The United States government has secretly monitored banking transactions around the globe since the September 11 2001 attacks, officials said on Friday, defending the programme as a crucial part of the war on terror.
It is the latest in a series of covert measures that is likely to spark fresh concerns about potential privacy infringements and Americans’ civil liberties.
US Treasury Secretary John Snow defended the secret finance-tracking spy programme following its disclosure by several US newspapers.
“I am particularly proud of our Terrorist Finance Tracking Programme, which, based on intelligence leads, carefully targets financial transactions of suspected foreign terrorists,” Snow said in a statement.
Snow denied the government was engaged in “data mining”.
The collection of domestic telephone records and eavesdropping on international calls by Americans without a warrant has already put the administration of President George Bush on the defensive.
“President Bush has made it clear that ensuring the safety of the American people and citizens around the globe must be our number one priority,” Snow said.
“Consistent with this charge, one of the most important things we at Treasury do, is to follow the flow of terrorist monies. They don’t lie.
“Skilfully followed, they lead us to terrorists themselves, thereby protecting our citizens.”
Snow said the tracking, through the international banking cooperative Swift (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication), specifically targets suspected foreign terrorists and “is not ‘data mining’ or trolling through the private financial records of Americans”.
“This is part of an overall governmental effort to map terrorist networks and apprehend terrorists around the world,” he said.
The spying programme, conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency and overseen by the Treasury Department, was launched after the September 11 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.
“By following the money, the US has been able to locate operatives and their financiers, chart terrorist networks, help bring them to justice and save lives,” Snow said.
Treasury Department Under Secretary Stuart Levey, in an interview with The New York Times, said the programme “has provided us with a unique and powerful window into the operations of terrorist networks”, adding that it was “without doubt a legal and proper use of our authorities”.
The government agreed to reveal the existence of the programme after it was unable to dissuade the Times from publishing details, the newspaper said.
The programme relies on records of Swift, which routes millions of financial transfer instructions every day.
It is based in part on the president’s emergency economic powers, Levey told the Times.
The searches rely on broad administrative subpoenas for millions of records from Swift. That access to large amounts of confidential data has raised concerns about legal and privacy issues inside the administration, the Times said, citing several officials.
Treasury officials said multiple safeguards are in place to protect unwarranted searches of Americans’ records.
The Washington Post and Wall Street Journal also carried articles on Friday on the programme to snoop on international financial transactions.
Swift was approached shortly after September 11 because of its vast international database.
The Times said that Swift, which is owned by more than 2 200 banks and financial organisations, routes about $6-trillion daily, most of it in cross-border transactions.
The Belgium-based cooperative serves 7 800 financial institutions in more than 200 countries.
Its database, which a former US official described as “the mother lode”, has provided clues to money trails and ties between possible terrorists and groups financing them, and directly led to the capture of al-Qaeda operative Riduan Isamuddin, believed to have masterminded 2002 bombings in Bali, Indonesia, the Times said.
It has also helped identify a US man convicted of helping an al-Qaeda member launder $200 000 through a Pakistani bank, prosecutors told the Times. — AFP