MassPrivateIThe U.S. Treasury Department said it sets limits while allowing the nation’s intelligence agencies to access reports that banks file on suspicious or large money moves by customers, including information about Americans.
Sets limits? The NSA, IRS & the FBI have access to our financial records.
When FBI agents attempted to build cases against foreign nationals accused of terrorism and espionage in the early 1980s, a privacy law barred them from obtaining suspects’ U.S. banking records. Congress had passed the Right to Financial Privacy Act (RFPA) in 1978, creating statutory Fourth Amendment protection for an individual’s banking records, and inadvertently blocking important investigations.
The Treasury described how it provides some banking information in bulk to the National Counterterrorism Center, the hub of the government’s anti-terrorism intelligence efforts.
The 2010 memorandum of understanding between the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and the NCTC requires intelligence agencies to make “best efforts” to tap information valuable only to specific cases and immediately destroy data obtained in error. Redistribution is limited.
The Obama administration has been seeking to assure the U.S. public and allies that they’re not subject to continual surveillance, while defending intelligence collection as vital to stopping terrorism. Unlike the vast data tombs unveiled by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, the U.S. has publicly required financial firms for decades to report suspicious activity to the Treasury for anti-money-laundering efforts. The information can be shared with law enforcement and has been used in past terrorism cases.
SOP or Standard Operating Procedure: Our government cronies use the old B/S excuse for spying on Americans without a warrant its about possible terrorism!
What our govt. is really saying is FORGET ABOUT YOUR CIVIL RIGHTS, WE HAVE!
“Financial data can be some of the most relevant as to how people are connected,” NCTC Director Matthew Olsen said in an interview. “That’s why it’s vital that we have access” to the FinCEN database, he said.
While his unit also looks at travel patterns, phone records and other pertinent data when investigating potential international terrorist activity, tracking the money is key, he said. FinCEN data, for example, can help map financial flows from individuals in the U.S. to terrorist networks in Yemen or Syria, he said.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-08/treasury-discloses-limits-on-sharing-bank-data-with-spy-agencies.html
http://massprivatei.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-us-treasury-dept-other-agencies-are.html