Slashdot Mirror
EU Overturns Agreement With US On Banking Data
Following the lead of the civil liberties committee which last week recommended dropping it (against the wishes of the US), qmaqdk writes "The EU parliament overturned the previous agreement with the US which allowed US intelligence agencies to access EU banking data."
Good for them, way to grow a spine, Europe! Now if only American banks had the same motivation to protect its customers data from the very same agencies.
Now they'll just have to go back to the old fashioned way.
In case of emergency, break law
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
I'll show you mine if you show me yours.
sigs... don't talk to me about sigs....
Americans that want to avoid taxes, can now bank in Europe again. Soon the USA will follow suit and allow Europeans who do not wish to pay taxes to be shielded from Europe.
This is my sig.
It's a shame that similar action won't be forthcoming when it comes to the lopsided extradition treaties though.
N.B. These don't apply to all EU member states but are particularly bad with our spineless foreign office.
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
How's Obama any different than Bush?
The US is still oppressing their rules and wishes onto the rest of the world.
Nothing has changed.
About time the EU showed some backbone and told the US where to stick it. The US has bent everyone else over and had their way far too long. Now that the US's economy is a mess, the dollar is weak and getting weaker and the Euro is fast taking the place the Dollar once had, the US needs to be sent a strong, loud and clear message that it's hay day is over and it's going to have to rely upon diplomacy, cooperation and fair play instead of idle threats and ham-fisted foreign policy towards it's allies.
In case of ambivalence, create emergency
"The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool" - Jane Wagner -
The same thing will come back again and again under a different name each time. And besides there are other ways. Somebody "accidentally" leaves a suitcase full of backup tapes of customer info in a taxi... No problem
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Of course the EU has no interest in the US gaining access to EU banking data. There is no way in Hell they would willingly give up this info. The US intelligence community probably is saying they are only looking for information for anti-terrorist data. The EU isn't refusing the providing individual pieces on information. They just don't want to submit to US supremacy. They don't even need to. However, information leads to power. Power leads to control. The EU is not looking to give the US that kind of control. In the "conspiracy theory" direction, the EU has several "families" that are collectively owed trillions in debt, owed by the people, collectively, of the US. Also, these families do not want any information (money trails), leading back to them, in any regards to their use of power and control in their day to day (behind the scenes) puppet mastering.
This is good, why should some foreign power be able to see my banking records?
Actually, as I understand it, this one was more a case of I'll show you yours if you'll show me mine.
The intelligence "sharing" is done precisely because each side could get in legal and/or political trouble for spying on its own citizens without good cause. On the other hand, if it's just foreign intelligence provided by a friendly state, well, that's OK, then. This is as much one in the eye for certain EU governments (whose appointed representatives previously forced this measure through at European level mere hours before the Lisbon Treaty kicked in and meant the elected MEPs would get a say, remember) as it is for the US.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Wait a minute, you actually think Al-Qaeda is a country?
Other than that you are right that there are still plenty of countries without these agreements, hence my previous post.
Putting their own petty concerns over the safety and security of American citizens.
It will soon be illegal for an American or any entity operating in the United States to use the SWIFT money transfer service.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
It seems to me the US is quick to access other countries' data, but it far less willing to provide equal access to internal data as well.
Hence this would either level the playing ground or put a stop to US demands.
Wait a minute, you actually think Al-Qaeda is a country?
They must be. We are at war with them.
Drugs and teenage sex are countries too, I suppose.
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
Huh? This bank service had servers in the USA, and then, after 911 the transactions were under a secret investigation, and then, the bank service moved their servers to Belgium, and then, the USA obtained a secret agreement at the EU to continue tracking transactions, and then, got found out, and then, EU officials say, no. This is supposed to be a big "win" for democracy? Was this bank service, like, handling the transactions that finance world terror groups and insuring their privacy?
Al-Qaeda, Iran, North Korea...
EU members have their own intelligence agencies (presumably with reasonable access - subject to privacy laws and various checks - to all that banking data) that deal with al-Qaeda, Iranian and North Korean operatives should they operate in or through EU.
The european government consists of two elements - the commission and the parliament.
What you need to know in short:
The commission is appointed, completely undemocratic, and holds most of the power and does most of the actual activity. It also bends over backwards whenever the US wants something. It was the commission who gave away our flight data, our personal data, our Internet data and now our banking data.
The parliament is elected, is the democratic body, and has very limited powers (though they have shifted around a bit with the last reform). It isn't exactly a mecca of reason, but it more often than not stops the worst excesses of the commission.
So once again, I applaud the parliament. They're fighting uphill battles against the commission all the time.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
There is no valid reason for anyone to be able to have private bank data. Encouraging lies, cheating and tax fraud are not what nations should be about.
Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain are the worst but not the least. Most of the countries in Europe have spending and Debt levels that (as a percentage of GDP) are double the US level everyone is worried about. What the PIGS are is a test, because if the PIGS collapse the entire Eurozone is going to go down. Greece is the first action and how the EU reacts will dictate how the financial community values things going forward. If Greece isn't fixed your probably going to see a BIG drop in the Euro as everyone runs away in fear of a Eurozone collapse. In fact that fear may cause the collapse as a self fulling myth as the currency devalues. Things are stable right now, but if the public backlash in Greece against the public spending cuts that are being implemented goes badly you better move all your money out of Euro's.
If you don't think this is a big deal you are foolish (not responding to the OP, clarifying what you said). The account deficits and debt levels in the EU make the US look like we are fiscally frugal. All that spending is going to catch up some day, and the scary thing is the budgets in the EU don't have flexibility. 90% of EU spending is entitlements. Those are brutally hard to cut with massive public protests but at some point the rest of the world is going to stop loaning money for this spending and if it happens abruptly it could cause an economic collapse and run on the banks. The Euro is a fiat currency like the rest in the world, that basis of it's existence is trust that it's worth something. Economic collapse in the PIGS could trigger a massive run of devaluation on the Euro which would wipe out trillions in value overnight and destroy the economies of many of the EU nations. Ironically if such a collapse happens Germany and England are likely the only ones to survive it.
ha!
"The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool" - Jane Wagner -
Drugs and teenage sex are countries too, I suppose.
So where would one apply for a visa to these countries? I can think of a few teenagers who'd love to go, and get off my lawn in the process. Win-win!
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
...in case you think I'm a troll - this is official!
No wonder they come up with ideas like "let's make everyone give their banking data to US!"
http://www.justice.gov/oarm/jobs/attorneyvotingoarm2010.htm
The U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division is seeking up
to 10 experienced attorneys for the position of Trial Attorney in the
Voting Section in Washington, D.C.
[...]
The Civil Rights Division encourages qualified applicants with
targeted disabilities to apply. Targeted disabilities are
[...]
mental retardation, mental illness
[...]
The leader of the Socialist group, Martin Schulz MEP, said: "We want a new and better deal with proper safeguards for people's privacy."
So there will be a new deal. It will just be less crappy than the old one. (How much less, that we will see.)
Victory is ours!
That's a subtle hint to Mod Parent Up!
Or don't. Whatever. Still funny.
Your brain is not a computer.
Why just teenagers? >:-)
One of the possibilaties is that SWIFT moves to Switserland where the EU has nothing to say. The banks do not really care, so it would be an easy solution for them. That would mean that new laws would be made (perhaps in each country individually) to avaoid the transfer of the information to Switserland (and then to the US).
This will be a lot harder to avoid and could take several years if it would happen at all.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Drugs and teenage sex are countries too, I suppose.
Where can I apply for a tourist visa?
Drugs and teenage sex are countries too, I suppose.
I remember when they were the same country.
And a wonderful place it was, too!
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Having spent a few years as a lobbyist in the European Parliament during the EU software patents directive, I can tell you that it's very easy to affect the MEPs.
I learned that they're mostly lost, and the centre-left guy will vote your way just as quickly as the centre-right guy will, so which one you voted for doesn't make a huge difference, but talking to them does. (FWIW, the best party in there is clearly the Greens.) Tell them your concerns and show them your evidence. Showing evidence is essential so they can justify their vote.
Please help publicise swpat.org - the software patents wiki
I had a business trip to US last year. At the customs i gave the security guy my passport. He was checking it for 10 secs, then he asked me "So you're working for a Swiss company?".
I was stunned. I am actually working for a company in Italy and using a Swiss company as payroll company. Almost no one knows this. In all forms, I fill in my Italian company. I guess they tracked my swift transactions from my payroll company...
Anyway, why isn't Europe allowed to track all American financial transactions?
I'm moving to teenage sex NOW!
Assume any given case ambivalent?
Absence of proof != proof of absence.
Now the remaining question is: how do we make sure that EU banking data is adequately mined for leads and clues and that the US is warned the instant something is detected? Because it just so happens that the US is the party that's most at risk, and the EU is the party with porous borders to Islamic nations around the Mediterranean, and an indigenous Muslim population numbering several million which demonstrably contains radical elements. So it's fine if the EU wants to do the data-mining for itself, but it has to be done.
The EU will now probably find that it needs a "federal" investigation agency because letting 23-odd governments in on what queries are run is a recipe for leakage. So it needs to be one agency that's capable of keeping a secret. In case they already had one, now is the time to give it some manpower and computers and let it cooperate with whoever is doing the profiling in the US, because sharing data on *suspect* individuals and *suspect* transactions is well within the scope of conventional police cooperation.
As an interim measure we can probably agree on a few queries with at least one "bogus" query which, if leaked, will cause visible changes in shady people's banking. If the new hopefully-soon-to-be-operational "EU FBI" passes that test they may actually be a help.
This deal was only about the US government being allowed to monitor all money transfers made by SWIFT and had noting to do with any European organisation being allowed to see money transfers inside the US. Please note that the US government was already monitorying all money transfers made by SWIFT secretly before the previous agreement (or the one before that). But as I understood it, there was some (gentlemen's) agreement that the US government would share their finding of terrorist activities after having analyzed the data.
The German Chancellor has said that it's OK for her tax-collectors to buy & use bank data that was stolen...
http://newsfeedresearcher.com/data/articles_w6/data-german-laws.html
Since most Western Govs are broke, they're going after any cash they can, whatever it takes.
So don't worry about the intelligence guys being deprived; they'll just call their buddies in IRS, (who still have access to US accounts in the EU, I believe). Chinese walls, I hear you say? Know how to recognise one? It's got a grapevine growing over the top...
Failing that, they'll steal the info, (directly or indirectly).
The comission's problem were the heads of it. It's shared out on terms but that means that when Tony Blair was in, he pushed the HRA he wanted the UK to have through as an EU directive. Therefore if it works lovely, he reaps credit. If, as was the case, it is hated, it's "those damn Eurocrats". win-win.
When Ireland had the seat there was a massive push for software patents in the EU because Ireland don't tax patent revenue and so most EU companies of large size incorporate there and siphon off the license reveneues there to avoid taxes. This means they spend money influencing the politicians in Ireland. this means that politicians in Ireland want what those who they see want.
EU software patents.
Spain? IP rights for musicians. Guess why (or is Berliscone Italian?).
The parliament has done wonders to remove some of the dumbest self-interested heads of the comission. But the attempt to pass the treaty to give power to the parliament before the Lisbon treaty included more power and independence to the commission too. That was a poison pill. And it worked.
The big joke here is that we Americans actually had the double think of publicly asking for permission to spy on everyone. Europeans, on the other hand, have known for centuries that spying is something that you do in secret and don't ask. Thus, while we Americans are like, "uh, we can't spy on Europeans because we are not allowed", the reality is, the British, French and Swiss intelligence services probably know from data mining what I'm going to eat for lunch before I will.
This is my sig.
My first reaction when I read this was: Yes! Finally!. And sure, it is a good move from EU MPs, but I dont think this will halt US agencies from getting their info as they want.
They'll just break the law, and why wouldn't they? EU certainly isn't going to "punish" the US for breaking that law. EU, sadly, won't dare to do that. Besides, privacy in the EU itself is a bit shameful; all my phonecalls are stored into some EU data storage center, for what reason again????
Up yours CIA/NSA/FBI!!! Some people in this world understand what FREEDOM means!!!
I piss off bigots.
1st, it's 1e5 Euro, not $
2nd, there's a profits tax at a rate rate of 33.33% (I have no idea how it is applied to individuals)