Fausta Wertz finds it curious NYT essentially ignored this weekâ??s story of the finding of hundreds of WMD shells yet is hyping this one.

Maybe because they know "news" when they see it? I seem to recall a few previous stories of finding abandoned gas shells, etc. in the desert, & the usual suspects' crying out "eureka! the WMD!"

In this case, with the Pentagon's own spokescreature saying "These aren't the WMD we were looking for," it's hard to make anything of the story besides Santorum's desperation not to lose his election.

Back to the NYT story: whether the program's useful or not, legal or not, the bottom line remains: why are y'all fussing at the Times? (The WSJ's own role, for that matter, seems to be neglected, for obvious reasons.) Catch the leakers and bust *them*.

Until I see that done, I have to conclude that this story is all about the White House trying to garner support by pointing fingers at the Bad Old Media. To repeat, SECRET programs are not discussed by Treasury officials and the Vice-President, whether a story has broken or not.

Had the gov't response been "hey, who can believe what the Times prints," Herb & sundry would be vigorously denying the existence of the program. (Al Qaeda would know better, but then, according to Suskind, they've been wary of having transactions traced since 2003. Which may be why this story's been leaked---the officials feel the program's not doing much good any more?)

Now, back to my treason ... gotta pick out the uniforms I want to wear for my assault on Death Valley, so I can tell the nice Qaeda agent when he comes to take my order.

Today's winner is the New York York Times and its Executive editor Bill Keller....

So many folks have commented on the New York leak this morning on the way the U.S. government has been tracking terrorists money movement. Some of those have been Michelle Malkin (here and here), Outside the Beltway, Powerline, Hugh Hewitt...

You are wasting your time trying to get anything across to Anderson. Like you stated in your first comment, Anderson has his head "Up and Locked". The problem is Anderson forgot where the "unlock button" is located.

The "Hate Bush" crowd and the loony left will whine and cry about "their right to privacy" when actually, they have never come close to having those rights violated. Anderson is more vulnerable to his rights being violated by his activity on his own computer, yet he says nothing about that, He is a whiner and crybaby that just can't get over the fact that his loony buddies lost in 2000 and 2004. The net result is and has been a "Hate Bush" attitude has taken over whatever common sense and brain power he had.

Anderson is one who would rather see another 3000 Americans killed in a terrorist attack just to justify his "Hate Bush" thinking.

I think that makes Anderson a danger to all society and a traitor to "The American way of Life"

The New York Times proves yet again to be the definition of the term "useful idiot." Within hours of publishing the story leaking classified info about tracking movement of terrorist funds, the same story was published on the terrorists' Al Jazeera ...

"I just wanted to personally thank my good pal, Bill Keller the editor of the New York Times, for helping us figure out how all those great plans kept unraveling on us. Without outstanding people of his caliber, our efforts would never b...

Dear Osama,
It's been a few weeks since we chatted about that NSA program, but there's some news we thought you had the right to know. The CIA has a secret program to track your financial dealings here in America. So you might wanna change how you'...

Can't read the bold typeface? Let me write it again.

The Supreme Court held in United States v. Miller (1976) that there is no right to privacy in financial-transaction information maintained by third parties.

If the USSC of 1976 says it is legal, then the USSC must be part of the VRWC.

He says:

The effort ... is entirely legal. There are no conceivable constitutional violations involved.

There's nothing in the constitution that says I can't steal your car either, but somehow I get the feeling that's illega.

Andrew McCarthy has a nice little write-up on this.

Sixth paragraph:

The effort, which the government calls the �Terrorist Finance Tracking Program� (TFTP), is entirely legal. There are no conceivable constitutional violations involved. The Supreme Court held in United States v. Miller (1976) that there is no right to privacy in financial-transaction information maintained by third parties. Here, moreover, the focus is narrowed to suspected international terrorists, not Americans, and the financial transactions implicated are international, not domestic. This is not data mining, and it does not involve fishing expeditions into the financial affairs of American citizens. Indeed, few Americans even have information that is captured by the program � though there would be nothing legally offensive even if they did.

But that is what makes me an American.

Now some people would be willing to trade in my liberty in order to strengthen the hand of the madman in the whitehouse. I understand these people, their kind exists in every part of the globe, including here. We have seen the results of their cowardice however in the loss of freedoms and the growth of tyranical governments wherever their kind win the battle against liberty.

So kudos to the free press. I often have disagreementw with what they print but I will always defend their right to print it.

The law says that 1) the government must have probable cause for obtaining the information and 2)the government must "reasonably describe" the specific records being obtained 2) citizens have the right to examine all disclosures of their records.

A "broad administrative subpoenas for millions of records" - i.e. "give us ongoing access to all records for out secret program" - is precisely the opposite of that, and therefore against the law. The program is not legal just because the administration says it is.

By the way, Doug Henning is lying to you. It's a trick. I know it's hard to believe, but he really doesn't make all those things disappear.

This, from someone who tries to mock other people's intelligence?

How embarrassing.

Again, from the NYSlimes article:

Treasury officials did not seek individual court-approved warrants or subpoenas to examine specific transactions, instead relying on broad administrative subpoenas for millions of records from the cooperative, known as Swift.

Using what officials described as individual, narrowly framed subpoenas and warrants, the F.B.I. has obtained records from First Data, which processes credit and debit card transactions, to track financial activity and try to locate suspects.

For many years, law enforcement officials have relied on grand-jury subpoenas or court-approved warrants for such financial data. Since 9/11, the F.B.I. has turned more frequently to an administrative subpoena, known as a national security letter, to demand such records.