That is, after all, what it comes down to in this editorial -- the Administration used legislation passed by a Democrat Congress and Signed By Democrat Jimmy Carter, as well as the Patriot Act, to monitor financial transactions by terrorists.

Investigators will probably need to monitor the flow of money to and from suspected terrorists and listen in on their phone conversations for decades to come. No one wants that to stop, but if America is going to continue to be America, these efforts need to be done under a clear and coherent set of rules, with the oversight of Congress and the courts.

The problem with this statement is that there is a coherent set of rules in place. As the LA Times reluctantly conceded yesterday, the subpoenas are authorized under long-standing federal law, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. So it seems that authority that everyone felt was acceptable in the hands of Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Bill Clinton is somehow dangerous and a threat to American society when used by George W. Bush -- because he is actually using that power to track down enemies of America, not mere criminals.

It is still September 10 in the world of the NY Times. Perhaps they can schedule a breakfast meeting tomorrow at Windows on the World, to gain some perspective on the seriousness of the terrorist threat.

Also -- an excellent discussion of SWIFT can be found at SCSU Scholars. Gay Patriot has a superb exposition of the willingness of the NY Times to undercut American security in order to attack George W. Bush. NewsBusters notes this Mort Kondracke gem.

it's as though the New York Times thinks that somehow if the government, if the Bush administration is doing it, it's worse than something al-Qaeda might do to the United States, that we've got more to fear from our own government than we do from terrorist attacks.

Go back and read my excerpt from today's NY Times editorial and tell me that Kondracke didn't peg it exactly.

I also recommend the following superb posts to my readers:

Captain's Quarters -- ACLU, Right On Schedule, in which Ed points out"

anyone operating within the US banking system -- at least at those facilities insured by the FDIC and FSLIC -- the government has access to data on individual banking customers whenever it wants to access it. Any institution insured by the federal government has to give federal regulators access to their records during any extensive examination. Not only that, but since most accounts pay interest, the IRS also gets all of the information on these accounts, including taxpayer numbers and other private information.

However, in this case, the Swift project targeted only those people already indentified as terrorists or terrorist financiers, and the focus was on international transactions. The government brought in outside auditors to ensure that the information requested remained within the boundaries of their power. Most of all, George Bush told us on a number of occasions that the United States would track these transactions around the world to find terrorists and their enablers. The project itself has never been a secret; only the methods used remained clandestine.

Instapundit, who opines as follows:

When big companies dump toxic waste into rivers to enrich themselves, they're criticized by the press. But this is the same kind of thing -- self-serving profiteering at the public's expense.

Stop the ACLU -- ACLU Says Government Spying on Bank Records is Further Abuse of Power. which notes the ACLU's rejection of its own historic respect for national security.

There is probably no other time that a proper balance between civil liberties and national security becomes more important than in wartime. During times of war, sometimes unusual responses are implemented, often requiring suspension of certain liberties. Of course war opens the opportunity for abuse by governments, and the ACLU are right to watch for them. However, the ACLU in its absolutist perception of freedom, only worries about one side of the equation, civil liberties. It pays no attention to the national security side of things, not only ignoring it, but working against it.

One of the most revealing occurances towards the ACLU’s absolutist position on national security and its recent evolution can be seen in the action the board of directors took at its Oct 1989 meeting: It dropped section (a) from its policy, “Wartime Sedition Act.” Before, the ACLU held that it “would not participate (save for fundamental due process violations) in defense of any person believed to be “cooperating” with or acting on behalf of the enemy.” This policy was based on the recognition that “our own military enemies are now using techniques of propaganda which may involve an attempt to prevent the Bill of Rights to serve the enemy rather than the people of the United States.” In making its determination as to whether someone were cooperating with the enemy, “the Union will consider such matters as past activities and associations, sources of financial support, relations with enemy agents, the particular words and conduct involved, and all other relevant factors for informed judgement.” SOURCE

UPDATE: Even the Washington Post> agrees this is legal and proper.

For one thing, it appears to be legal. The government is receiving large volumes of data detailing financial transfers from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), a Belgium-based consortium that acts as a kind of messenger service for banks around the world, electronically notifying banks of transactions other banks are attempting to complete. The government, if it develops suspicions about a person, can search the system for any transactions that person may have engaged in. While customer banking data are generally private under federal law, the statute does not appear to cover the society, which isn't a bank and doesn't have individual customers. What's more, a different law gives the president broad powers in a national emergency situation to investigate, or even prohibit, certain financial transactions.

It is also the sort of information the government should be examining in any effort to frustrate terrorist financing and develop leads about who is funding whom. While such data can certainly be misused, records of overseas financial transfers are less sensitive from a privacy point of view than, say, the contents of phone calls or e-mails. And some safeguards appear to be in place to make sure the information is not misused. The department receives the material under a subpoena, Treasury officials emphasized yesterday. SWIFT's representatives audit all searches, as does an outside auditing firm. Unlike a data-mining operation, where analysts try to identify high-risk individuals using patterns and trends embedded in huge data sets, analysts here are searching for transactions involving individuals about whom they already have suspicions.

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