14 DAY TRIAL // For the past few months, since the Edward Snowden revelations went public, the NSA has been the focus of most reports, along with its British counterpart, the GCHQ. That makes sense, since Snowden worked for the NSA when he decided to gather information to leak and most of the documents he collected were from the GGHQ.
But these aren't the only two spy agencies messing with people's privacy and going beyond what the laws that govern them allow or should allow.
The CIA is collecting all financial transactions processed by the likes of Western Union, including those to and from the US. What this means is that the CIA has on hand a list of all transfers processed by Western Union including those of Americans.
The idea is to track the funding of various terrorist organizations and individuals associated with them or, at least, that's what anonymous officials say the program is for.
The agency would not confirm the program. But it is claimed that the program is legal under the Section 215 of the Patriot Act and is overseen by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. These are the same conditions that make most of NSA's surveillance "legal."
Allegedly, the data on Americans can't be searched by CIA agents, even if it's stored, unless they can be tied to terrorist organizations. The data is also supposed to be deleted after a few years.
Both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal have reported on the matter, citing sources inside the government.
What's encouraging in all of this is that, for once in the past few months, these revelations don't come from the Edward Snowden documents. Of course, it's bad news that there are many of these types of programs that need to be revealed, but it's a good thing that they are finally unveiled, one way or another.