A Secret the Terrorists Already Knew - New York Times
The New York Times

June 30, 2006
Op-Ed Contributors

A Secret the Terrorists Already Knew
By RICHARD A. CLARKE and ROGER W. CRESSEY

COUNTERTERRORISM has become a source of continuing domestic and
international political controversy. Much of it, like the role of the Iraq
war in inspiring
new terrorists, deserves analysis and debate. Increasingly, however, many of
the political issues surrounding counterterrorism are formulaic, knee-jerk,
disingenuous and purely partisan. The current debate about United States
monitoring of transfers over the Swift international financial system
strikes
us as a case of over-reaction by both the Bush administration and its
critics.

Going after terrorists' money is a necessary element of any counterterrorism
program, as President Bill Clinton pointed out in presidential directives in
1995 and 1998. Individual terrorist attacks do not typically cost very much,
but running terrorist cells, networks and organizations can be extremely
expensive.

Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah and other terrorist groups have had significant
fund-raising operations involving solicitation of wealthy Muslims,
distribution
of narcotics and even sales of black market cigarettes in New York. As part
of a "follow the money" strategy, monitoring international bank transfers is
worthwhile (even if, given the immense number of transactions and the
relatively few made by terrorists, it is not highly productive) because it
makes
operations more difficult for our enemies. It forces them to use more
cumbersome means of moving money.

Privacy rights advocates, with whom we generally agree, have lumped this
bank-monitoring program with the alleged National Security Agency
wiretapping of
calls in which at least one party is within the United States as examples of
our government violating civil liberties in the name of counterterrorism.
The two programs are actually very different.

Any domestic electronic surveillance without a court order, no matter how
useful, is clearly illegal. Monitoring international bank transfers,
especially
with the knowledge of the bank consortium that owns the network, is legal
and unobjectionable.

The International Economic Emergency Powers Act, passed in 1977, provides
the president with enormous authority over financial transactions by
America's
enemies. International initiatives against money laundering have been under
way for a decade, and have been aimed not only at terrorists but also at
drug
cartels, corrupt foreign officials and a host of criminal organizations.

These initiatives, combined with treaties and international agreements,
should leave no one with any presumption of privacy when moving money
electronically
between countries. Indeed, since 2001, banks have been obliged to report
even transactions entirely within the United States if there is reason to
believe
illegal activity is involved. Thus we find the privacy and illegality
arguments wildly overblown.

So, too, however, are the Bush administration's protests that the press
revelations about the financial monitoring program may tip off the
terrorists. Administration
officials made the same kinds of complaints about news media accounts of
electronic surveillance. They want the public to believe that it had not
already
occurred to every terrorist on the planet that his telephone was probably
monitored and his international bank transfers subject to scrutiny. How
gullible
does the administration take the American citizenry to be?

Terrorists have for many years employed nontraditional communications and
money transfers - including the ancient Middle Eastern hawala system,
involving
couriers and a loosely linked network of money brokers - precisely because
they assume that international calls, e-mail and banking are monitored not
only
by the United States but by Britain, France, Israel, Russia and even many
third-world countries.

While this was not news to terrorists, it may, it appears, have been news to
some Americans, including some in Congress. But should the press really be
called unpatriotic by the administration, and even threatened with
prosecution by politicians, for disclosing things the terrorists already
assumed?

In the end, all the administration denunciations do is give the press
accounts an even higher profile. If administration officials were truly
concerned
that terrorists might learn something from these reports, they would be wise
not to give them further attention by repeatedly fulminating about them.

There is, of course, another possible explanation for all the outraged
bloviating. It is an election year. Karl Rove has already said that if it
were up
to the Democrats, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi would still be alive. The attacks on
the press are part of a political effort by administration officials to use
terrorism to divide America, and to scare their supporters to the polls
again this year.

The administration and its Congressional backers want to give the impression
that they are fighting a courageous battle against those who would wittingly
or unknowingly help the terrorists. And with four months left before
Election Day, we can expect to hear many more outrageous claims about
terrorism -
from partisans on both sides. By now, sadly, Americans have come to expect
it.

Richard A. Clarke and Roger W. Cressey, counterterrorism officials on the
National Security Council under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush,
are
security consultants.

Possted by Miriam V.