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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."
Sue in Belgium.
So, uhhhh, when will Americans start to realize that there's just a wee bit of fascism taking hold of their nation? You'd think with something as clear-cut as this, more people would wake up to that fact...
Since when can the State Secret privilege be used to keep secret a program that is probably illegal? That's an enormous conflict of interest. The president doesn't (or at least shouldn't) have the "privilege" to cover up what are probably illegal actions.
Basically, those are the guys who run international banking, with the message centers and the networking. As far as I know, their physical location is a secret aswell, only a few of these centers exist in the world. SWIFT is more or less owned by the largest banks in the world, roughly based on their marketshare and size. That was the only way they felt assured that noone is going to swindle them with 8 bit xor "encryption" on financial transactions.
If these guys are cooperating with Bush/the US Govt., then basically the largest banks in the world are cooperating with Bush, giving the US access to international banking.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Banks help CIA spy, customers find out, sue banks, judge does not through out suit, gov plays "state secret" card for distance and/or to help the banks.
There you go, less than 30 words.
By reading this signature you agree to not disagree with the post you just read.
Hey, can I rummage through your girlfriend's panty drawer? She won't mind, right? I'm looking for weapons of mass destruction. Seriously.
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.
"CIA takes neccessary steps to prevent the deaths of American children. Slashdot liberal weenies start to cry about the rights of terrorist criminals. CIA as usual disregards impotent nerdy chestbeating."
Even 'terrorist criminals' have rights. The value of an American child should not be greater than that of a child from any other country.
...to comb through private financial recordings from a Belgian bank in the first place? I mean, last time I checked, Belgium does not exactly fall under US jurisdiction, doesn't it? Wouldn't that fall under some international laws or something?
On some hypothetical "absolute scale" of liberal/conservative, it might be true that CNN or ABC is 'conservative' and Fox only more so, but in reality there is no absolute scale. Everything is relative to something else: either the citizenry at large, or to the consumers who affect a particular market.
To Noam Chomsky, it's probably true that CNN is very conservative. On his own scale, he's the zero point, and CNN is right of him, and Fox even further right of that. To Ann Coulter, they probably both read as rather leftist, because she's her own zero point and they're both left of her. Depending on which opinion poll you want to believe, the "American public" is somewhere else on the spectrum, and various news sources are 'conservative' or 'liberal' relative to that.
The only borderline-objective source for normalcy seems, to me, to be what the market actually produces in response to consumer desires. It's easy to lie on an opinion poll to make yourself look or feel good, when you're not spending your own money or time. But the market is a good measure of what people actually do; and people abandoned CNN in the late 90s and early 2000s to watch Fox News instead. That's an indicator to me, that the public is actually quite -- perhaps frighteningly -- conservative.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
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.how prior to the 2006 elections, the networks justified the tremendous slant of the guests on their Sunday Morning talk shows by pointing out that Republicans controlled the White House, Senate and House.
But after the 2006 elections... well, the slant still exists. Guests are mostly conservative and overwhelmingly white males.
The public has elected a Democratic House and Senate but you wouldn't realize it from the media...
Look at everything their government has done to them while they've just sat their waving their flag.
... but failed to remember that it was CANADIAN government disaster response team that got into that area first ... even though several days had passed since the storm.
Look at the outright lies used by Bush to invade Iraq when it was well known that Iraq had nothing to do with 911, had no WMD's, and was already fully contained.
Look at the many ways their constitutionally protected rights have been stripped away, while not one of their judges has had the balls to do their job and strike down the Patriot Act and similar unconstitutional.
Look at the way they've allowed fundamentalist christian groups to take control, destroying the separation of church and state.
Look at the way their government has repressed the black community, including the needless destruction of New Orleans. Bush spoke at the 2 year anniversary of Katrina in the Lower 9th Ward
Look at the way they have yet again allowed their banking system to run scams that built up to the point of being able to hurt the world economy. About every 5 years its something, this time it was their unregulated 'sub-prime' mortgages. Golly Gee! maybe we shouldn't have been giving mortgages to people without even verifying their income! duhhhh!
The american people couldn't revolt their way out of a paper bag.
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
The damage the current administration has done will last for quite a while after the next election. Do you really think the loyalties of the judges that have been appointed in the past 6 years are to the American people? That is the scary part of what this administration has done.
'a bit of a southern drawl' is not the same as 'chews up and mangles the english language'.
thanks for playing tho.
I guess the it shows conservatives are focus better on issues that the lefty crowd.
it's almost comedy! speaking of mangling english...
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Is this the MPAA? Is this the RIAA? Is this the DMCA? I thought it was the USA!
Since when did Clinton turn Liberal? Clinton was the guy who introduced the DMCA, 5 year max limit for anybody needing welfare, among other things. These points I just got off the top of my head. It's been said many times and in many ways that in America there is small "c" conservative and large "C" conservative. Nothing seems to be liberal about American politics except the rhetoric.
Your making two assumptions.
First, that whoever is in power next will WANT to investigate this.
Second, that there will be a "next election", don't forget that those in power do anything to stay in power. This administration has already tried to delay the elections in '04 due to concerns over security and has since set itself up with some scary martial law powers.
Anyone want to take bets on the odds of there being a major "terrorist attack" in the US within 4-6 months of the next election? And as long as it doesn't directly impact the "common person", increase in gas price, beer, cable TV or interrupt Monday night football, most of the sheeple will just let it happen.
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...
First some history, there have always been times throughout history where violence tries to rob people of their rights and their humanity. It's even not the first time someone has tried to blow up a financial building in NYC. Here's one from 1920: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street_bombing Here's a different bombing not in NYC from 1927http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_School_disa
Your right to be assured of your kids safety also doesn't trump the right of a "brownish shifty looking guy" to be secure in his person, papers and possessions or trump his right to Habeas Corpus. There are reasons that you equate the safety of your kid in whatever piss-ant town you live in, with massive invasive search that flaunt centuries old law. First you think that your kid qualifies as an important target, sorry no one outside of you family and friends thinks your kid is anything special. Second and probably the more important reason is that you are scared. When people are subconciously aware of their own moratlity they make very black and white emotional decisions. I highly recommend reading the whole linked article, it's shows the exact the Presidents insistence that "if we don't do this there will be another Sept.11th" works so well.
We are all just people.
Don't worry at all. The thing is, the Bush administration is simply doing this, ONCE AGAIN, to hide the fact that they've behaved ethically for the past 8 years. All the problems? All the lies used to justify an illegal war of aggression? All the illegal prisons in Cuba, all the secret prisons in Europe? All the secret illegal wire-tapping programs? All the firing attorneys for purely political reasons? All of them had perfectly good explanations, but the Bush Administration is simply too humble to want everyone to know, so they use things like "state secrets" or "executive privilege" to protect themselves from the lack of controversy.
It's been a long time.