If this is anything like the no-fly list we are screwed
Homeland Security Department Experiments With New Tool to Track Financial Crime
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
WASHINGTON, Dec. 11 - The Department of Homeland Security has begun experimenting with a wide-ranging computer database that allows investigators to match financial transactions against a list of some 250,000 people and firms with suspected ties to terrorist financing, drug trafficking, money laundering and other financial crimes.
The program, developed by a British company and used in recent test runs at the Department of Homeland Security, gives investigators what amounts to an enormous global watch list to track possible financial crimes at American border crossings, banks and other financial institutions.
"This is something that's shown promise," said Dean Boyd, a spokesman for the department's Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. While the program is still in its trial stage, Mr. Boyd said, "it's interesting technology, and it would give us another tool in the box, but there's been no decision made on whether to put it into operation or not."
He stressed that the software had not been used as part of any criminal investigations or other operations.
David Leppan, chief executive of World-Check, the British company that has provided the database to American officials, said the recent test runs had produced a number of promising hits on people with suspected criminal ties overseas who had entered the United States with more than $10,000 in cash or made other financial transactions in this country that were reported to the government.
