Europe approves US mass data grab Europe has signed a deal to hand over all bank transaction data to the US in order to help the ongoing war on terrorism. The SWIFT agreement was signed yesterday in Brussels by Spanish minister for home affairs Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba and the US embassy's economic economic officer to the EU, Michael Dodman. Rubalcaba welcomed …
I wonder how long it will be before they decide that not all wannabe terrorists make monthly donations to Hamas are are involved with suspiciously large transactions to remote areas of Afghanistan or Pakistan, and therefore need to snoop on, say, our library transactions as well.
No doubt if the hawks get their way, eventually the majority of the world will be subjected to the whims of the USA PATRIOT Act...
<-- Well, surely that's got to be the most appropriate icon?!
The European Parliament has already rejected this agreement before, so it's not entirely unreasonable to hope that they will reject it again.
I mean, how does it help fighting terrorism to know that I have purchased fancy underwear over Internet ? Real terrorists pay in cash anyway.
I cannot thank both the US and the EU enough for shooting yet another hole in the VISA/MC network, just as I'm busy setting up a coalition to provide a new sort of credit card.
All I need to do now is to host it in Liechtenstein or Switzerland (which, by the way, now has their OWN SWIFT centre, exactly because they don't let the EU decide on their privacy).
Applaus - thank you, thank you. I reckon it'll take until early next year until we have it all running (still busy financing), but we'll kick the gory daylights out of a payment system that hasn't focused on customer needs since the last two decades. Whohahahaaa!
(and before anyone mentions this will be used by terrorists - you obviously don't know that banks themselves are already handling that via KYC, all the US is doing is trying to get that data without any due process and any reciprocal arrangements - and they managed. Well done EU).
A good way to go after crime is to follow the money. For serious international crime this does need cross border police cooperation. Mass data transfers should not be needed to find out where a particular payment ended up. They also won't give you the information needed for law enforcement, if a couple of drug dealers meet in the toilet of a Caribbean casino and identical briefcases, one containing a large quantity of chips are transferred. So if these data transfers are neither necessary nor sufficient, what are they for ?
Sadly the Parliament's three largest political blocks are all for it. There is a copy of the agreement at at http://www.statewatch.org/news/2010/jun/eu-usa-draft-swift-agreement-com-final-3.pdf It seems to be full of the useless "safeguards" you might expect with no actual teeth, like expensive penalties for breaches.
Can't see as this is going to help in any way. There is already enough snooping on this planet without the Yanks knowing what I may have purchased in some seedy book store............oops.........what a give-away! Why America, anyway? What right have they to know what's going on in my bank account? Bad enough with the CRB check in the UK required for my job where they try and prise full bank details (account no. and sort code, no less) out of an applicant by pretending that "this will help speed your application" . Turns out that the particular section on the form (which also prompts for numerous other personal details, such as occupation status, i.e. renting or buying, etc; number of children and so on, does not have to be filled in. I told then in no uncertain terms in a phone call that the information was nothing to do with them, they had no business asking for it and they backed off. "Er....well....you don't have to fill that section in". THAT'S more like it! Exactly what our European "masters" and our new coalition government need to do in response to this draconian suggestion.
This report shows that the American banking system is corrupt and criminal, so goodness knows what you can expect them to do with any information they are given ....... http://cryptogon.com/?p=16229
And as we all now know, they are all into creative accounting and global fraud, for they are all supporters of the failing system.
I mean, all this is done in the name of fighting terrorism, right ?
So this has to mean that, in a few months from now (yes, months - even terrorists have to eat), we'll have breaking news all over the headlines telling us that Bin Laden has finally been caught thanks to the European data unilaterally handed over to a foreign nation that has no business knowing what I bought this week, right ?
RIGHT ?
Because if we don't see these headlines, then WHAT BLOODY USE IS IT TO US ?
Now this is scary it is not just us in the UK with useless politicians that can't negotiate a good deal. I bet the us cracked open their Californian fizzy wine and laughed at us.
Why oh why do we do this. I'm getting more and more put off by the us and starting to think some Arab states weren't wrong.
What's wrong with making single requests pertinent to a single investigation where the us asks the question and we just say yes or no. No need to know more.
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of
tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." --William Pitt, The Younger (1759-1806), British statesman.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety
deserve neither liberty nor safety." --Benjamin Franklin
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