Curiouser and curiouser: the NYT "leak" flap

[magellan]

I posted a thread the other day, arguing that BushCo's ire over the NYT's article is bogus because the NYT originally reported the plan to track international bank transactions back in April 2005, without garnering so much as a public hand-wringing from the WH. (Probably because US gov't officials were interviewed for that article.)

But now I'm puzzled. The NYT has not, to my knowledge, mentioned their 2005 article -- and the WH's utter lack of public reaction to it at the time -- as a defense against the current leak allegations. Instead they've reached all the way back to 2001 for Bush**'s first quote saying the gov't would begin tracking terrorist financial transactions.

So here's my question. Why have the NYT ignored their own year-old story? That's the first place I would have gone if I were them. "Look, we discussed the government's plan to track US/overseas bank transactions LAST YEAR, and they didn't raise a stink about it then!"

Does it have anything to do with the fact their 2005 article is no longer available on the NYT site, as I discovered when trying to link to it the other day from the old DU thread? Or that the Yahoo News piece covering the same 2005 NYT article (the content of which I found on another, unrelated site) is also 'deleted'?

Something smells funny about this. Who within the administration spoke to the NYT last year for their April 2005 article, and are they still with the administration? If they are, why aren't they feeling Bush**'s wrath along with the NYT? Why is the 2005 article no longer available? When did it vanish?

For reference, here's the meat of my post from the other day:

In an article that's no longer on their site, the NYT reported on April 9, 2005 that the Bush** administration was seeking access to international bank transactions. See thread from that date for some of the text from that article:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

A Yahoo News article dated April 10, 2005 -- also since deleted -- repeats the info:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Bush administration is developing a plan to give the government access to possibly hundreds of millions of international banking records in an effort to trace and deter terrorist financing, The New York Times reported in Sunday editions.

Citing interviews with government officials, the newspaper reported that the new initiative, conceived by a working group within the Treasury Department, would vastly expand government access to financial transactions via logs of international wire transfers into and out of U.S. banks.

The plan, still in the preliminary stages, grew out of a brief, little-noticed provision in the intelligence reform bill passed by Congress in December, the Times said. It would give the government tools to track leads on specific suspects and to analyze patterns in terrorist financing and other finance crimes, the officials said.

The newspaper reported that the officials, aware of concerns about privacy, want to include safeguards to prevent misuse of the enormous cache of financial records.

[Quakerfriend]

1. I think you're probably right. I have noticed that the medias

'reaction' to this is just plain over the top! Sort of like misplaced outrage.

[magellan]

3. Indeed. It's manufactured outrage

And I think it's to hide the fact the government gave the NYT this story last year. That way the WH can yell "foul" now, and beat the media into further submission.

The thing that gets me is the NYT appears to be playing along. They deleted their original story and don't mention it now.

[Sherman A1]

2. As I recall

When everyone was running around in circles after 9/11, the money trail was all over the news. How do we track it, where does it start, who has what, when, where, how, why.....yada, yada..... ? So why is it that there is a huge shock to anyone (particularly * and the boys) that this would hit the news again? I want to know what will Bush know and when will he know it!

[global1]

4. The NYT Is In On This With *Co - It's Just A Ploy To Rile The Repug....

base. In a weeks time this will go down the rabbit hole like everything else this administration touches. NYT will take their lashes for this - but will be given preferential treatment/exclusives for other stories that *Co wants them to leak.

[magellan]

5. Now that makes the most sense to me

All the questions lead to your answer. The NYT is allowing itself to be used as a political tool...which only confirms once again how little faith one should place in the US corporate media.

[Peace Patriot]

6. I think it's a game, but a slightly different one--or rather, it has

several purposes. I'm thinking of the disrepute the NYT has fallen into, as propaganda arm of the Bush junta on the war on Iraq. How to rehabilitate the NYT in time for the war on Iran? Create a big phony flap over old news--hunting "terrorist" financing (if that's really what they're doing)--and make the NYT seem like a martyr for free speech and other ideals of the Old Republic. Leftist sugar cookies. Then, when the crunch comes, and they have to sell yet more lies, we (some of us) will say (or think), "Oh, this is this rehabbed NYT. They wouldn't lie again, would they? Maybe Iran IS about to nuke London."

It also serves to bolster this propaganda organ prior to the '06 (s)elections, because the junta is going to need boffo spin on that. Nobody's going to believe it when they re-take Congress with Bushite-controlled TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY vote tabulation software. Common Cause and the Brennan "think tank" are already working on that narrative--the serious "security problems" with electronic voting that MIGHT result in (s)election problems in the future, but that a few "security patches" and a "paper trail" will fix. Our liberal establishment warmongers.

Really, maybe it's too much to ask for, that the Bush junta would REALLY bust the NYT--put the whole goddamned bunch of them in Guantanamo Bay. I don't think it would have any impact whatsoever on the integrity of journalism in the United States. I felt that way about Judith Miller. And I feel that way about the owners and editors who let her play Mata Hari. They are a disgrace to their profession, and if I had my druthers, they'd be operating ham radios and mimeographing newsletters in Uzbekistan. Let them re-earn the First Amendment!

[Ghost Dog]

9. Agree. n/t

[magellan]

12. Boy, am I with you on that

"And I feel that way about the owners and editors who let her play Mata Hari. They are a disgrace to their profession, and if I had my druthers, they'd be operating ham radios and mimeographing newsletters in Uzbekistan. Let them re-earn the First Amendment!"

Abso-friggin-lutely. And I think that the rest of what you wrote makes a lot of sense too. It just sickens me that they'd play these kind of games, the corporate media and the government.

And to think, I was feeling sorry for the NYT a few days ago!

[nashville_brook]

14. totally agree!

[Ghost Dog]

7. I believe you will find a copy of the April 2005 NYT article

by Eric Lichtblau here (and here).

And here's some comment on it from Molly Ivins (and here (alternet.org), and here (democrats.us)).

If you google - "analyze patterns in terrorist financing" AND 2005 - you will find plenty more references from around the world. You may find the Yahoo piece in there somewhere.

- And thanks for pointing this out. Note that the full phrase used by Lichtblau (and as Yahoo almost had it) is "to track leads on specific suspects and, more broadly, to analyze patterns in terrorist financing and other financial crimes"

--> ed: Notice also note B12 in this InfoAlert, Economy & Trade, July 2005, # 8 at the US Diplomatic Mission to Germany:
"B12 - U.S. Wants International Bank Record Access
Information Management Journal, Jul/Aug 2005, v39, #4, p12-14
"The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network of the U.S. Department of Treasury plans to develop a strategy to obtain access to logs of international wire transfers into and out of U.S. banks. Such overseas transactions were used by the hijackers during the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The effort would give officials the tools to track leads on specific suspects and, more broadly, to analyze patterns in terrorist financing and other financial crimes. A final plan is not expected before the end of the year, and logistical and legal issues must still be resolved." (See full Information Management Journal article referred to here).

[Ghost Dog]

8. The dodgy part may be this;

(From the Information Management Journal article):

"A final plan is not expected before the end of the year, and officials say many logistical and legal issues must still be resolved. For instance, although some estimates cited by Fincen suggest that there are at least a half-billion international wire transfers a year totaling trillions of dollars, officials want clearer data. The financial data demanded by Fincen may total several hundred million records, and the agency says it wants to minimize the logistical and financial disruption to banks.

"Officials are looking at whether to give higher priority to wire transfers from the Middle East or other regions considered high-risk, but they said they want to avoid provoking a public outcry over charges of ethnic profiling or driving terrorist financiers out of banks and into underground markets. Officials also say they are considering privacy concerns that may arise and want to include safeguards to prevent the misuse of the enormous cache of financial records that would be collected."

ie:
1). This (involving SWIFT) is a new program;
2). "data demanded by Fincen may total several hundred million records"; <- 'total awareness'?
3). "avoid provoking a public outcry over charges of ethnic profiling or
4). "driving terrorist financiers out of banks and into underground markets". <- where they already are, of course.

[magellan]

15. The reasoning is all manufactured

As you say, terrorists aren't moving money around through proper banks; they know better. And so does the US gov't. Remember back in the early days following 9-11, there were several investigations of hawalas that were operating in the US. I believe some were shut down.

And...since when is the Bush** administration concerned with public outcry over anything, including racial profiling?

What's written there simply tries to make an illegitimate nose around in people's financial transactions appear legitimate.

What should concern everyone isn't just that our privacy has been lost once again, but that they're building a database of sensitive financial information based on nothing but suspicion. That's the action of a police state, not an open democracy.

Thanks again for finding this!

[magellan]

13. Yes, thank you!

I hadn't found those other sites; I stopped looking after I found it referenced on the sites I mentioned in my first thread. (It was out there, proving my point.) A lot of people paid attention to the 2005 article.

Just to focus on the extract by Lichtblau: to analyze patterns in terrorist financing and other financial crimes....

This to me appears to be the cake as opposed to the icing. The "terrorist financing" part merely provides the justification for the US gov't to keep an eye on a broad list of people and their finances, similar to how they justified broadening the scope of their wiretapping. But I'll bet you it's a blind eye they turn on cronies and supporters who are stuffing ill-gotten gains in off-shore accounts.

[SoCalDem]

10. Grover Norquist's money laundering ties to terrorists..

Did the NYT cover it?

http://www.sptimes.com/2003/03/11/Floridian/Friends_in_high_place.shtml

Friends in high places

Sami Al-Arian isn't the only prominent Muslim leader who posed for chummy pictures with President Bush. Many conservative Republicans are uneasy at the way GOP power broker Grover Norquist curries support from the Muslim community.

By MARY JACOBY, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published March 11, 2003

WASHINGTON -- The rumpled, balding figure was spotted darting into the offices of Republican power broker Grover Norquist last July. When Sami Al-Arian emerged more than two hours later, someone was waiting for him.

Conservative activist Frank Gaffney, whose think tank on national security issues has offices on the same floor, was eager to confirm a tip that the suspected Palestinian Islamic Jihad operative was next door.

Best known for his high-profile campaign for a "Star Wars" national missile defense system, Gaffney for months had been quietly pursuing another project: trying to convince the Bush administration to more closely scrutinize the Muslim activists whom Norquist was bringing into the president's orbit.

As part of Norquist's well publicized strategy to mine the Muslim community for GOP votes, Al-Arian had campaigned for Bush in 2000, posed for a photo with the candidate at Plant City's Strawberry Festival and boasted publicly that Muslims in Florida may have tipped the close presidential election to Bush.

Now, Al-Arian was visiting the Islamic Institute, a Muslim outreach group cofounded by Norquist and housed within his office suite.

And so Gaffney found a reason to be in the hallway when Islamic Institute chairman Khaled Saffuri walked a man Gaffney recognized as Al-Arian to the elevator. Saffuri said goodbye, then headed for the bathroom.


snip

[NNN0LHI]

11. K&R n/t