Report: Mining of bank data broke European law: "The United States' access to data on international bank transfers, granted by the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT), violated the privacy laws of the European Union, stated the initial opinion of the Article 29 Working Party, a government advisory group created to study privacy issues."
Monday, November 27, 2006
Report: Mining of bank data broke European law
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4 comments:
Um, David, how do you propose to get them to co-operate on SWIFT transactions after we tell them to go to hell? They were happy to play along as long as it was a secret.
personally, I'd say this is the New York Times' fault front to back.
Eurpoe has this strange notion that governments can be entrusted with private data but not corporations--quite the opposite of the American view. Though the left constantly rails against the corporate world, we all willingly give that world our private data but refuse to hand it over to the government.
The SWIFT program uses personal data from banks, for pete's sake, not the EU, thus it is considered horrible. The only truly European solution to this problem is for the EU to take over the former duties of SWIFT. The opposite of privatization.
Sigh.
David, an option that doesn't actually produce useful results doesn't seem like an option at all. Aqs far as wimping out goes, there are all sorts of things that happen in intelligence that are strictly not very legal --- like listening to international phone lines from submarines, something that served us welll until it was blown. Or intercepting satphones from SIGINT satellites.
It's a whole hell of a lot harder to do these illegal things when your political opponents know about them.
"... the very purpose of a secret intelligence service is to carry out illegal actions with the unacknowledged blessing of its government." -- Second Sight, Charles McCarry
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