Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.) cited the New York Times in particular for publishing a report last week saying that the
Treasury Department is working with the CIA to examine an international database of money-transfer records.
King said he will write Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, urging that the nation's chief law enforcer "begin an investigation and prosecution of the New York Times -- the reporters, the editors and the publisher."
"We're at war, and for the Times to release information about secret operations and methods is treasonous," King said.
The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee,
Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), did not endorse King's action. "On the basis of
the newspaper article, I think it's premature to call for a prosecution of the New York Times, just like I think it's premature to say that the administration is entirely correct," he said on "Fox News Sunday."
Reports about the money-monitoring program appeared last week in other leading newspapers. King said they should also be investigated.
When the Times published its report, it quoted the executive editor, Bill Keller, as saying editors had listened to the government's arguments but thought it was "a matter of public interest."
In a letter printed yesterday on the Times Web site, Keller said the administration argued "in a half-hearted way."
He noted that after the report was published, the Treasury Department "trumpeted . . . that the U.S. makes every effort to track international financing of terror. Terror financiers know this, which is why
they have already moved as much as they can to cruder methods. But they also continue to use the international banking system, because it is immeasurably more efficient than toting suitcases of cash."
© 2006 The Washington Post Company
President Bush said
today that a secret program to search global bank records for terrorism-related transactions was "fully authorized" under U.S. law, and he denounced the public disclosure of the program as "disgraceful."
Weighing in forcefully on the issue for the first time since the program was disclosed last week, Bush said the revelation "does great harm" to the nation and makes it harder to track terrorists.
Bush made the comments in a brief question-and-answer session with reporters after a meeting at the White House with private organizations that support the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Responding to a question about the secret program, run by the Treasury Department, Bush said Congress was briefed about it, "and what we did was fully authorized under the law."
He added emphatically, "And the disclosure of this program is disgraceful. We're at war with
a bunch of people who want to hurt the United States of America, and for people to leak that program and for a newspaper to publish it does great harm to the United States of America."
Seated next to Bush as he made the comments was actor Gary Sinise, who represents Operation Iraqi Children, a group that donates school supplies to students in Iraq.
Treasury officials first spoke publicly about the program Thursday night as the New York Times was preparing to publish a story about it Friday. The Times and other news organizations, including The Washington Post, ran articles about the program online and in their print editions.
Bush asserted, "What we were doing was the right thing. Congress was aware of it, and we were within the law to do so. The American people expect this government to protect our constitutional liberties and at the same time make sure we understand what the
terrorists are trying to do."
Moreover, the commission that investigated the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks "recommended that the government be robust in tracing money," Bush said. "If you want to figure out what the terrorists are doing, you try to follow their money. And that's exactly what we're doing, and the fact that a newspaper disclosed it makes it harder to win this war on terror."
The program uses the Treasury Department's administrative subpoena powers to obtain records from a Brussels-based international banking consortium known as the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or SWIFT.
The consortium links about 7,800 banks and brokerages in and handles billions of transactions a year, accounting for more than 80 percent of the international messaging traffic on funds transfers.
Shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush invoked his powers under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to "investigate, regulate or prohibit" any foreign financial transaction linked to "an unusual and extraordinary threat." His order for Treasury to gain access to SWIFT's database overrode objections from other government and banking industry authorities who worried that sharing the information would erode public confidence in the banking system.
Treasury officials said the records involve predominantly overseas transfers -- including those to or from the United States -- and do not contain information on routine transactions within the United States, such as deposits, withdrawals, checks and electronic bill payments.
Bush also told reporters today that a decision has not yet been made on drawing down U.S. troops in Iraq this year. He said any
presidential decision to withdraw forces "will be based on the recommendation" of the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr.
Bush said Casey briefed him extensively last week about the situation in Iraq. As for the U.S. troop presence there, he said, "that decision will be made by Gen. Casey as well as the sovereign government of Iraq based on conditions on the ground."
Congressional Democrats have charged that the administration is planning to make reductions in U.S. forces in Iraq before November to gain an advantage in midterm elections. A Democratic proposal calling for troop reductions, but without setting a timetable, was defeated in the Senate last week on a largely party-line vote.
In response to another question after today's White House meeting, Bush called on North Korea to heed international warnings about a reported plan to test-launch a long-range
ballistic missile capable of reaching the western United States.
"I have made clear to our partners on this issue -- that would be Japan and South Korea and China and Russia -- that we need to send a focused message to the North Koreans and that this launch . . . is provocative," Bush said. "And I was pleased to hear that the Chinese have delivered that message to the North Koreans."
He said he hoped that North Korean leader Kim Jong Il would "listen to the Chinese." He also called on North Korea to "notify the world of their intentions" regarding the launch and "what they have on top of that vehicle."
© 2006 The Washington Post Company
"Treasury & Booz Allen
defend secret surveillance program"
Senior U.S. Treasury officials on Friday strongly defended a secret program for examining a global database of financial transactions as legal and blasted newspapers for revealing it.
For nearly five years, Treasury has been tapping into records of the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) for evidence of potential activity by terror groups. The New York Times laid the program out in detail and it and a few other newspapers were briefed about it on Thursday night.
"As part of our efforts to
track the funds of terrorists, we are confirming that we have subpoenaed records on terrorist-related transactions from SWIFT," Treasury Under Secretary Stuart Levey told a hastily called news conference.
"The legal basis for this subpoena is routine and absolutely clear," he added. Levey said it was "a grave loss" that the surveillance program had been revealed but indicated that it will continue.
"I think that this program still...has the potential to still be powerful," Levey said.
The program to examine banking transactions is run out of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and overseen by the U.S. Treasury Department. The records examined mostly involve wire transfers and other methods of moving money overseas or into and out of the United States.
Levey said Treasury had briefed U.S.
lawmakers as well as central bankers from the Group of 10 nations on the program and won support for it.
"The reaction from experts -- across the political spectrum -- has been that this is exactly the kind of creative and vigorous approach that is needed to combat the elusive terrorist threat that we face," he said.
The American Civil Liberties Union expressed concern, saying "too much of this is still in the shadows" to assess its impact on Americans' right to privacy.
"I fear that again the administration is going to hide behind the need for secrecy. It's extraordinary that they went to the entity that moves money around the world and got the private sector to do its work," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU's technology and liberty project.
At the beginning of the
news conference, outgoing Treasury Secretary John Snow insisted the monitoring program represented "government at its best" and implied that stories about the program had helped the country's enemies.
"These disclosures go to the sources and the methods that are used. That can only help the terrorists," Snow said. He said the reports "undermine and degrade" the program and "make that source of information less useful."
With fall congressional elections on the horizon, reaction from lawmakers was predictably mixed along highly partisan lines.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said he had "full confidence" in the program's legality and effectiveness while Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives Ed Markey said it appeared to "rely on justifications concocted without regard to current laws" and threatened liberties.
Treasury officials said SWIFT was exempt from U.S. laws restricting government access to private financial records because the cooperative was considered a messaging service, not a bank or financial institution.
Levey described it as "the premier messaging service used by banks around the world to issue international transfers " but, in response to questions, conceded that not every bank or banking center was a member of SWIFT.
He declined to estimate how many transactions by Americans might have been included under the monitoring program and specified that only "targeted searches on individual targets" had been initiated.
"In practice, this means that we have access only to a minute fraction of the data that we obtain from SWIFT," Levey said, adding that controls against misuse included auditing by Booz Allen
Hamilton to ensure that no one used information improperly.
Only one instance was found in which information was used inappropriately and that person "is no longer allowed to work on this program," Levey said.
Snow said the program was "entirely consistent" with efforts to strengthen government activities and to protect America from potential attacks by terror groups.
