Briefs

By Greg Miller and Josh Meyer, Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON � In response to the Sept. 11 attacks, the Treasury Department sought to enlist a reluctant ally. The world's banking industry long had been loath to give up data on customers, so U.S. investigators issued a subpoena for a narrow slice of information from a worldwide financial consortium.

The reply stunned Treasury officials.

The consortium couldn't extract the shards of data U.S. terrorism analysts were looking for, so it offered something more generous.

"They said, 'We'll give you all the data,' " Treasury Secretary John Snow said Friday during a news conference in which he defended the program.

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