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US May Invoke "State Secrets" To Stop Banking Suit
An anonymous reader sends us to the International Herald Tribune for news that the Bush administration is signaling that it plans to turn once again to a favorite legal tool, the 'state secrets' privilege. The administration wants to shut down a lawsuit brought against Swift, a huge Belgium banking cooperative that that the article calls the "nerve center of the global banking industry," after it was revealed that Swift secretly let the CIA comb through millions of private financial records. Quoting: "Two US banking customers sued Swift on invasion-of-privacy grounds. Many legal and financial analysts expected that the lawsuit would be thrown out because US banking privacy laws are considered much more lax than those in much of Europe. But to the surprise of many, a judge refused to throw out the lawsuit in a ruling in June."
Over here in Europe this was 'big news' a few months ago (I live in Belgium).
The problem over here was that Swift provided the CIA with access to the banking transactions and allegedly personal data from all EU citizens. They could do this because Swift also has a datacentre in the USA (because this data is very precious it has to be duplicated in geographically different areas).
At least that's how I remember it to be reported.
One of the things also mentioned was that the EU could not/would not do the same against American citizens, perhaps out of fear?
To my knowledge, the last report about it stated that the data-transaction to the American government had not stopped, since then the (small) mediastorm has passed over and nobody cares anymore.
One of the things also mentioned was that the EU could not/would not do the same against American citizens, perhaps out of fear?
The EU can't and won't do that, as they'd be breaking the law.The american people couldn't revolt their way out of a paper bag.
Well, some of them are organizing a General Strike on 9/11/07. The way things are, it takes some serious balls...