Quote of note:

Declaring "there is no more serious threat to our economy than the threat of terrorist attacks on our soil," Snow highlighted the Treasury Department's role in tracking terror finances and said the Patriot Act had helped law enforcement officials and financial services providers share information. He said financial institutions now are registered with the U.S. Treasury and more data can be collected.

Snow: Terror Threat Hangs Over Economy
Tue Jul 13, 2004 12:29 AM ET

By Glenn Somerville
CLEVELAND (Reuters) - The risk of terror attacks is one of the key dangers the U.S. economy faces and requires vigilance against any bid to weaken measures for investigating suspicious money transactions, U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow said in remarks prepared for delivery on Tuesday.

In the first of an expected series of efforts to win renewal of key provisions of the Patriot Act, a centerpiece of the White House's war on terror and of President Bush's election campaign, Snow said terror groups cannot survive if their cash is choked off.

"Hatred fuels the terrorist agenda, cash makes it possible," Snow said in the speech prepared for delivery after a tour of a local film-coating plant. "The work to track and shut down the financial network of terror is, therefore, one of the most critical jobs of our government today."

Voter unease about the war in Iraq, and about provisions of the Patriot Act that gave the government broad new investigative powers to try to uncover potential threats, has become an issue in campaigning for November's presidential vote.