US defends secret money tracking Tens of thousands of transactions were scrutinised US Treasury Secretary John Snow has defended a secret programme which has been tracking international money transactions for nearly five years."This programme is an effective weapon in the larger war on terror," he said. The scheme, which has sifted huge amounts of data from an international banking consortium, was revealed by the New York Times newspaper on Friday. The US treasury says the programme was strictly confined to the records of suspected foreign terrorists. Although there is no direct connection, the programme has echoes of a recently...