Smuggles
The Bush administration is trolling through international bank accounts in search of turrorists. The system in question, called SWIFT, is an electronic bank exchange, a clearinghouse for confidential financial transactions. The Bush people fought to stop the revelation of the program to get the data, but have admitted it. They've said that they've only used it for very narrow, well-defined targets.
I think that we're going to find that there are several more international databases that are being fished. The funny thing is that it's probably not a bad thing to do. I just don't trust these guys doing it. We're talking about a group of people who won't disclose who attended an energy meeting at the White House 4 years ago and yet they want to know everything about us and our friends...remember these transactions aren't just from Americans; they're from Canadians and Europeans also.
As we move into the 4th of July of weekend, it would be nice to stop and think about what it means to be an American. Are we a nation of spies, poking through our neighbor's dirty laundry? Where are the limits to our protectionist fire and what does it take to extinguish our national paranoia, fueled by a nice, healthy shot of self-righteousness and stoked by a bunch of smug old white guys? You know what they are? They're smuggles.
Posted on June 23, 2006
