what is the deal with all this "treason" stuff?

[ladelfina]

I have a hard time comprehending, especially from afar.



Apparently the NYT said recently that the US tracks financial transactions to catch terrorists.

Bush in 2001 said the US was tracking financial transactions to catch terrorists.



Is something different between now and then??


I remember opening my first independent bank account more than 25 years ago, and being aware that every xaction over $10k would get reported to the federal gov't. Not a matter of agreeing or disagreeing with the policy, but please inform me as to the "secret" part of all this.

I assumed all along, for decades, that it was common knowledge that the Feds tracked everyone's bank xactions in general.. and I'm not even one of you military/computer/security folks.

[d]

if there was nothing of significance disclosed, it could hardly have been newsworthy and demanding the public's notice, now could it.

[ladelfina]

Uhhh I dunno.

Brad Pitt's baby "demands the public's notice".



Maybe most people just didn't know bank transactions were traced? Even though it wasn't really a big secret?

Is there something in particular that is "of significance" other than "they track our bank xactions"?? I have listened to critics but they are unspecific as to what was actually 'revealed'.

Hands up, everyone to whom this was "news".
Also, I would still like clarification on the treason part.

[snowbird]

It's just the far right trying to rev up their base again.

[brewer12345]

It wasn't treason, its just the republican's latest desperate attempt to save their fannies in the upcoming elections. Its frankly about as newsworthy as Rush Limbaugh's bust for illegal posession of Viagra.

Oh yeah, and if the NYT is "treasonous", why the hell haven't all these nutballs and panderers lambasted the LA Times and the Wall St. Journal? They ran the same stuff as the NYT.

[d]

the NYT seems to think it's a significant piece of journalism ... and they claim to know about such things

[setab]

Poor Russ. Apparently he's fallen on hard times.

setab

[cute fuzzy bunny]

We hadnt yet attacked the 'freedom of the press' thing and ran out of other stuff in the founders documents to crap on.

I read the administrations comments to mean "We dont want the bad guys to know we're doing something competent for a change, and we dont like it when the press reports on all the stuff we're doing that would make people want to stop voting for us."

Helen Thomas said that no president likes the press, but a good number of them respect the press. This president is not one of those.

[poboy]

http://articles.news.aol.com/news/_a...cid=842&_ccc=1

Quote:

"We had no idea this was going on at all," said James Nason with the Swiss Bankers Association.

Guess Swiss bank accounts are safe again.

Quote:

Select members of Congress received briefings after the program began in 2001. The full House and Senate Intelligence Committees were briefed about the program last month.

Reckon the leak came from one of these patriots?

Quote:

For the Swift transaction data to be reviewed, investigators have to produce the name of someone they suspect of terrorist links, a requirement that officials said keeps the government from launching fishing expeditions into the vast data pool.

If Swiss bankers were unaware does that mean they are inept?

[brewer12345]

I assume that everything I do (financially) is being tracked by someone, somewhere. At some point it may be worth looking into which countries have the strongest banking privacy laws...

[yakers]

If all these records are being kept on/for me, do I still have to keep my old 1040s?

[cute fuzzy bunny]

That the records are being tracked and kept isnt the biggest concern.

Its that they probably contain incorrect information or info about someone else.

Look at my insurance company, considering liability issues, thinking I was or had been housemates with my ex girlfriends ex and current husband, and her sister, none of which ever lived with me and one of which I had never met.

[eridanus]

If you're an internationally hunted terrorist, wouldn't you assume that your phone calls were being traced? And that any suspected bank accounts and wires were being examined?

Wanna-be punks in Miami are easy to catch.

[alphabet soup]

Quote:

Originally Posted by brewer12345 It wasn't treason, its just the republican's latest desperate attempt to save their fannies in the upcoming elections.* Its frankly about as newsworthy as Rush Limbaugh's bust for illegal posession of Viagra.

Just another diversion to get the mouthbreathers all stirred up.

Unless the yahoos are agitated about something, the neocons don't get elected. Even if they fix the Diebold machines.

[Ed_The_Gypsy]

Y'all hafta unnerstand that 'freedom of speech' is a Communist plot, and that dissent is treason. Democrats are also, by definition, enemies of the state. Now don't get me started on peaceniks!