U.S. contacts allies about money tracking

[sabra]

http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/breaking_news/14905984.htm

U.S. contacts allies about money tracking

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration has informed major allies that a secret program that tapped into a vast international data base of financial records has adequate privacy safeguards and will continue, an official said Monday.

Tony Fratto, chief spokesman for the Treasury Department, said that the contacts were made following the disclosure last week by several news organizations of the existence of the program, which examined records of tens of thousands of international financial transactions held by a consortium of banks headquartered in Brussels, Belgium.

"We have made a point of reaching out to our partners in the international community to make sure they understand our views and the safeguards we have in place," Fratto told reporters during a weekly briefing. "We want to make sure it was clear to our partners that we value this program."

Fratto would not identify the countries that had been contacted other than to say that it was broader than the Group of Seven major industrial powers, which includes Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Canada.

[Joanne98]

1. I thought it was the G8. Did they expell Russian already?

[daleo]

2. Are the Swiss bank accounts safe?

Maybe we will eventually find out about Mulroney/Airbus after all (a little Canadian joke).

I think there will be some backpedaling. The rich won't like this.

[acmavm]

3. Well, I'm not happy about this. Maybe we should contact these

people. This is old Soviet Union crap.