The Central Banks of all nations cannot be blocked and cannot be monitored directly. The use of SWIFT has always been monitored directly and completely from its very beginning. Privacy is meaningless in the world banking community and transactions no matter how critical spill over like a Dixie cup in the wind. There is no privacy since transaction trails are monitored by banks except in the case of domestic transfers and central banking activity. The whole exposure of the request for information was a joke for political hay Bush trapped the New York Times and got the Democrats to help him. Ask Dan Rather about phony news stories too juicy to let go. Bush is a master at planting stories. If the New York Times did not print it they would be branded as lackeys for political access. The simple truth is Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and others take central bank transfers from each other and use their nation state status and internal banking system to allocate funds to terrorist groups. This scenario avoids any and all detection from unwanted inspections. Money Laundering is achieved the same way if you have access to a Central Banker you are above the law and any commercial investigation. So let the notion of privacy be forever concluded there is none and the only way to hide the activity is control a nation state like Somalia.

"nation state like Somalia"?!
Is there a nation? Is there a state? Come on!

There are, however, interesting developments from an FC point of view (emailed to me by a person right there, in Somalia):
The somali Shilling, while still in circulation is completely unsuitable as a vehicle for savings and increasingly unsuitable as a vehicle of exchange. However, there is a competing market of three(?) cellular operators that mostly provide pre-paid services (since billing is difficult for various reasons).
Now, unlike most cellular systems, minutes can be trasfered from person to person (it's not free, though), moreover, ACROSS OPERATORS. I don't know how exactly this works and I have not seen it confirmed, but if true, it is amazing.

I was told that in Somaliland (to the north of the Horn), forty cellular minutes buy approx. one liter of bottled potable water at the market (produced locally by Coca Cola co.). Either telecom is ridiculously cheap or water is hideously expensive. Or both.