Rand Paul: “I am not sure that the federal government's program examine records of international financial transactions collected by…”

“I am not sure that the federal government's program examine records of international financial transactions collected by the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) is worth all the sound and fury that has surrounded the program since its existence was revealed last week. For one thing, this program appears to threaten civil liberties less than the already widely known ``Know Your Customer'' program or the requirement that American financial institutions file suspicious activity reports whenever a transaction's value exceeds $10,000. However, the program's defenders should consider the likelihood that having federal bureaucrats wade through mountains of SWIFT-generated data will prove as ineffective in protecting the American people as other government programs that rely on sifting through mountains of financial data in hopes of identifying ``suspicious transactions.'' According to investigative journalist James Bovard, writing in the Baltimore Sun on June 28, ``[a] U.N. report on terrorist financing released in May 2002 noted that a `suspicious transaction report' had been filed with the U.S. government over a $69,985 wire transfer that Mohamed Atta, leader of the hijackers, received from the United Arab Emirates.…”