying use of commodities and other methods to store financial value; and the use of the Islamic banking structures and its corresponding, massive offshore structures. This includes not only the multiple holdings of DMI and others in the Bahamas, Caymen and Panama, but also the offshore holdings of designated terrorist financiers such as Yousef Nada and Idriss Nasreddin. None of these have been touched.

The Islamic banking strucutre, while having every right to exist as a system to meet particular religious constraints, does not play by the same rules. Massive amounts of money move outside the SWIFT-reported systems all over the world, in part through Islamic banks that are specifically designed to help the customer avoid the Western banking system....."

As some posters already pointed out...

[lurker]

Lichtblau's Defense: We Told The Terrorists Nothing They Didn't Already Know

HHHHmmm.....

Hugh made a reference to TM's thread, "Tom Macguire has ben dealing with variants of the argument as well."

Hugh and Eric Lichtblau will be on CNN's Reliable Sources with Howard Kurtz next Sunday. With former Des Moines Register editor and former Washington Post Ombudsman Geneva Overholser and columnist Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post.

Should be interesting.

Hugh posted an email:

"reetings,

Not A Good Day, indeed.

let me add my .02....

while everything you say about the current situation is TRUE, however please allow me to suggest that the LONG TERM impact here is EVEN WORSE...

Since St. Jimmy sent St Stan down to Langley to show the Peasants how "Honorable Ladies and Gentlemen" did Intelligence...

...we have increasingly made our National Intelligence infrastructure subject to the whims and fancies of both Pop Culture and post-modern Political Correctness, it has long been a point that anyone "bold" enough to suggest "Active Measures", was treated as a Pariah, (i think this goes a long way to explaining the Situational Derangement of guys like Richard Clarke and Michael Scheuer, who were reportedly for much more muscular counter-intelligence efforts from the late 80's thru the late 90's, all to no avail)

This produces situations where even Slick Willy thought that dropping a few dozen cruise missiles on goat herds in the middle of the desert passed for a legitimate response to a increasingly deadly opponent.

My Argument:

If the Times*2 do not experience ***GENUINE PAIN*** here, we will be effectively giving a "pocket veto" over intelligence operations to the Main Stream Media, as conflict-adverse incumbents both elected and bureaucratic, will gauge all potential covert ops in terms of political blowback when the Op is blown in the MSM....

this will, i contend, in addition to fostering EVEN MORE caution amongst the Intelligence Mandarins regarding Ops, will effectively give a COST-FREE veto over Plans and Ops to every employee of an Intelligence Agency, who is willing to invest in a cellular phone call to a reporter from a MSM outlet willing to print/broadcast it...

And if Times*2 aren't REALLY SPANKED HERE, that will be very, very many MSM entities....

Godspeed and Blue Skies!"

[Barney Frank]

Can the west win this war?
We have gone from blowing up or burning entire cities of our enemies in order to prevail to not wanting to upset offshore Islamic banking structures and getting the vapors if a dog collar is put on a terrorists neck, lest we (shock) 'become as bad as they are'.
Bush is politically hamstrung for merely pussyfooting around in Iraq and jawboning the rest of the 'axis of evil'. And he's the baddest dude we've got.
Its an open question, for me anyway, whether the west has the will to survive.

[PeterUK]

Interesting that Lichtblau is a close confidant of the terrorists,or do they just send him an update,perhsaps the NYT is on al Qaeda's mailing list?

[lurker]

:-) Heh, he sure is!

Here is something interesting:

"The idea for the Swift program, several officials recalled, grew out of a suggestion by a Wall Street executive, who told a senior Bush administration official about Swift's database. Few government officials knew much about the consortium, which is led by a Brooklyn native, Leonard H. Schrank, but they quickly discovered it offered unparalleled access to international transactions. Swift, a former government official said, was "the mother lode, the Rosetta stone" for financial data."

1. A Wall Street Executive told WH about SWIFT.

2. Led by an American.

3. Very few government officials knew about it.

And I'll add 4) Very few Americans knew about it either.

[Barney Frank]

Lurker,

How about 5)Very few terrorists knew about it.
A lot fewer than the NYT is trying to imply I'll wager.

[Sue]

If this was not a secret, why was it a story? No one seems to know the answer to that.

[Black Jack]

Forbes, the whole operation depended on getting the truck to the WTC. I can't imagine any responsible leader leaving such an important step to someone who was recruited at the 11th hour. I wasn't born yesterday, Fox's conclusion doesn't pass the smell test.

The task of driving the truck would have been considered a high honor, and given to a trusted lieutenant who had earned it. The sap who tried to collect the deposit may well have needed the money, but I've got 10 bucks says he didn't do the driving.

[PeterUK]

Perhaps Mr Lichtblau could do his patriotic duty and provide a list of the terrorists who DID know.What level the information was diseminated to,obviously Ali Kaboom, the goat herd with the taste for loud waistcoats,probably did not get notified,but no doubt it was tapped out on the cave roof for bin Laden.
In any event surely Mr Lichtblau must be willing to reveal his sources,after all, it isn't as if they will get jail.

[Sue]

Funny, according to Hugh Hewitt Doyle McManus of the LA Times admitted to him "that the stories "conceivably" could help terrorists avoid capture.

And, in Lichtblau's original article he claims "the banking program is a closely held secret,".

And now they want to say everyone knew? What's the big deal?

[clarice]

Black Jack, the dope was perfect for the job. He was unaware of the organizer (an Iraqi), he was told TWICE to get his money by returning the truck. The organizer knew he'd be picked up and the feds would be busy with the dummy as he slipped away home.
Perfect.