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The End of the Internet
July 05, 2006
Swift a Secret?
According to Patterico,(who got it from Cassandra,) In 2005, Eric Lichtblau, the author of the soon-to-be Pulitzer Prize winning report wrote an article called “U.S. Lacks Strategy to Curb Terror Funds”in which he boldly admonishes Bush et al:
The administration has made cutting off money to terrorists one of the main prongs in its attack against Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. It has seized tens of millions of dollars in American accounts and assets linked to terrorist groups, prodded other countries to do the same, and is now developing a program to gain access to and track potentially hundreds of millions of international bank transfers into the United States.
But experts in the field say the results have been spotty, with few clear dents in Al Qaeda's ability to move money and finance terrorist attacks. The Congressional report-- a follow-up to a 2003 report that offered a similarly bleak assessment -- buttresses those concerns.
Senator Charles E. Grassley, the Iowa Republican who leads the Senate Finance Committee and was one of the lawmakers who requested the study, said he was disappointed to learn that in an area as critical as countering terrorist financing, ''they haven't gotten very far yet.''
In an interview, Mr. Grassley said: ''It's as simple as learning to stop the infighting and turf protection and get on with the job. What's happening is just inexplicable in light of the war on terrorism.''
So Swift, the very successful unsecret, secret SWIFT program, was indeed secret, at least to Eric Lichtblau, as recently as last year. Maybe Google at the NY Times is blocked by a pop-up called arrogance.