Well, then you should run on this — clearly stated — rather than pretend you’re going to defend people’s privacy and lying to them while violating it in the past.

And if I have no right to privacy — neither do you. I don’t want to hear any whining when yours is violated. And if I recall correctly, when Democratic partisan Mike Rogers was busy outing people (including the writer of this site), there was a massive hue and cry about violations of their “privacy rights.”

So I guess only partisan Republicans have privacy rights — everyone else must open their kimono?

I never read that exemption in the fourth amendment.

Richard Valeriani, who covered The White House and State Department for the Peacock in the 1970s and 80s…

I, for one, am not going to pay much attention to the opinion of a former news reader, particularly one who had been with NBC. I don’t know whether Valeriani is getting a pension from NBC, but, if he is, it should be noted that NBC is owned by General Electric (as are CNBC, MSCNBC, Bravo, and the SciFi channel, among others) and is itself a major government contractor–particularly, but not exclusively, in regards the federal government. Aside from the fact that I don’t give much credence to the opinion of a former news reader–or a current one, for that matter–largely because of his former employer being in bed with the federal government, I would consider Valeriani’s comment with a huge grain of salt.

You have no right to privacy.

He does have a right to be free of an “unreasonable search and seizure.” You really should read the 4th amendment.

And the finances being tracked were overseas.

Not exclusively–and probably not even primarily. The SWIFT transactions records for which were vacuumed up by the Bush malAdministrations would have included those that originated in the US, as well as those that originated abroad that were to be remitted to banks in the US. You aren’t seriously suggesting that US originators or remittees aren’t entitled to 4th amendment protections, are you?

What about the right to privacy?

You have no right to privacy. And the finances being tracked were overseas. There was nothing even ambiguously legal, much less illegal, about this program.

Weren’t you just posting about these virtues a few minutes ago? What’s small government about government spies probing around in your accounts secretly — “legally” or not?

What about the right to privacy?

Hmmm.

Seriously, I was confused at first but now I am glad I know about this program even though it affects me very little. same with the NSA. I haven’t called outside the country much lately and I’ve never recieved money from outside the country. If I was Bush i would be bragging about these things.

plus, does anyone here actually think the terrorists learned anything from this article? They’ve known since 9/12 Bush was doing everything possible to catch them. He’s a republican from texas for crying out loud.

We told them about SWIFT years ago (e.g. 2002 UN Report available on the UN website). Also, none of the articles published by the Wall Street Journal and the other papers give any specifics of “exactly the means and methods used to track their funds” that I can see.

The phrase “Mountain out of a molehill” comes to mind.