Freedom isn't free, and neither is unfreeness

Bank Data Is Sifted by U.S. in Secret to Block Terror
By ERIC LICHTBLAU and JAMES RISEN

WASHINGTON, June 22 — Under a secret Bush administration program initiated weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, counterterrorism officials have gained access to financial records from a vast international database and examined banking transactions involving thousands of Americans and others in the United States, according to government and industry officials.

The program is limited, government officials say, to tracing transactions of people suspected of having ties to Al Qaeda by reviewing records from the nerve center of the global banking industry, a Belgian cooperative that routes about $6 trillion daily between banks, brokerages, stock exchanges and other institutions. The records mostly involve wire transfers and other methods of moving money overseas and into and out of the United States. Most routine financial transactions confined to this country are not in the database.

The administration was straight up with us about the WMD, Saddam & Al Queda, Abu Graib, Santa Claus, Cheney's role in the Valeria Plame affair, and completely forthcoming when they decided to monitor all our phone calls and bypass FISA Court, so we should probably take them at their word that collection of bank data was very limited.

Full article at http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/23/washington/23intel.html?hp&ex=1151121600&en=18f9ed2cf37511d5&ei=5094&partner=homepage