The 9/11 Commission castigated the CIA for neglecting to collect and analyze intelligence about terrorist financing. It noted that “information about terrorist money helps us to understand [al-Qaeda] networks, search them out, and disrupt their operations.” In response, the Bush administration initiated a highly secret joint CIA-Treasury program to tap into the electronic records of a Belgian financial clearinghouse known as SWIFT, which tracks the approximately $6 trillion in funds that flow among financial institutions around the world.
The New York Times revealed the existence of the SWIFT program in a front-page story in June 2006 written by Eric Lichtblau and James Risen. One of the consequences was that European governments, which had accepted the program when it was secret, were compelled to attack it and periodically shut it down. Yesterday, after a hiatus of months, the European Parliament agreed once again to let the program resume, subject to stricter controls and oversight.
