The US government has secretly monitored banking transactions around the globe since the September 11, 2001 attacks, top officials said Friday, defending the programme as a "lawful" part of the war on terror.
It is the latest in a series of covert programmes that is likely to spark fresh concerns about potential privacy infringements and Americans' civil liberties.
US Treasury Secretary John Snow defended the secret finance-tracking spy programme following its disclosure by several US newspapers, while Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told reporters it was "lawful".
"I am particularly proud of our Terrorist Finance Tracking Programme, which, based on intelligence leads, carefully targets financial transactions of suspected foreign terrorists," Snow said in a statement.
Snow denied the government was engaged in "data mining". "The Department of Justice has reviewed the programme. We believe it is lawful," Gonzales told reporters at a Justice Department press conference. The collection of domestic telephone records and the eavesdropping on international calls by Americans without a warrant had already put the administration of President George W. Bush on the defensive.
"President (George W.) Bush has made it clear that ensuring the safety of the American people and citizens around the globe must be our number one priority," Snow said.
"Consistent with this charge, one of the most important things we at Treasury do is to follow the flow of terrorist monies. They don't lie. "Skillfully followed, they lead us to terrorists themselves, thereby protecting our citizens."
Snow said the monitoring, through the international banking co-operative SWIFT, specifically targets suspected foreign terrorists and "is not 'data mining', or trolling through the private financial records of Americans." "This is part of an overall governmental effort to map terrorist networks and apprehend terrorists around the world," he said.
The spying programme, conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency and overseen by the Treasury Department, was launched after the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.
"By following the money, the US has been able to locate operatives and their financiers, chart terrorist networks, help bring them to justice and save lives," Snow said.
Treasury Department Under Secretary Stuart Levey, in an interview with The New York Times, said the programme "has provided us with a unique and powerful window into the operations of terrorist networks," adding that it was "without doubt a legal and proper use of our authorities." The government agreed to reveal the existence of the programme after it was unable to dissuade the Times from publishing details, the newspaper said.
The programme relies on records of SWIFT (Society for World-wide Interbank Financial Telecommunication), which routes millions of financial transfer instructions every day. It is based in part on the president's emergency economic powers, Levey told the Times. The searches rely on broad administrative subpoenas for millions of records from SWIFT. That access to large amounts of confidential data has raised concerns about legal and privacy issues inside the administration, the Times said, citing several officials.
Treasury officials said multiple safeguards are in place to protect unwarranted searches of Americans' private banking records. The Washington Post and Wall Street Journal also carried articles Friday on the programme to snoop on international financial transactions. SWIFT was approached shortly after September 11 because of its vast international database.
The Times said that SWIFT, which is owned by more than 2,200 banks and financial organisations, routes about six trillion dollars daily, most of them in cross-border transactions. The Belgium-based co-operative serves 7,800 financial institutions in more than 200 countries.
Its database, which a former US official described as "the mother lode," has provided clues to money trails and ties between possible terrorists and groups financing them, and directly led to the capture of al Qaeda operative Riduan Isamuddin, believed to have masterminded 2002 bombings in Bali, Indonesia, the Times said.
It has also helped identify a US man convicted of helping an al Qaeda member launder 200,000 dollars through a Pakistani bank, prosecutors told the Times.