More likely than not [a full-time DESIST/FinCEN system] would identify scores of previously unknown financial conduits to terrorists … The DESIST/FinCEN system would be able to identify terrorist financial movements in real-time, thus providing early warning of potentially imminent terrorist actions. Some within the intelligence community take it still another step: They would have the system tied into the private computers that hold credit card transactions “so that we could have nearly instant time-tracking capability,” according to one source who works closely with the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center … [It] could monitor on a real-time basis the financial activity of narcotics traffickers, since drug dealing also is within the purview of the CIA.
Predictor: Kimery, Anthony L.
Prediction, in context:In a 1993 article for Wired magazine, Anthony Kimery, an editor at American Banker Newsletters, outlines the U.S. government’s efforts to keep a handle on private financial transactions. Kimery writes about the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network – FinCEN: ”Privacy advocates are likely to find it disturbing that there are some within the walls of CIA headquarters – apparently unbeknownst to anyone at FinCEN – who want to mesh [the CIA’s] DESIST [computer system, the world’s most extensive database on terrorists] with FinCEN’s eventual AI/MPP [Artificial Intelligence/Massive Parallel Processing] ability and with all the databases FinCEN routinely surveys. The justification for creating such a system is compelling: More likely than not it would identify scores of previously unknown financial conduits to terrorists. Advocates of a full-time DESIST/FinCEN system carry their argument one step further: Hooked into the yet-to-be-authorized Deposit Tracking System, the DESIST/FinCEN system would be able to identify terrorist financial movements in real-time, thus providing early warning of potentially imminent terrorist actions. Some within the intelligence community take it still another step: They would have the system tied into the private computers that hold credit card transactions ‘so that we could have nearly instant time-tracking capability,’ according to one source who works closely with the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center. Conversely, a CIA/FinCEN/DTS endeavor could monitor on a real-time basis the financial activity of narcotics traffickers, since drug dealing also is within the purview of the CIA. The agency’s Counternarcotics Center, or CNC, already works closely with FinCEN.”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1993
Topic of prediction: Controversial Issues
Subtopic: Crime/Fraud/Terrorism
Name of publication: Wired
Title, headline, chapter name: Big Brother Wants to Look in Your Bank Account: The U.S. Government is Constructing a System to Track All Financial Transactions in Real-Time – Ostensibly to Catch Criminals. Does That Leave You With the Warm Fuzzies – or Scare You Out of Your Wits?
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/1.06/big.brother_pr.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney