Financial Monitoring At Best an Open Secret

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Is there any limit to the cunning of our enemies? There are troubling signs that terrorists might have been aware the U.S. government was monitoring their financial activities even before the New York Times treasonously gave the game away. They could, for example, have found a way to to learn of testimony at a House subcommittee hearing five months after 9/11 attacks, where plans were openly discussed to give the feds “a highly secure, real-time electronic capability to request and receive data from financial institutions about suspected terrorists or terrorist organizations.”(Washington Post) Jokes aside:

The testimony was one of several examples where government and industry officials have publicly described how counterterrorism agencies access financial records to track terrorists and shut down their funding, leading some lawmakers and counterterrorism specialists to doubt assertions that the most recent revelations have significantly helped al-Qaeda or other terrorists by disclosing valuable new information.

Just a little context for the loud calls that Bill Keller be publicly executed and the news media (further) domesticated…

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