New analysis by the Senate Budget Committee Republican staff finds that, under President Obama’s proposed budget, interest payments on debt will exceed the defense budget in just 5 years.
Here’s a chart put together by the Republicans, who are led by Ranking Member Jeff Sessions, on the Senate Budget Committee:
“Interest costs to finance national debt exceed defense spending by FY 2020,” the chart reads.
The National Security Agency (NSA) widely monitors international payments, banking and credit card transactions, according to documents seen by SPIEGEL.
The information from the American foreign intelligence agency, acquired by former NSA contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden, show that the spying is conducted by a branch called “Follow the Money” (FTM). The collected information then flows into the NSA’s own financial databank, called “Tracfin,” which in 2011 contained 180 million records. Some 84 percent of the data is from credit card transactions.
Further NSA documents from 2010 show that the NSA also targets the transactions of customers of large credit card companies like VISA for surveillance. NSA analysts at an internal conference that year described in detail how they had apparently successfully searched through the US company’s complex transaction network for tapping possibilities.
Their aim was to gain access to transactions by VISA customers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, according to one presentation. The goal was to “collect, parse and ingest transactional data for priority credit card associations, focusing on priority geographic regions.” In response to a SPIEGEL inquiry, however, a VISA spokeswoman ruled out the possibility that data could be taken from company-run networks.
The NSA’s Tracfin data bank also contained data from the Brussels-based Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), a network used by thousands of banks to send transaction information securely. SWIFT was named as a “target,” according to the documents, which also show that the NSA spied on the organization on several levels, involving, among others, the agency’s “tailored access operations” division. One of the ways the agency accessed the data included reading “SWIFT printer traffic from numerous banks,” the documents show.
But even intelligence agency employees are somewhat concerned about spying on the world finance system, according to one document from the UK’s intelligence agency GCHQ concerning the legal perspectives on “financial data” and the agency’s own cooperations with the NSA in this area. The collection, storage and sharing of politically sensitive data is a deep invasion of privacy, and involved “bulk data” full of “rich personal information,” much of which “is not about our targets,” the document says.
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SPIEGEL ONLINE – International – NSA Spying Scandal
Matt Helms, Joe Guillen and Alisa Priddle
Detroit Free Press
June 14, 2013
Emergency manager Kevyn Orr on Friday laid out an extraordinary, complex and painful path back to solvency for the city of Detroit in a proposed plan to creditors.
It would spin off the city’s water department, reduce city-provided health care for retirees and immediately stop debt payments and then use that money to keep the city operating while reinvesting $ 1.5 billion over the next decade to boost crucial public services like police and fire, step up blight removal and transform an antiquated, failing city government.
The impact of the document Orr released publicly and to creditors in Friday’s historic meeting cannot be understated.
This article was posted: Friday, June 14, 2013 at 1:18 pm
Tags: domestic news, economics
A personal loan is a great opportunity to have the cash to consolidate your debt, take a college course, mend your vehicle, or perhaps take a vacation. Personal loans can be secured or unsecured. Secured loans are much riskier because they involve providing the lender with collateral to guarantee repayment of the loan. If you fail to meet that repayment, the lender will legally own your property, automobile, or what ever asset you used to secure the loan.
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