Posted on 02/02/2018 7:24:08 AM PST by Liz
The intelligence division at the Treasury Department has repeatedly and systematically violated domestic surveillance laws by snooping on the private financial records of US citizens and companies, according to government sources.
Over the past year, at least a dozen employees in another branch of the Treasury Department, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, have warned officials and Congress that US citizens’ and residents’ banking and financial data has been illegally searched and stored. And the breach, some sources said, extended to other intelligence agencies, such as the National Security Agency, whose officers used the Treasury’s intelligence division as an illegal back door to gain access to American citizens’ financial records. The NSA said that any allegations that it “is operating outside of its authorities and knowingly violating U.S. persons’ privacy and civil liberties is categorically false.”
In response to detailed questions, the Treasury Department at first issued a one-sentence reply stating that its various branches “operate in a manner consistent with applicable legal authorities.” Several hours after this story published, the department issued a more forceful denial: “The BuzzFeed story is flat out wrong. An unsourced suggestion that an office within Treasury is engaged in illegal spying on Americans is unfounded and completely off-base.” It added that “OIA and FinCEN share important information and operate within the bounds of statute.”
Still, the Treasury Department’s Office of the Inspector General said it has launched a review of the issue. Rich Delmar, a lawyer in that office, offered no further comment.
But a senior Treasury official, who is not authorized to speak on the matter so requested anonymity, did not mince words: “This is domestic spying.”
Sources said the spying had been going on under President Barack Obama, but the Donald Trump appointees who now control how the department conducts intelligence operations are Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Sigal Mandelker.
At issue is the collection and dissemination of information from a vast database of mostly US citizens’ banking and financial records that banks turn over to the government each day. Banks and other financial institutions are required, under the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970, to report suspicious transactions and cash transactions over $10,000. The database is maintained by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, a bank regulator charged with combatting money laundering, terrorist financing, and other financial crimes. Under the law, it has unfettered powers to peruse and retain the data.
In contrast to FinCEN, Treasury’s intelligence division, known as the Office of Intelligence and Analysis, or OIA, is charged with monitoring suspicious financial activity that occurs outside the US. Under a seminal Reagan-era executive order, a line runs through the Treasury Department and all other federal agencies separating law enforcement, which targets domestic crimes, from intelligence agencies, which focus on foreign threats and can surveil US citizens only in limited ways and by following stringent guidelines.
FinCEN officials have accused their counterparts at OIA, an intelligence unit, of violating this separation by illegally collecting and retaining domestic financial information from the banking database. Some sources have also charged that OIA analysts have, in a further legal breach, been calling up financial institutions to make inquiries about individual bank accounts and transactions involving US citizens. Sources said the banks have complied with the requests because they are under the impression they are giving the information to FinCEN, which they are required to do.
One source recalled an instance from 2016 in which OIA personnel, inserting themselves into a domestic money-laundering case, sought information from a Delaware financial institution. In other cases, according to a second source, FinCEN gave OIA reports with the names of US citizens and companies blacked out. OIA obtained those names by calling the banks, then used those names to search the banking database for more information on those American citizens and firms.
"This is such an invasion of privacy." —Treasury Department official
Sources also claimed that OIA has opened a back door to officers from other intelligence agencies throughout the government, including the the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency. Officials from those agencies have been coming to work at OIA for short periods of time, sometimes for as little as a week, and thereby getting unrestricted access to information on US citizens that they otherwise could not collect without strict oversight.
“This is such an invasion of privacy,” said another Treasury Department official, who, lacking authorization to speak on the matter, asked not to be named. This person predicted that banks “would lose their minds” if they knew that their customers’ records were being used by government intelligence officers who did not have the legal authority to do so.
The Defense Intelligence Agency did not respond to a request for comment. CIA spokesman Dean Boyd said, "Suggestions that the Agency may be improperly collecting and retaining US persons data through the mechanisms you described are completely inaccurate."
Sources claimed the unauthorized inspection and possession of Americans’ financial data have been going on for years but only became controversial in 2016, when officials at FinCEN learned about it and began objecting. Early last year, Treasury’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, which oversees OIA, proposed transferring much of FinCEN’s work to OIA.
In a bureaucratic turf war, FinCEN officials objected to the proposal, which would have shifted numerous employees and a portion of FinCEN’s budget to OIA. They said the move was illegal without prior approval from Congress.
Instead of being given the guidelines, sources said, they were removed from an email chain about the issue.
And they claimed that OIA, because it is part of the US intelligence community, could not legally collect information on US citizens and residents unless it complied with a landmark executive order known as 12333. Signed by President Ronald Reagan and later revised and reissued by President George W. Bush, this order sets the rules for how intelligence agencies can operate. Before any agency can collect, retain, and disseminate intelligence on American citizens, that agency must establish privacy guidelines, and those guidelines, in turn, must be approved by the attorney general after consulting with the director of national intelligence. OIA, which was established in 2004, has never completed this process. Even so, it must follow rules designed to protect the civil rights and privacy of American citizens.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the attorney general declined to comment.
Also, sources said, under an agreement between the two branches of Treasury, OIA is allowed to access FinCEN’s banking database for specific foreign intelligence purposes. But, these sources said, OIA has been going far beyond those limits, flouting both this agreement and the executive order.
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Last summer, FinCEN officials asked to review OIA’s guidelines required under the executive order. Instead of being given the guidelines, sources said, they were removed from an email chain about the issue.
In September, a high-ranking attorney for the Treasury Department, Paul Ahern, got into a heated exchange at a meeting with at least a half-dozen FinCEN employees. He told them that OIA had the authority to access and use the data because it had preliminary, draft guidelines, according to people with knowledge of the meeting. In fact, more than a month would pass before the guidelines were written, according to a first draft reviewed by BuzzFeed News. To this day, the guidelines have not been finalized.
Ahern, sources said, also informed FinCEN officials that OIA had already been collecting information on US citizens. Many FinCEN officials were aghast because they believed that was illegal.
A Treasury Department spokesperson declined to make Ahern available for comment, and referred back to the department’s statement that all its offices act “in a manner consistent with applicable legal authorities.” The former head of OIA, S. Leslie Ireland, who resigned last year, did not respond to a request for comment. This month, she was named to the board of directors of banking giant Citigroup. The company declined comment.
Some FinCEN officials said they were instructed not to speak to Congress about their domestic spying concerns and other issues. They did anyway.
Some FinCEN officials said they were instructed not to speak to Congress about their domestic spying concerns and other issues. They did anyway.
In October of 2016, Rep. Sean Duffy, the chairman of the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, sent a letter to then-Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew asking for OIA’s legal authority to collect and retain domestic information.
Nearly one year later, the Congressman has yet to receive an answer, according to a committee staffer.
Officials at FinCEN said that after they began raising alarms, OIA began shutting them off from classified networks. That lack of access, which BuzzFeed News reported last week, meant FinCEN officials were unable to fully respond to law enforcement agencies during several live terrorist attacks over the last year. It also prevented FinCEN from fully complying with the Senate investigation into possible collusion between Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia. ●
UPDATE October 6, 2017, at 4:06 p.m. This story has been updated to reflect statements that were issued after the story was published from the Treasury Department and the National Security Agency.
At issue is the collection and dissemination of information from a vast database of mostly US citizens’ banking and financial records that banks turn over to the government each day. Banks and other financial institutions are required, under the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970, to report suspicious transactions and cash transactions over $10,000. The database is maintained by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, a bank regulator charged with combatting money laundering, terrorist financing, and other financial crimes. Under the law, it has unfettered powers to peruse and retain the data.
In contrast to FinCEN, Treasury’s intelligence division, known as the Office of Intelligence and Analysis, or OIA, is charged with monitoring suspicious financial activity that occurs outside the US. Under a seminal Reagan-era executive order, a line runs through the Treasury Department and all other federal agencies separating law enforcement, which targets domestic crimes, from intelligence agencies, which focus on foreign threats and can surveil US citizens only in limited ways and by following stringent guidelines.
FinCEN officials have accused their counterparts at OIA, an intelligence unit, of violating this separation by illegally collecting and retaining domestic financial information from the banking database. Some sources have also charged that OIA analysts have, in a further legal breach, been calling up financial institutions to make inquiries about individual bank accounts and transactions involving US citizens. Sources said the banks have complied with the requests because they are under the impression they are giving the information to FinCEN, which they are required to do.
One source recalled an instance from 2016 in which OIA personnel, inserting themselves into a domestic money-laundering case, sought information from a Delaware financial institution. In other cases, according to a second source, FinCEN gave OIA reports with the names of US citizens and companies blacked out. OIA obtained those names by calling the banks, then used those names to search the banking database for more information on those American citizens and firms.
"This is such an invasion of privacy." —Treasury Department official
Sources also claimed that OIA has opened a back door to officers from other intelligence agencies throughout the government, including the the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency. Officials from those agencies have been coming to work at OIA for short periods of time, sometimes for as little as a week, and thereby getting unrestricted access to information on US citizens that they otherwise could not collect without strict oversight.
“This is such an invasion of privacy,” said another Treasury Department official, who, lacking authorization to speak on the matter, asked not to be named. This person predicted that banks “would lose their minds” if they knew that their customers’ records were being used by government intelligence officers who did not have the legal authority to do so.
The Defense Intelligence Agency did not respond to a request for comment. CIA spokesman Dean Boyd said, "Suggestions that the Agency may be improperly collecting and retaining US persons data through the mechanisms you described are completely inaccurate."
Sources claimed the unauthorized inspection and possession of Americans’ financial data have been going on for years but only became controversial in 2016, when officials at FinCEN learned about it and began objecting. Early last year, Treasury’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, which oversees OIA, proposed transferring much of FinCEN’s work to OIA.
In a bureaucratic turf war, FinCEN officials objected to the proposal, which would have shifted numerous employees and a portion of FinCEN’s budget to OIA. They said the move was illegal without prior approval from Congress.
Instead of being given the guidelines, sources said, they were removed from an email chain about the issue.
And they claimed that OIA, because it is part of the US intelligence community, could not legally collect information on US citizens and residents unless it complied with a landmark executive order known as 12333. Signed by President Ronald Reagan and later revised and reissued by President George W. Bush, this order sets the rules for how intelligence agencies can operate. Before any agency can collect, retain, and disseminate intelligence on American citizens, that agency must establish privacy guidelines, and those guidelines, in turn, must be approved by the attorney general after consulting with the director of national intelligence. OIA, which was established in 2004, has never completed this process. Even so, it must follow rules designed to protect the civil rights and privacy of American citizens.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the attorney general declined to comment.
Also, sources said, under an agreement between the two branches of Treasury, OIA is allowed to access FinCEN’s banking database for specific foreign intelligence purposes. But, these sources said, OIA has been going far beyond those limits, flouting both this agreement and the executive order.
Don’t kid yourself, it’s still going on now, and will continue on perpetuity.
until some of these people are tried and jailed for life this will continue to get worse, especially when dims are in charge.
The entire federal government has been corrupted by the 8 years of the Kenyanesian Usurpation.
The founders knew the dangers of letting the children of foreign nationals into the office, that’s why they excluded them with the natural born citizen clause.
The same government that illegally spies on its political opponents will more than likely use those same resources and tactics to enrich and empower their friends.
For them, the power and machinery of government becomes a political lever to manipulate, intimidate and control others. Even their friends must do their bidding if they want to keep receiving favors and maintain their access to powerful people.
This misuse of government must be fully exposed and those involved in it be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
Reid’s claims about Romney’s taxes comes to mind.
This misuse of government must be fully exposed and those involved in it be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
Agree
However, what a waste of time and money could be put to better use.
Jail is not enough.
They hung others for much less.
Looks like Obama loved to “muddy the waters”. Promoting ID Theft at our expense. Stealing every dime he could get his hands on. Stalling all court matters into perpituary.
Nothing will happen until Sessions gets to work and he has no desire to do so. The Good guys can’t even release a Memo showing FBI criminal acts. Without DOJ doing its job, FBI still investigates itself and does nothing wrong.
“...Jail is not enough. They hung others for much less....”
Absolutely. Agree with you 100%.
The gallows need to be brought back to pubic use and viewing.
Every one of those evil bassturds in Post #2 need to be dangling from the end of a rope all at the same time, at high noon on the DC mall.
This should be a real problem for all intelligence agencies and Treasury and IRS . Government seems to be trying to surveil every aspect of life and there is no privacy left.
I have repeated this so often here I work at Libtardsville.
What the left thinks is going on is 180 degrees from truth.
The pres of my company met with obama a few years ago.
It is the crowning achievement of this world.
Just yuck......Retirement is 2021 so I gotta
But as a Patriot it bugs me to no end.
I just wonder how the draining of the swamp will play out??
=============================================
OBAMA GAVE RHAM EMANUEL TWO KEY JOBS Soon as they occupied the WH, Obama placed his COS Rahm Emanuel in control of the US Dept of the Treasury (oversees the IRS).
PAUSE TO REFLECT First-term Obama had tight control of Treasury; Obama calculatedly placed his then-COS Rahm Emanuel in a dual role.......in the WH and at Treasury. Obama had a stranglehold on Treasury via COS Rahm Emanuel's dual role
==========================================
THE SMOKING GUN---WSJ REPORT--On Jan 20, 2009 Timothy Geithner was appointed Obama's Secy of the Treasury. But within three weeks, the Obama White House tightened its grip on Treasury. Obama put his COS, Rahm Emanuel, in charge of Treasury---Rahm Emanuel's dual role was an unusual move.
When he got to Treasury, WH COS Rahm Emanuel was so involved in the inner workings that the phrase "Rahm wants it" had become an unofficial mantra among subservient govt staffers, prostrate in obeisance, scurrying to accede to Rahm's wishes, according to Treasury government officials. Reported by WSJ / 05/31/09
More here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124113406528875137.html
Way longer...
Repeal the 17th Amendment
Call President Trump:
Comments: 202-456-1111 Switchboard: 202-456-1414
email. president@whitehouse.gov
CONTACT CONGRESS: Capitol Switchboard 1-866-220-0044
Contact Jeff Sessions
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001
Comment Line: 202-353-1555
Switchboard: 202-514-2000
Pres Trump needs to suggest AG Sessions make an inquiry to the US Dept of the Treasury and be sure to ask what RAHM AND Obama were doing in the US Treasury after Obama got elected.
Treasury prolly HAS a huge Rahm/Obama paper trail. One can get awfully rich awfully fast knowing the Fed's Treasury moves in advance.
ITEM---Does this connect to the infamous DOJ/FBI Memo revelations?
ITEM--the Iran connection could prove to be even more interesting considering the gold bars and hundreds of millions of tax dollars Obama secretly gave to Iran.
Contact Sessions?
He has recused himself from his job.
I hope everyone forwards this viral ASAP.
ACTION NOW
Call President Trump:
Comments: 202-456-1111 Switchboard: 202-456-1414
email. president@whitehouse.gov
CONTACT CONGRESS: Capitol Switchboard 1-866-220-0044
Contact Jeff Sessions
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001
Comment Line: 202-353-1555
Switchboard: 202-514-2000
Pres Trump needs to suggest AG Sessions make an inquiry to the US Dept of the Treasury and be sure to ask what RAHM AND Obama were doing in the US Treasury after Obama got elected.
Treasury prolly HAS a huge Rahm/Obama paper trail. One can get awfully rich awfully fast knowing the Fed’s Treasury moves in advance.
ITEM-—Does this connect to the infamous DOJ/FBI Memo revelations?
ITEM—the Iran connection could prove to be even more interesting considering the gold bars and hundreds of millions of tax dollars Obama secretly gave to Iran.
“Nothing will happen until Sessions gets to work and he has no desire to do so. The Good guys can’t even release a Memo showing FBI criminal acts. “
This needs to come to a head sooner rather than later, because it has the ability to adversely affect the Fall election. Trump needs to effectuate the end of Mueller’s investigation. Hopefully, the FISA Memo will start that ball rolling in earnest. I think the few stalwarts in the Congress will not allow Trump to keep skating on his poor quality leadership in the DOJ/FBI! Jordan, Goetz, Nunes, and maybe even Gowdy will start bashing him if he doesn’t get this mess cleaned up.
You two freepers are such a consistent and valuable asset to this forum with your data, facts, analysis, how to contact the White House and elected officials, etc...it's amazing how you do all this. It's a lot of work !
You both have my most respectful thanks.
As my Irish grandmother used to say...."Bless your eyes".
Leni
What does the Deep State have on AG Sessions? It does not appear that he is doing anything. Unless Jeff has some secret investigations going, I cannot find any action he has taken against anyone associated with Obama.
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