Slashdot Mirror
EU May Allow US To Keep Snooping On European Bank Data
zaphod2 alerts us to a storm brewing in Europe over access by US intelligence agencies to EU banking data. There is considerable opposition in Europe to extending this access. The submitter adds, "I wonder how long it takes until gambling, online games, or non-RIAA-approved music shops are considered supporters of terrorism." "US anti-terror officials want to be able to continue examining Europeans' financial transactions, and it appears likely that the European Union is going to comply. ... The US has been examining transactions handled by the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Transactions (SWIFT) since the 9/11 attacks... However, SWIFT, which is located in Belgium, is planning to move its servers and database — which is currently located in the US — to Europe. With data privacy laws far stricter in Europe, the US would then need permission from the EU before it could gain access to this sensitive information."
because it is absolutely necessary in order to fight the terrorists!! If we don't police the world then WHO WILL!?
All you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be. -PF
There are rules on civilization, and one is privacy. Maybe it will be a good idea to let then see one bank account, If a judge able it, but not at random... that would be outlawdish!
-Woof woof woof!
I think terrorism has fully achieved its objective. Majority of citizens in almost every country now face innumerable problems due to the 'anti terrorist' agenda of their governments. How worse can it be ? Success beyond Osama's wildest dreams !
... but those other people? We'll spy on them like crazy to protect your rights. Terrorists and all that, you know? Oh, we may or may not be letting them spy on you. And don't ask if we'll be swapping notes with them behind closed doors. Only terrorist lovers ask questions like that.
"Common sense will be the death of us all"
There is already a police in EU countries, you know. Unfortunately direct access to EU financial data can be used for industry espionage by US companies. And it is far more likely than next terrorists attacks in US.
The sad thing is, things that invade our privacy and violate our basic rights are passed in a non-democratic way. The part of the EU government that is actually elected by the people, has absolutely no say in these matters. They are outraged but powerless.
The EU is a "great" tool for oppression and more powerful governments. Basically everything that no national government would be able to put into a law, can be done in the EU. There is no such a thing as this annoying democratic process.
There are no terrorist actions.
Besides your government's that is.
"Industry espionage"
It is not Microsoft or Coca Cola who have access to the information right now.
If the EU is trying to track something down that goes through US accounts they should not be at a dead end either.
[20:36] wwwdot/.dotorg
Why is it that when Stuart Levey, head of the division of the Treasury Department dealing with cutting off funds to terrorist organizations, freezing assets, stopping forgery and counterfeiting, etc., was re-appointed by Obama, SWIFT suddenly became a good thing, whereas before in 2006 I saw it vilified as much as the warrantless wiretapping?
There is tons of talk like this about swiss banks forcing US clients out. I guess the they're caving under pressure.
What I'm curious about are other tax havens people have been using in recent times above and beyond swiss banks...
Our governments aren't allowed to spy on this data. So they allow the US to snoop around and then our police can get pointers from them. Our governments are in all but open opposition to our freedom.
Having a central government of any kind monitoring this type of thing just won't work. The best we could probably do is set up an automated system which yells BEEP! when it sees a truly suspicious transaction; then amici curiae appointed by the PEOPLE in combination with a random system to prevent infiltrators - NOT the government - are allowed access and can check the records, and indicate action may be necessary. Then, every action these people must be logged and open to public scrutiny. The servers must be monitored by an independent monitoring system, once again open to public scrutiny. That's the only way anybody will have any faith in such a system whatsoever.
But on the other hand: what are they looking for? $1m dollars transferred from Hussein in Iran to Mustapha in the U.S.? Couldn't you completely automate the whole system? Google did for its advertising, and that's the only thing that's keeping a really large group of inspectors at bay.
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it well worth the effort.
Well it's not unknown for governments to share a little financial data acquired through intelligence means with industry. I *think* the US has done it before, I'm really not sure though, just a vague memory.
Of course this is a one way deal, the US gov isn't offering a reciprocal arrangement.
If the US would allow the EU to snoop their bank data too, then this wouldn't be that much of scandal. But of course, in their own view, the US is the only legitimate force to fight terrorism...
The only music shops in Europe are non-RIAA-approved ones. The organisation does not exist in Europe, even (AFAIK) in the popular new Lawsuit Flavour that the Russians got a preview of.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
You'd be thinking of this
Unless the Illuminati has already gotten to Slashdot...
and it appears likely that the European Union is going to comply
The word "comply" misleadingly suggests that the EU is somehow subordinated to the US. The correct word is allow (not comply).
There is no "we". The violence of the U.S. government has not benefited U.S. citizens. If you got in the way of the controlling groups, they would kill you, delt0r, and your family.
The "anti-terror" is only a smokescreen. The U.S. government spends more money on surveillance and war than any country in the history of the world. That taxpayer money partly helps some people profit, for example: House of Bush, House of Saud, and hurts U.S. taxpayers.
The U.S. government has invaded or bombed 25 countries since the 2nd world war. Most or all of the interference was for profit. Quote: '... although nearly all the post-World War II interventions were carried out in the name of "freedom" and "democracy," nearly all of them in fact defended dictatorships controlled by pro-U.S. elites' The dictators pay the corrupters, of course.
U.S. citizens don't want to believe that their government is as corrupt as it is, even though the recent financial corruption has made many of them poor.
I'm fairly new here... but I'm being serious.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
The Airbus example is an interesting one in the "two wrongs make a right" field.
[20:36] wwwdot/.dotorg
Needless to say that the US may access sensitive data of European citizens, but the EU may *not* access the same data of US citizens. Would be useless anyways, because there is not a single terrorist living in the States. Never has been and never will be.
>It is not Microsoft or Coca Cola who have access to the information right now.
Yes, because government officials can't be bribed. Especially not by corporations that have lots of money.
You know, the whole point behind those attacks was not to destroy the West, or wipe us off the map, or any of that rubbish.
The main demands the Al Quaida originally made were that US forces withdraw from Saudi Arabia, and for Palestine to be recognised and given equal support to Israel. That was before every fundamentalist nutjob in Islam was invoking the name Al Quaida though ( PDF here, for reference).
I'm sorry to say, no matter what the media would have you believe, these guys aren't SPECTRE. They just want to be left alone. Throw rocks at a wasps' nest, and what do you expect to happen?
Slashdot: news for Apple. Stuff that Apple.
@Anonymous Coward. You get it all wrong when you claim that the EU is a totalitarian government. They are a bunch of wimps dressed i suites, nothing more. They still have to respect each individual country in the pact and their national constitution. They can NOT go past the regional rules of constitution in any way. That's why the treaty fell both in the Netherlands and in France. Denmark has forced a rewrite of a few suggestions over the years, due to our constitution dating back to 1849. So plz, get your facts right. The other thing about moving the servers to Europe I can only applaud. They should have done that years ago.
just as soon as all of the "great thinkers" in this thread (riaa... really? torture? totalitarianism? do you know what these words actually mean?) figure out a way to trace terrorist funding WITHOUT this kind of snooping
oh right, terrorist funding doesn't exist, its a myth. its made up by neocons for mind control
zzz
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Public Anti-Terror campaigns, everybody accusing everybody else, political trials etc.
At least with that shit Americans at some point realized how horrible it is. Right now the headless chicken is still going strong.
At best, EU sees its' mandate as protecting its' citizens rights. Not in protecting anyone else, least of all outsiders who [horrors!] are violating their country's [already generous] tax laws.
When the beep will the EU decide that it's had enough of this nonsense and just say NO? No wonder nobody votes in European elections. I thought after Bush we would not be the US's lapdog anymore but to my surprise and horror we still are not allowed to take more than 100 ml of fluid in our hand luggage, even in pan-european flights, and we have to put up with these ridiculous transparent plastic bags, and now this. Please please Brusseles, or Strassburg, give those Americans the finger and Just Say No!
-- Cheers!
They're all melding into one giant metagovernment, anyway. If you still have any illusions about European sovereignty or American sovereignty, then you're a fool. We already have troops deployed in Europe, and I suspect it won't be too much longer before we Americans see foreign troops deployed inside our own country.
I will give President Change-you-can-believe-in some points for consistency. He voted to keep FISA in place, and loved the warrantless wiretaps. Mr. Obama speaks better than Bush, comes across as less abrasive, and seems to care more about the common man. Where it counts, however, he is still a power-freak who wants access to as much of your data as he can, just like Bush. All politicians suck.
you frame it as if al qaeda is a defensive organization, that somebody, the west, went in and stirred up trouble, implying that al qaeda is the fault of the west
al qaeda is an ethnocentric fundamentalist initiative, created by the middle east. you cannot possible hold the west responsible for chinese ultranationalism or russian ultranationalism. so why you would hold it responsible for arabic ethnocetrism?
this logic is broken: "the west did {xyz} bad thing in the middle east. therefore, every single bad person from the middle east is the respnsibility of the west"
here's a similarity: "al qaeda bombed the world trade center. therefore, george bush and dick cheney are the fault of al qaeda" this is of course bullshit. but its the same reasoning you use to attribute accountability and responsibility for the existence of al qaeda. al qaeda is a creation of the cultures of the middle east. period
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The submitter adds, "I wonder how long it takes until gambling, online games, or non-RIAA-approved music shops are considered supporters of terrorism."
You're late, the RIAA and their shills have been saying that one for years. When I go home tonight I think I'll go home and download some DRM-free music just to annoy them more.
The matter is more specific than the article leads to believe. SWIFT is not actually 'moving' it's servers, rather it is adding new servers in Europe. Creating one TransAtlantic zone for messages allowed to reach the US and one Europe zone for messages not allowed to reach the US. The 'National Member Group Chairperson' of each country has specified in which of these zones their traffic should be traveling in, so with some exceptions each country has their own choice. Soon every country which has chosen to will keep their inter-Europe traffic within Europe. (exchanges with American banks obviously have to go to America.) For more information read: http://www.swift.com/solutions/industry_initiatives/distributed_architecture.page And: http://www.swift.com/solutions/industry_initiatives/image_doc/DA_Phase_1_white_paper_200907_1.4.pdf
It is not Microsoft or Coca Cola who have access to the information right now.
Can I remind you of the days MS used the government of the States to extinguish B-TRON in Japan? Anyway, at this point, I don't think MS and Coke need the data. They probably rely on focus groups and polling nowadays.
Every harsh word you utter has the right address. It only sounds harsh because the one on the envelope is the wrong one.
Yes, because government officials can't be bribed. Especially not by corporations that have lots of money.
Why would a government official need to be bribed? He most likely already owns a company or has a good buddy that owns a company which would benefit from his actions anyway.
Every harsh word you utter has the right address. It only sounds harsh because the one on the envelope is the wrong one.
They would need approvals of each and every one of EU's member states. Or at least the one that has the servers physically located.
In the latter case, most EU's banks would not be allowed to transfer any personal information to that country, until explicitly permitted by the person. Europeans are very careful about legal protection of their personal information.
I personally, had to sign a release for my employer, allowing my name and last name to be entered in the central employee database in US.
Nope. Two wrongs make you go back, three wrongs make a right.
the crusades happened how many centuries ago?
we have to learn from history, not be trapped by history. history should teach you, not lock you in mindless recrimination
you are using the same idiotic logic that keeps the balkans buried in blood feuds going back for millenia. no, that does not work for explaining or condoning human behavior
the only way you assign accountability and responsibility is: if you do it, you're responsible. if your hands pulled a trigger that killed someone, who is responsible? you are. beginning and ending of responsibility. any other variation on that line of thinking is just "the devil made me do it": fabricated bullshit in an attempt to shift responsibility to vague hot button topics
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
require no qualifications, historical explanations, or excuses. ethnocentrism, tribalism, and nationalism are the fault of no one except the people exhibiting these traits. they spring spontaneously forth in any society or culture: nothing is required for these evils to exist except essential human selfishness and blindness towards anyone else
ethnocentrism, tribalism and nationalism are not byproducts of some sort of evil. ethnocentrism, tribalism and nationalism are the original sin, the original evil from which all the tyrants, al qaedas, and the like spring into existence. of course political organizations manipulate and use these ancient evils, but ethnocentrism, tribalism and nationalism are not created by vile political agendas, they precede them. ethnocentrism tribalism and nationalism creates the vile political agendas of the world, not the other way around
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
most people learn in kindergarten an essential tool that is basically the source of all morality in the world: the ability to put yourself in someone else's shoes. this allows you to understand motivations and properly assign blame: sometimes your fault, sometimes there's
but for a significant percentage of individuals in any population at all times are those who never develop any sort of understanding of other people other than "its someone else's fault". its statistically inevitable, really, its simple a degenerate state of mind... there is no prerequisite for some minds to degenerate now and then, it happens automatically on a low grade level at all times. if two kindergarteners fight over a toy, most begin to understand cooperation and why we need to share. for a statistically inevitable few however, its always their toy, and all you have to do is fight harder for it, and there is no legitimacy in the idea anyone else should have anything except you. this carries on the rest of their lives. they cover it up, but the idea of cooperation and the moral lessons that spring from that never are revealed to them
such degenerate minds are often mired and hampered in life in dysfunctional interpersonal relationships that fail to be productive, simply because of their failed way of thinking about their relationship to the world. but for those who few figure out how to blame "the other", as in, the other tribe, the other nation, the other religion, the other ethnicity, etc.: these people actually win political and social influence and importance, simply because many people succumb to this way of thinking, even those who understand in interpersonal relationships, at least, why other people are not always to blame, and why they must shoulder responsibility themselves, but simple xenophobia limits their ability to apply that outside their family, their town, their region, etc.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
simple human selfishness
unhampered by any empathy, understanding, or awareness of other people, other tribes, other nations
the failure is in not understanding that there are other valid points of view out there other than yours
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
>>If we deposit $10,000 or more in an account, the government makes a note of it and investigates.
If it's a *cash* transaction, and if it's not in line with your usual business at the bank (e.g. if you bring in $11,000 in cash and you've only ever deposited checks before), yes, it's reported. Investigated? Not necessarily - more like it's noted down in case a pattern emerges.
The teller in this case wasn't being a Nazi (sheesh); she was doing her job. The $10K rule applies not just to a single cash transaction, but to multiple cash transactions by the same person to multiplea ccounts in one day, or multiple people to the same account in one day. And structuring transactions to try and get around the reporting rule is a pretty common tactic which tellers are trained to be aware of.
If he was actually arrested, it wasn't for depositing $9500 cash into his account. That's notable, but not illegal.
More likely: he was involved in money laundering, which is what that body of laws is set up to track. They dramatize it by pointing out that it also helps bust terrorist and huge drug rings, but most of what it gets is garden-variety money laundering.
If your friend told you he was arrested for making a cash deposit, he's lying. If you believed him, you should probably do a little more research.
al qaeda is an ethnocentric fundamentalist initiative, created by the middle east.
al qaeda is a terrorist tool created by the USA to fight USSR in the Afghan war. Then it was allowed a free hand to grow into a monster, while still being funded by money that can easily be traced to Saudi, Petrol and US MIC money banks - George Bush Senior, Kuwait drilling oil from underground reserves under Iraqi borders to provoke Saddam, Pakistan's ISI fomenting trouble as confirmed by the FBI recently, and many more examples in West and South Asia - LTTE being funded from the UK.
Stop defending the US MIC and cartels, you look foolish and ignorant.
yes, the usa gave bin laden stinger missiles to fight the soviets in the 1980s
in what fantasy world does that mean the usa is responsible for anything bin laden does... even in the 1980s?
here's my wacky perception of the world: what bin laden does is the responsibility of bin laden
if i gave you a gun, and you take that gun and you shoot your girlfriend, am i now responsible for you shooting your girlfriend?
or to make the analogy even wackier: i gave you a gun in 1980. in 2001, you use that gun to shoot your girlfriend. so i'm responsible? that's exactly how you wish to portray how things work with who is responsible for what al qaeda does
you're entire perception of how accountability and responsibility works in the real world is completely... retarded
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"They're not trying to reign down destruction on our heads because of our decadent Western ways"
no, that is exactly what they say, and what they desire to do. read their rants: the west is immoral and evil because it is nonislamic, and so it needs to be destroyed. al qaeda is an offensive organization, not a defensive one. it is pointed as much at christian and jewish communities in the middle east that have been there longer than islam itself as it is at the west. it is pointed at muslims not suitably pious enough in their eyes (not wearing a beard, women going to school, etc.). it is pointed at shiites, because simply being a shia is evil. it is also pointed at all foreign influences, from the most benign and well-meaning (un missions, charity workers, tourists, etc.) to the outright imperialistic (britain, usa, etc.)
and you wish to say what they do is simply fight imperialism. this is a tiny part of their motivation. their real motivation is simple xenophobia and intolerance: god gives you the right to kill anyone who is not a pious sunni. if imperialism never existed in the world, if the europeans, ottomans, americans, etc., never sent a single troop into the middle east, they would still be perfectly valid targets for murdering, since they aren't pious shiites. al qaeda is an offensive militant expansive organization. you look at imperialism and see a violent intrusive unjustifiable force into foreign cultures: that's exactly what al qaeda is!
"I was just trying to point out that in this situation, as in so many other things, there's no clearly defined good or evil."
there is no better definition on this planet than something like al qaeda. can you define evil in a better way than an organization which feels perfectly justified in killing thousands of innocents for religious reasons? don't take my word for it, take the word of any moderate muslim. the biggest victims of al qaeda are fellow muslims, because they are not pure enough
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
your question is nonsensical because it has nothing to with what you said before
iran supplies hamas
ok, fine
now, 20 years later, hamas bombs iran
according to your logic, iran is responsible for hamas bombing iran. why? because iran supplied hamas 20 years before
do you see the error in your thinking yet?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
As a European living in the US I have to say that most politicians in Europe are wet bags who can not agree among themselves on how to pursue a coherent set of policies and get the respect of the outside world. Essentially the US government is saying that it does not trust European anti-terrorism policies enough. They want to take a look themselves at bank transaction records, rather than leaving this work to the European governments. And the governments in Europe put up with this invasion of privacy of their own citizens, because those same governments see this as convenient for their own goals to control the citizens. Is it not nice to have the big US brother to blame for his intrusive nose and at the same time put up more security cameras at every corner, issue identity cards with ever more details about a person, get complete access to all financial records, and tax those citizens at every turn? Oh those European politicians, they feel so enlightened, but in reality they mix up enlightment with a lack of determination to defend their citizens' freedoms. Soon there will be few rights left to defend and the citizens will be as transparent as glass jars. We are on the downhill path towards a total surveillance state!
could you please substantiate your smear of me?
i am asking for logic and reason, that is all. love the usa, hate the usa, be my guest, its all good by me. why do you have to smear people without justification? what do you think you gain?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I live in Europe and I don't want the US to have ANY kind of access to bank transactions I am making INSIDE of Europe. It is none of their business! They have NO RIGHT to look at any of this data, member nations of Europe are supposed to be sovereign countries. They have police and intelligence that is perfectly capable of doing the job (probably much better than any US agency). Also people who's data has been accessed have to be informed. And then you wonder why many Europeans don't like the US? Why should Europeans trust US agencies? Would the US let Europeans look at all transactions INSIDE of the US?
When is an Institution "to big to fail"? When it has the capability of exposing every little dark secret it's adversaries hope to keep closeted.
I don't know if I"m stating the obvious, and I've commented on this subject elsewhere on numerous occasions, but it is a miss-conception to think of AIG/AIU as an insurance company as much as it is to believe Goldman Sachs is a bank.
AIU, and I would argue all mega-financial institutions, are primarily in the intelligence business.
Below are my slurped reference notes:
AIG founded by OSS operative Cornelius V. Starr, uncle of Kenneth Starr.
Maurice Greenberg, CEO dealt in chinese trade in the 80s, Henry Kissinger was his representative.
In 1993 AIG became co-owner of the "private spy agency" Kroll Associates, rescuing them from bankruptcy with a cash infusion.
Started in New York City in 1972, Kroll was employed for corporate espionage in takeover bids, as well as for destabilization of foreign nations.
Kroll was notorious during the 1980s as the "CIA of Wall Street" due to the prevalence of former CIA, FBI, Scotland Yard, British secret service and British Special Air Service. Kroll was also responsible for World Trade Center Security from 1993 to 2001 (what does that suggest?).
During 1996, Greenberg was deputy chairman of the CFR and chair of taskforce on intelligence,
In December 1997, Kroll merged with armored car manufacturer O'Gara-Hess & Eisenhardt to form The Kroll-O'Gara Company. www.krollworldwide.com O'Gara is/was responsible for the security of all US-Presidents since 1945.
in 1997 MG hires Frank Wisner, Jr. (a director of Enron) , as a boardmember of Kroll and Deputy Chairman for External Affairs.
FW's dad built the CIA. In Aug2001, Kroll Associates was renamed to Kroll Inc.
May 2004, Julius Kroll sold his business to Marsh & McLennan, the New York insurance broker which claims to be the world's largest, for $1.9 billion, Kroll CEO Michael Cherkasky became Marsh CEO replacing Jeffrey W. Greenberg.
Cherkasky had brought Eliot Spitzer into the NY City District Attorney's Office way back when, and was a contributor to Spitzer's campaign to become New York Governor.
In October 2004, Eliot Spitzer filed suit against Marsh & McLennan, accusing the company of having, for years, colluded with big insurance companies to "cheat customers in an elaborate charade of price fixing and bid rigging".
The three insurers he named were the giants AIG, Zurich America Insurance Company and Ace Ltd.
AIG under 79-year-old legend Maurice "Hank" Greenberg; son Jeffrey ran Marsh & McLennan, and son, Evan, was boss of Ace.
In January 2005, Cherkasky persuaded Spitzer to drop the civil charges against the company by pledging to pay $US850 million to clients around the world - including Australia - that Marsh & McLennan had defrauded. We know what happened to the
criminal charges, or the person who was going to file them.
There's plenty more evidence to suggest that AIG and it's ilk are neck-deep in corporate espionage; and also implicates
these institutions in manipulating, if not the markets, the people responsible for shaping them.
resist propaganda
i am not, nor have i ever said, anything anti Islamic
could you please stop smearing me with your retarded stereotypes?
the world is slightly more complicated than you think, and my viewpoint is slightly more complicated than your simplistic attitude
read what i actually say, and stop trying to pigeonhole me in the moronic categories you think people fit into
in other words, try THINKING for once, and stop smearing people and describing them in ways that have NOTHING to do with what they actually say
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Dude, wooosh yourself. Team America is pro-violence. And "we" doesn't exist.