Gold9472
06-23-2006, 09:14 AM
After 9/11, U.S. studied global bank files secretly
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2003079930_watch23.html
6/22/2006
WASHINGTON — The U.S. government gained sweeping access to international banking records as part of a secret program to choke off financial support for terrorism, officials said Thursday.
Treasury Department officials said they used broad subpoenas to collect the financial records from an international system known as SWIFT. Stuart Levey, Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, called the subpoenas "a legal and proper use of our authorities."
Under the program, which started shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, U.S. counterterrorism analysts could query SWIFT's massive financial database looking for information on activities by suspected terrorists, a Treasury Department official said. Analysts would do so by plugging in a specific name or names, the official said. The program involved the CIA and the Treasury Department.
SWIFT (the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication), is a cooperative based in Belgium that handles financial-message traffic from 7,800 financial institutions in more than 200 countries. The service mostly captures information on wire transfers and other methods of moving money in and out of the United States. The service generally doesn't detect private, individual transactions in the United States, such as withdrawals from an ATM or bank deposits. It is aimed mostly at international transfers.
House OKs version of line-item veto
President Bush would receive greater power to try to kill "pork-barrel" spending under a bill passed Thursday by the House.
Lawmakers voted 247-172 to give the president a weaker version of the line-item-veto law struck down by the Supreme Court in 1998. The bill reflected public concern about lawmakers' penchant for stuffing parochial projects into spending bills that the president must accept or reject in their entirety. The new power would expire after six years.
The bill would allow the president to single out items contained in appropriations bills he signs into law, and it would require Congress to vote on those items again. The measure has yet to go before the Senate.
More immigration hearings planned
Setting the stage for a summer of political fireworks, a leader of the Senate effort to overhaul immigration law has said he will answer a House plan to hold immigration hearings throughout the United States by having his own set of hearings.
The announcement by Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., indicates that instead of watching lawmakers negotiate a final version of the immigration bill, Americans will see dueling efforts by House and Senate members to lobby the public toward different visions of immigration policy.
A Senate bill, crafted by Republicans and Democrats and passed in May, includes a guest-worker program and measures that would offer citizenship to many of the illegal immigrants in the United States. Those provisions are strongly opposed by conservative Republicans in the House.
EPA may require animal-farm permits
Large factory-style chicken, hog and cattle farms might soon have to get permits from the Environment Protection Agency (EPA) when animal waste from their operations ends up in local rivers, streams and lakes.
The agency proposed the new requirement Thursday but it said it will leave up to farmers to define what constitutes pollution.
A federal appeals court had ordered the EPA to also consider issuing new standards for controlling disease-causing bacteria, viruses and parasites in farm runoff, but the agency declined.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2003079930_watch23.html
6/22/2006
WASHINGTON — The U.S. government gained sweeping access to international banking records as part of a secret program to choke off financial support for terrorism, officials said Thursday.
Treasury Department officials said they used broad subpoenas to collect the financial records from an international system known as SWIFT. Stuart Levey, Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, called the subpoenas "a legal and proper use of our authorities."
Under the program, which started shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, U.S. counterterrorism analysts could query SWIFT's massive financial database looking for information on activities by suspected terrorists, a Treasury Department official said. Analysts would do so by plugging in a specific name or names, the official said. The program involved the CIA and the Treasury Department.
SWIFT (the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication), is a cooperative based in Belgium that handles financial-message traffic from 7,800 financial institutions in more than 200 countries. The service mostly captures information on wire transfers and other methods of moving money in and out of the United States. The service generally doesn't detect private, individual transactions in the United States, such as withdrawals from an ATM or bank deposits. It is aimed mostly at international transfers.
House OKs version of line-item veto
President Bush would receive greater power to try to kill "pork-barrel" spending under a bill passed Thursday by the House.
Lawmakers voted 247-172 to give the president a weaker version of the line-item-veto law struck down by the Supreme Court in 1998. The bill reflected public concern about lawmakers' penchant for stuffing parochial projects into spending bills that the president must accept or reject in their entirety. The new power would expire after six years.
The bill would allow the president to single out items contained in appropriations bills he signs into law, and it would require Congress to vote on those items again. The measure has yet to go before the Senate.
More immigration hearings planned
Setting the stage for a summer of political fireworks, a leader of the Senate effort to overhaul immigration law has said he will answer a House plan to hold immigration hearings throughout the United States by having his own set of hearings.
The announcement by Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., indicates that instead of watching lawmakers negotiate a final version of the immigration bill, Americans will see dueling efforts by House and Senate members to lobby the public toward different visions of immigration policy.
A Senate bill, crafted by Republicans and Democrats and passed in May, includes a guest-worker program and measures that would offer citizenship to many of the illegal immigrants in the United States. Those provisions are strongly opposed by conservative Republicans in the House.
EPA may require animal-farm permits
Large factory-style chicken, hog and cattle farms might soon have to get permits from the Environment Protection Agency (EPA) when animal waste from their operations ends up in local rivers, streams and lakes.
The agency proposed the new requirement Thursday but it said it will leave up to farmers to define what constitutes pollution.
A federal appeals court had ordered the EPA to also consider issuing new standards for controlling disease-causing bacteria, viruses and parasites in farm runoff, but the agency declined.