SWIFT Invasions Of Privacy

The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) is opening the vault to reveal your banking transactions to the federal government. This is being done with what they call an “administrative” subpoena that is not approved by any judicial agency. Once again, this administration has found a way to peek into private matters of law-abiding citizens by spreading the fear of terrorism and proclaiming that they will protect our sorry butts.

The story was investigated by the New York Times who proudly asserted that they went forward with publication, despite pressure from the White House. But it appears that the truth is that they held the story for several weeks when they were negotiating with officials that sought to suppress the news. The NYT only rushed to print because they were about to be scooped by the Los Angeles Times and The Wall Street Journal.

NYT reporter, Eric Lichtblau, even admitted that the paper’s decision to publish was partly based on the fact that, “It was done at the cabinet level this time around,” and that the president did not get involved directly. Does that mean that if the president had directly made the request to kill the story, the paper would have complied? That doesn’t seem like a point of pride to me.

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