They just won’t let it go
Published by Mike Stark June 29th, 2006 in UncategorizedWhen they’ve got nothing to whine about, they make shit up.
Here I tell Hugh Hewitt as much after he devotes his first hour to crying about the NY Times banking story.
See the thing is, I (and anyone else with a pulse) have known that our gov’t tracks bank transactions as part of a “War on…” whatever. They’ve been doing it to track white collar crime (mostly money laundering) and drug crimes forever (I heard that there are certain places in Queens, NY where you can bring some minimum number of $100 bills and exchange them for $120 each… International drug dealers have to reduce the weight and volume of the cash they carry out of the country - because they can’t launder it easily through the banking system.)
Anyway, the only newsworthy bit about the NYT piece is that the Bush junta has decided to do this without a warrant and with no oversight.
Hewitt, as usual, saw he was beat and ran into the weeds of his break.
7 Responses to “They just won’t let it go”
Leave a Reply
Search
Login
Donations Accepted
Subscribe
Posts- Comments
- Podcast
I loved the way he fumbled for what seemed like minutes after your initial point, which is so freaking obvious.
“Do you think all the terrorists knew that our government might be trying to check on their bank accounts?” Well, DUH!
Jon Stewart made your same point on The Daily Show.
“It’s the LACK OF WARRANTS, stupid!” Great job, Mike. I loved reading your tips on how to talk to radio hosts; I’ll make use of them.
Assume you were a terrorist organization. Assume a commission was created to figure out how you carried out an act of terrorism, and what should be done to stop you from committing further acts of terrorism. If the commission came out with a list of recommendations to make your further “success” unlikely, and your capture more likely , do you think you would pay attention to these recommendations?
Of course you would!
———————————–
From page 382 of the 9-11 commission report:
“Recommendation: Vigorous efforts to track terrorist financing must remain front and center in U.S. counterterrorism efforts. The government has recognized that information about terrorist money helps us to understand their networks, search them out, and disrupt their operations.”
This recommendation goes on to say that “The U.S. financial community and some international financial institutions have generally provided law enforcement and intelligence agencies with extraordinary cooperation , particularly in supplying information to support quickly developing investigations.”
Anyone who knows anything about the banking industry (and I think it’s safe to assume that Al Qaeda fits into that category) knows that the primary international financial institution referred to here is SWIFT. After all, there aren’t that many international financial institutions and SWIFT is far and away the largest and most popular.”
http://www.familygreenberg.com/2006/06/some-more-about-swift-story.html
————————-
I think it’s a fair guess that Al Qaeda was well aware of the 9-11 commission, and it’s recommendations to help disrupt their activities and catch their members.
This reminds me of the Joe Biden / Alberto Gonzales exchange about the wiretapping program.
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/030206.html
The administration’s claim about the need for extraordinary secrecy surrounding the wiretap program is also largely a charade. Al-Qaeda and other enemy groups have long been aware that the United States has the capability of electronic eavesdropping and have structured their operations accordingly.
In the Feb. 6 hearing, Gonzales acknowledged as much under questioning from Sen. Joe Biden, D-Delaware.
Biden asked, “How has this revelation damaged the program” since the administration’s attack on the disclosure “seems to presuppose that these very sophisticated al-Qaeda folks didn’t think we were intercepting their phone calls?”
Gonzales responded, “I think, based on my experience, it is true – you would assume that the enemy is presuming that we are engaged in some kind of surveillance. But if they’re not reminded about it all the time in the newspapers and in stories, they sometimes forget” – a response that drew laughter from the citizens in the hearing room.
———————–
Apparently the administration no longer believes this line of “logic”.
–
If you used the original “Gonzales logic” on this situation, a good counter arguement would be:
If the administration and it’s blowhards( RW Talkers) were so worried that this would become a huge story, drawing attention to the SWIFT program, and thereby damaging our chances of catching Al Qaeda, they should have just SHUT UP about it.
Their bombastic outrage has drawn more attention to the program, than the news stories ever could.
Good thing the terrorists don’t have internet access. Otherwise they might have discorvered http://www.swift.com.
Or they could have gone to SWIFT’s trade show. Which is the largest of its kind in the world. Yeah, it’s good they don’t have a multi-millionaire running al Queada. You know, like a wealthy Saudi. Because they might know something about international banking…
Idiots.
this is classic straw man debate propoganda , i did enjoy the victory music as hewitt ran away from you , nice new twist that should serve well to empty the pockets of the lower/working class republican base in therapy for years to come .
Mike, this is stupid. NYT revealed HOW we track terrorist finances. It’s one thing to suspect illicit international wire transaction monitoring and quite another to be told exactly how that process is carried out, the tools utilized, and who is involved. SWIFT cooperated because there was a lengthy subpoena process and tiered oversight. You need to get your head around the fact that we are on the winning side. You aren’t rooting for Islamofacists are you? (Never ask a question you don’t already know the answer to.)
You folks are going to lose if you keep this up. I don’t want that. You don’t want that. Don’t sell out your principles to become more moderate, but really examine the logical conclusions of your arguements and what it is exactly you want to achieve. Better yet, truly examine the sources of your opinions.
I would rather we have a strong two party system and not this piss-storm of fucking half-bright neophytes and toadies. Ignorance is piss.
Um, then they STILL don’t know about it.
But, you shouldn’t have answered his dumb questions!
Why didn’t you come back at his questions with “it’s about warrants! It’s about the govt following the law! it’s not about dumb wannabe terrorists who are so dumb they’re going to get caught anyway.”