LA Times: U.S. May Want More Bank Data (all transfers out of USA)

[Newsjock]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-banks12jul12,0,6578150,print.story?coll=la-home-headlines

By Richard B. Schmitt
Times Staff Writer

July 12, 2006

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration is considering requiring U.S. banks, for the first time, to inform the government of all their customers' international wire transfers, regardless of possible terrorist ties, a Treasury Department official said Tuesday.

Such mandatory reporting would mark a major expansion of the government's efforts to comb financial data to fight terrorism and other international crimes. Depending on how the program is structured, it could mean that banks would be forced to turn over data on millions of transactions that they are now required to keep secret.

... The program under consideration would capture international transactions involving only U.S. banks, while the SWIFT system logs transfers across any international borders. But the Treasury Department would be free to use the data for investigations and crime-fighting beyond terrorism cases.

"We can use that information for terrorism, money laundering — all sorts of law enforcement purposes," Stuart Levey, the Treasury Department's undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, told the House Financial Services subcommittee on oversight and investigations. "And we can do all kinds of the things that people traditionally think about when they think about data mining in terms of looking for trend analysis, suspicious activity and the like."

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[atreides1]

1. So much for a limited program

[MrPrax]

2. Like the Old Soviet Union n/t

[creeksneakers2]

3. If there is any chance Treasury will look at

offshore tax evasion schemes, the GOP will kill this.

[cantstandbush]

4. Anybody stop to think how these polices affect our banking industry? nt

Your fees keep rising to make up some of the difference.