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."

Workaround

[Anonymous Coward]

Sue in Belgium.

Re:Workaround

[arivanov]

Why just Belgium?

In order to be able to perform its function swift is registered in nearly all countries around the globe. Quite a few of them have considerably more strict privacy laws combined with considerably more strict banking regulations. In addition to that in some of them the possibility for political intervention in favour of the defendant will be very slim. Frankly, I am surprised it is not being sued in Switherland.

Re:

[billsf]

.....in den Haag if need be. This is clearly illegal and the US (the Federal Government) is very unpopular here. It would be nice if it were tried in the US, but this must be heard somewhere. US Feds have no place here (in Europe) -- Except as tourists.

So, uhhhh, when....

[Anonymous Coward]

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...

Re:So, uhhhh, when....

[NeverVotedBush]

Well, heck, ya'll gotta knowed that iff'n ya'll don't support our troops, ya'll is un-'Merican, raght?

I know it sounds like that's got nuthin' to do with the CIA combin' threw all them fi-nan-chial transactshuns but it does. I swears it does.

We gotta hunt them terr'ists everwhere they are fownd! I give up my freedumbs so's I can be safe from terra!

Re:So, uhhhh, when....

[arivanov]

He is definitely un-'Merican. Wee means small is Glaswegian and the last time I have heard Glasgow is still part of the UK though some fishy characters want it to secede.

Re:

[m.ducharme]

Last time I checked, "Texan" isn't a race, or even an ethnic group. The comment may have been in poor taste, and ad hominem at that, but it wasn't racist.

Re:

[null.account]

I was born in Texas.

I have lived in Texas all my life.

I have never in my life spoken any language with a Texas accent.

I've heard the Deep South drawl all my life, but never from someone who is thoughtful or considerate, let alone intelligent. It's a problem not because it implies poor diction or ignorance, but because it reliably represents a specific flavor of thoughtless, hostile, institutionalized idiocy. The stereotype didn't come from nothing.

And it is a fucking tragedy that the current U.S. pr

Re:Slashdot Racism Is Insightful??!!

[hamburger lady]

'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...

Re:Slashdot Racism Is Insightful??!!

[unlametheweak]

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.

Re:

[toddestan]

On the other hand, I haven't seen many politicans that I would call conservative. Seems like they love big government programs, spend like mad, wars of aggression, pork everywhere, dictating to their citizens what they can and cannot do, lots of new takes and fees, and stuff like that. They may lean to the right, but I wouldn't call the right conservative by any means.

Re:

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Both sides mock each other. If you surround yourself in lefties, you're bound to hear some mockery of the right (and vice-versa). Conservatives mock people too. They are, after all, human beings.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

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...

no not really, when you know that over 90% of music is controlled by the RIAA, that 95% of computers come with windows defective by design pre-installed, that there are still 25% of people in the US that think BUSH is a swell guy and that over 60% of the US still thinks humanity was magically created fro

Re:

[jamstar7]

No, it's dust. Humanity, and everything else in the solar system came from dust, lots of it.

Actually, that dust was born in the center of a star someplace that died to spread the elements it had created in its heart.

So, how's it feel to be nuclear waste?

Re:

[jc42]

So, uhhhh, when will Americans start to realize that there's just a wee bit of fascism taking hold of their nation?

Hey, lots of us realized this and understood back in the 1950s, when President Eisenhower warned us about the growing power of the "military-industrial complex". And we've been pointing it out publicly ever since then, whenever there's an opportunity.

Americans don't march in a lock-step formation, however. Like the people of so many other countries, it's not really accurate to judge us all by

Re:

[NeverVotedBush]

Others have faced the fact that we might as well stick around and try to fight it. If we lose, everyone in the world loses, since we now have "one remaining super-power" and there's no longer a safe haven anywhere. So our choice isn't really to find a better place. Our choice is to fight it where we can, or ignore it and hope it'll go away.

The USA is only a superpower in a very few remaining ways. We have a crapload of nuclear weapons and that's getting close to being about it. Oh yeah - we make the bes

Re:

[mattwarden]

Yeah, those US idiots can't do anything right. [swift.com]

Re:

[Agripa]

when will Americans start to realize that there's just a wee bit of fascism taking hold of their nation?

I demand that you retract your comment! We have BOTH bits of fascism taking hold.

Re:

[PPH]

In the words of Seargent Schultz, "I know nothing! Nothing!"

Since when...

[michaelmuffin]

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.

Re:Since when...

[VValdo]

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.

Since at least April 28, 2006 [com.com].

W

Re:

[SkunkPussy]

"out of personal hatred for President Bush."

you're rather naive, aren't you?

Re:

[NMerriam]

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.

Yes it is. Too bad you can't prove it's illegal or a conflict of interest because it's a state secret.

And if you think that's insane, it just proves that it's sane, and therefore has to stay until the war is over.

Re:

[unlametheweak]

Yes it is. Too bad you can't prove it's illegal or a conflict of interest because it's a state secret.

And if you think that's insane, it just proves that it's sane, and therefore has to stay until the war is over

Interesting piece of rhetoric, but the "proves that it's sane" needs a proof. It's a classic catch 22. The problem is defining what "war" you (or the government) means, and how does one decide if "the war" is over.

The War on Terrorism is even more nebulous than the War on Drugs, the War on Poverty,

Re:

[jc42]

The War on Terrorism is even more nebulous than the War on Drugs, the War on Poverty, or any of the other Wars the US is fighting.

The War on Poverty did end pretty quickly, when lots of America's poor started asking publicly where they should go to surrender.

Too bad we can't use this logic for the War on Terror.

What we need is a War on Bad Metaphors ...

Re:

[NMerriam]

Interesting piece of rhetoric, but the "proves that it's sane" needs a proof. It's a classic catch 22.

Indeed it is, and if you actually go read the book "Catch 22", I think you'll understand exactly what I was saying. It's a great book (one of the funniest pieces of literature of the 20th century, by far), you should read it!

Re:

[NMerriam]

Ah, well you may have forgotten -- the notion of insanity from war WAS "Catch 22". If you were crazy, you could get out of combat, but if you went to the doctor and told him you were crazy, then that self-awareness was proof that you were sane, so you had to stay and fight. Which I think adequately sums up our current War on Terror.

Re:

[jc42]

Since when can the State Secret privilege be used to keep secret a program that is probably illegal?

When was it ever used for anything else?

State secrets are always used to hide things from the state's own citizens. The pretense that secrets are things kept from other governments is just silly, because other governments are rarely a direct threat to any rulers (Saddam Hussein being one of the rare exceptions ;-). Threats to rulers mostly come from their own citizens, so that's who must be kept in the dark

Re:

[bhima]

Did you have a point?

You lost me at "Bu...Bu...But Clinton!"

I'm tired of hearing this lame ass excuse for every single immoral, unethical, and unconstitutional action of the Bush administration.

Past acts of different administrations have little to do with what goes on today.
Saying unethical behavior on the part of US administrations is status quo does not suddenly make these actions ethical and unworthy of discussion.

Now SWIFT is an interesting subject

[A beautiful mind]

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.

No way!

[michaelmuffin]

You mean to tell me that the rich are collaborating with the powerful? Well that's gotta be a first...

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Swift's location is not very secret. It's in Terhulpen, Belgium. Right near where IBM used to have an international education center.
Check it out on google maps.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=nl&geocode=&q=s wift+terhulpen+belgium&ie=UTF8&ll=50.735084,4.4831 3&spn=0.01081,0.031929&t=k&z=16&iwloc=A&om=1 [google.com]

swift offices:
http://www.swift.com/index.cfm?item_id=3209 [swift.com]

Now it may be that their data center locations are more hidden. But I am quite sure that those are not as se

Re:

[Valar]

Exactly. Some of the most secured communications links in the world use XOR with one time pads distributed by trusted courier. I've even heard speculation about one-time readable media being used.

To put it another way...

[PlayItBogart]

Hey, can I rummage through your girlfriend's panty drawer? She won't mind, right? I'm looking for weapons of mass destruction. Seriously.

Re:To put it another way...

[arivanov]

I'm looking for weapons of mass destruction

Surely, weapons of mass distraction, right?

Re:

[MrCopilot]

Hey, can I rummage through your girlfriend's panty drawer? She won't mind, right? I'm looking for weapons of mass destruction. Seriously.

Sure, but uh psst. She don't wear any. I don't think she has a pant drawer.

What gave the CIA the rights...

[bomanbot]

...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?

Re:

[michaelmuffin]

So called National Security Interests, that's what. If National Security Interests take precedence over the Geneva Conventions and Habeas Corpus, you can't really expect the US government to respect international banking and privacy laws either.

Re:

[vidarh]

Nothing gives them the right of doing it without permission. Part of the problem is that SWIFT willingly hands over the data.

Wait, then investigate after the next election..

[willy_me]

because lets face it, there is a good chance the Republicans will not be in power..

Willy

Re:Wait, then investigate after the next election.

[paranoic]

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.

Re:

[the eric conspiracy]

It is rather surprising, but life terms for judges actually works much like the founders intended. Once these guys are appointed they are not beholden to their appointers and often start thinking outside the box. Someone who has been on the Supreme Court for 10-20 years may have rather different opinions than when he was first selected, and of course legislative oversight works to keep the most dogmatic and radical judges out of these positions.

Re:Wait, then investigate after the next election.

[PinkyGigglebrain]

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 [cnn.com] and has since set itself up with some scary martial law powers [prisonplanet.com].

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.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Wait, then investigate after the next election.

[Animats]

there is a good chance the Republicans will not be in power..

That may happen sooner rather than later.

• Rumsfeld - resigned
• Tenet - resigned
• Powell - resigned
• McNulty - resigned
• Card - resigned
• Libby - convicted
• Rove - resigned
• Gonzales - resigned
• Cheney
• Bush

Bush's old Texas crowd is almost gone.

God bless

[Anonymous Coward]

God Bless America, land of the free. ... If you're a politician, you're free to do whatever the hell you want.

Don't worry!

[Sj0]

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.

Funny.

[TheLink]

They do all that monitoring and they let the robber wire money to his bank account FIFTEEN times? Not possible to catch him? Yeah right.

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/30/032123 2 [slashdot.org]

Call me real cynical but the reason why a lot of the stuff is secret is because the rich and powerful don't want "the wrong people" to know how much money they are moving about and where. Same reason why these "holes" are there in the first place.

They don't want to "accidentally" catch the big fish while catching the small fry ;).

Re:this all sounds so shady

[tibike77]

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.

Why should we?

[The Master Control P]

If you can't keep your ADD in check long enough to read a one-page article, it's not like you'll provide any useful feedback or do anything about it anyway. If you want to know what it says, take some goddamn ritalin.

Editing!

[an.echte.trilingue]

Belgium is the country (a noun), Belgian is the adjective. Being that I live in the country, this is a bit of a pet peeve of mine.

You may now mod me offtopic, and rightly so.

Re:this all sounds so shady

[Anonymous Coward]

"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.

a $(MYCOUNTRY) child is worth more

[r00t]

To a normal American, of course an American child is worth more than a child from some other country. This is not wrong and should not be surprising.

What country doesn't value it's own children most? Such a country, if it existed, would be failing the "survival of the fittest" test.

Re:

[Torvaun]

What country doesn't value it's own children most?

China?

Re:

[Original Replica]

You only have the rights the biggest dog in the yard allows you to have, and the US is the biggest dog in the yard. I don't know why people like you hate that so much.

Perhaps we hate it because we know the meaning of "Inalienable Rights".http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inalienable_r ights [wikipedia.org] But don't left those silly Founding Fathers get in the way of your jingoism.

Re:this all sounds so shady

[Original Replica]

As someone who was a quarter mile away from Ground Zero the one day Islamofacists did blow something up you might say I have some perspective on the matter. I had plenty of time to think about these things the night I spent shoveling mud made of both human and building ash so the iron workers could begin sorting the wreckage. You don't need to remind me of the dangers involved thank you.

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 [wikipedia.org] Here's a different bombing not in NYC from 1927http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_School_disas ter [wikipedia.org]. I believe Guy Fawkes tried to blow up Parliament in 1606. Machiavelli enumerates all sorts of underhanded ways that people try to seize power in "The Prince". I'm fairly certain that many of the Founding Fathers had read "The Prince". They knew about Guy Fawkes. They knew about the tactics of the Caribbean pirates, like when Henry Morgan burned Panama City to the ground in 1670. So no, the world is not so different today. The Founding Fathers were quite aware that there are wackos who will do horrible things to advance their cause.

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.

the three performed similar experiments to illustrate how awareness of death could provoke worldview defense. They showed that what they now called "mortality salience" affected people's view of other races, religions, and nations. When they had students at a Christian college evaluate essays by what they were told were a Christian and a Jewish author, the group that did the mortality exercises expressed a far more negative view of the essay by the Jew- ish author than the control group did. (German psychologists would find a similar reaction among German subjects toward Turks.) They also conducted numerous experiments to show that mortality exercises evoked patriotic responses. The subjects who did the exercises took a far more negative view of an essay critical of the United States than the control group did and also expressed greater veneration for cultural icons like the flag. The three even devised an experiment to show that, after doing the mortality exercises, conser- vatives took a much harsher view of liberals, and vice versa. http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20070827&s=judis082 707 [tnr.com]

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.

Re:

[jamstar7]

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 [wikipedia.org] Here's a different bombing not in NYC from 1927http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_School_disas ter. I believe Guy Fawkes tried to blow up Parliament in 1606. Machiavelli enumerates all sorts of underhanded ways that

Re:

[Foobar of Borg]

I don't know why people like you hate that so much.

Perhaps because we would prefer to live in a civilized country.

As long as we keep having to bail them out every time some fascist dictator with a funny mustache decides he wants to torture a few minorities

Apart from the mustache, you've described Bush and Cheney quite well.

clinton wasn't so different either

[nido]

All the administrations have been lockstep since Reagan fell to Tecumseh's Curse [geocities.com] in 1981 (while he didn't die like all the other presidents elected at the decade mark, the rogue elements of his administration [led by V.P. George H.W. Bush] took over while he was recovering from the coup attempt).

George H.W. Bush had his speech about the New World Order [youtube.com] and negotiated NAFTA. Clinton pushed NAFTA implementation through the congress.

I never really learned to read at teh government schools, and do much better

It's relative.

[Kadin2048]

Bush touts the media as having a liberal bias. In reality the media is strongly conservative, Fox news, rather than being the conservative voice, is just outright fascist, and most people still believe everything they hear on their particular brand of news. Expect very little protest as this most recent step in the massive defecation on our rights probably won't make a sub note in the evening news.

The fact that Fox News is so popular is indicative that the mainstream (non-Fox) media is, in fact, not as conservative as the majority of viewers want(ed) it to be. Since I think it's a fair assumption that most viewers want media that shares their own biases, we can say then, that the non-Fox MSM is more liberal than most viewers.

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

Re:It's relative.

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

The only borderline-objective source for normalcy seems, to me, to be what the market actually produces in response to consumer desires.

Nice theory, too bad it depends on a free market. When the whitehouse can dole out interviews and 'leaks' to favored networks and many news agencies are themselves just subsidiaries of larger companies with larger agendas that can easily conflict with the simple goal of unbiased reporting, then simple market-based theories aren't very meaningful.

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.

That's certainly one interpretation. But not the only one. There are more dimensions to news reporting than just "left and right." A few years ago, I saw an interview with one of the original program directors for Fox News. He attributed much of their success over CNN to their style of reporting -- not their content. Fox made a deliberate presentation decision to be more "folksy," to have their anchors and reporters speak more in the fashion of one neighbor talking to another than a reporter "handing down the truth" like God to Moses.

Would this be a bit like

[Aexia]

how prior to the 2006 elections, the networks justified the tremendous slant of the guests [mediamatters.org] 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 [mediamatters.org] and overwhelmingly white males [mediamatters.org].

The public has elected a Democratic House and Senate but you wouldn't realize it from the media...

Re:

[Guppy06]

"The public has elected a Democratic House and Senate but you wouldn't realize it from the media..."

Ah, yes! The people have overwhelmingly chosen to oust the party of old, white men and replaced them with fresh faces from a party full of old, white men! How dare MSM doesn't change its presentation to account for this earth-shattering shift of 8% of the seats of the House!?

Re:

[_Sprocket_]

The fact that Fox News is so popular is indicative that the mainstream (non-Fox) media is, in fact, not as conservative as the majority of viewers want(ed) it to be. Since I think it's a fair assumption that most viewers want media that shares their own biases, we can say then, that the non-Fox MSM is more liberal than most viewers.

I would imagine the overall network bias would be a selling point. But I'm also starting to think maybe its more about presentation. Flash. As FOX has been eating CNN's lunch, I've noticed CNN taking notes. CNN is trying on FOX's style. Flashy graphics. "Controversial" non-issues. Loud-mouthed talking heads. "Debates" where CNN's handler frames the issue and then starts to talk over guests if the guests actually make good points that shoot down the premise. Loud, brash flash. Is that the real sec

Mode parent up

[mrraven]

It has nothing to do with people desiring more conservative media as the grandparent states and everything to do with people exhausted by 9+ hour work days, then dealing with household chores, being quite literally hypnotized by flashing graphics and loud insistent voices. It worked for Hitler and unfortunately it seems to work for our new right wing authoritarians bent on taking over the world as well.

Re:

[mrraven]

It's not "flamebait" but a sincere opinion in response to the grandparent, sorry it gores your OX, sometimes sincere opinions do that, shrug.

Re:

[Torvaun]

To be fair, you can't expect the mods to know anything about Godwin's Law other than that Hitler==Flamebait. You really should have seen it coming though, given that your entire post was about lazy thinking.

Re:

[Courageous]

On his own scale, he's the zero point, and CNN is right of him, ...

You'd have to be Marx to be "left" of Chomsky.

C//

Re:

[Chemicalscum]

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.

Noam Chomsky is to the right of me and most people I respect. I guess you must be to the right of Attila the Hen.

Re:

[TeXMaster]

More simply put, people watch Fox because it gives them what they want to hear.

Re:

[colinrichardday]

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.

How about the facts, rather than our beliefs about them?

The only borderline-objective source for normalcy seems, to me, to be what the market actually produces in response to consumer desires. It's e

Re:

[jamstar7]

Historically, you could point towards someone like Joseph de Maistre as an 'intellectual authoritarian conservative,' but it's a pretty sparse field these days... the "godfather" of modern neoconservativism is usually said to be Irving Kristol, who is well-spoken and reasonably well-known (although not like Chomsky), but I don't think that Fox's brand of conservative ideology and Kristol's neoconservativism are exactly the same thing. But I guess he probably would have been a better choice to name-check tha

Re:

[marcello_dl]

> Bush touts the media as having a liberal bias. In reality the media is strongly conservative.

Well if a system manages to divide itself in two or more factions opposing each other, whatever faction you choose the system can't lose. I guess there is powerful and intelligent enough people to have thought up this one long ago.

Re:

[Original Replica]

It's surprising how similar this administration is to Reagan's.

I don't find it surprising at all, Dubya is a direct legacy of Reagan administration. I think this sort of ever growing control and privilege is a product of having a legacy. Why would we expect Dubya to have respect for the Constitution or rights of the common man, when he has been surrounded by power and privilege all of his life? He and Jeb were practically bred for the purpose of expanding power and control. All of the big decisions in h

Re:

[jamstar7]

It's surprising how similar this administration is to Reagan's.

I don't find it surprising at all, Dubya is a direct legacy of Reagan administration. I think this sort of ever growing control and privilege is a product of having a legacy. Why would we expect Dubya to have respect for the Constitution or rights of the common man, when he has been surrounded by power and privilege all of his life? He and Jeb were practically bred for the purpose of expanding power and control. All of the big decisions in his

Re:What's the matter?

[Sectrish]

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.

Re:

[perlchild]

More likely that the CIA cannot do that on american citizens iself(but an intermediary could probably be found.

Re:What's the matter?

[malkavian]

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.

Re:

[Kjella]

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.

This was recently up in Norwegian media too. I wasn't (couldn't? be) stopped, but our banks have to inform all their customers the US is snooping in all international transactions. Personally I find it rather astounding that other governments accept that a third party nation can look at all the financial transactions

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

As a result of this scandal, SWIFT plans to re-engineer their network to keep intra-European traffic within Europe. (Source: http://www.swift.com/index.cfm?item_id=62260 [swift.com])

Re:

[oliderid]

And to make it more complex: The central bank of Belgium has been warned by SWIFT before sending data to the CIA. They gave their approval.

Legal stuffs wasn't at the top of everyone priority in september 2001. All you wanted to do (private companies included) is to help tracking down these bastards.

Re:

[Slashamatic]

Under FATF (Financial Action Task Force), all countries are supposed to cooperate with anti-money-laundering inquiries from other FATF countries. This means even banking secrecy locations such as Switzerland will cooperate under pain of being designated a pariah in the banking system. However, the requesting nation may be required to submit evidence before the data is opened. FATF does not permit fishing expeditions. The issue with SWIFT is that many people felt that they gave in to easily (the US was threa

Re:

[teutonic_leech]

Maaaan - where are those moderator points when you need them...

Re:

[Soporific]

I don't know. When are you going to invade and send some liberty our way?

~S

Re:

[m.ducharme]

Your government is showing us a perfect example right now of why invading a country whose people don't want to be free never works.

Re:

[Weedlekin]

"Your government is showing us a perfect example right now of why invading a country whose people don't want to be free never works."

I fail to see how not being thrilled about swapping a military dictator for a system where one gets to vote for anyone the US approves of whose future is decided by the US using criteria that the the US has unilaterally imposed can be described as not wanting freedom. When the Soviets did this sort of thing to other countries, the West described it as "oppression", and those w

Re:Revolt!

[GISGEOLOGYGEEK]

Look at everything their government has done to them while they've just sat their waving their flag.

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 ... 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 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.

Re:Revolt!

[Anonymous Coward]

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 [strike911.org]. The way things are, it takes some serious balls...

Re:

[DigitAl56K]

Call me paranoid, but I think that if there was a chance that this protest would be in any way effective the Bush administration would simply announce it as a public holiday in advance to mask it.

Re:

[clickety6]

The american people couldn't revolt their way out of a paper bag.

Perhaps they are waiting for the French to come and help them again ;-)

Re:

[slughead]

The american people couldn't revolt their way out of a paper bag.

You know, there's something called the Smith Act [wikipedia.org] which makes it illegal to knowingly or willfully advocate, abet, advise or teach the duty, necessity, desirability or propriety of overthrowing the Government of the United States or of any State by force or violence, or for anyone to organize any association which teaches, advises or encourages such an overthrow, or for anyone to become a member of or to affiliate with any such association..

Thi

Re:

[GISGEOLOGYGEEK]

HAHAHAHHAHAHA

WOW!

Now if that isn't a disenfranchised american, I don't know what is!

I'm on his side, and he's pissed at me for not complaining more loudly!

By the way, here in Canada our judges not only shoot down unconstitutional laws as they should, they actually identify ways in which the government needs to adapt to protect the constitution ... for example, the same-sex marriage laws.

Here in Canada, we could see the blatant lies of George Bush ... and stayed out of Iraq ... and instead contribute to the

Re:

[evil_arrival_of_good]

I agree with WheelDweller. I totally *want* data mining so that Islamic terrorists are caught.

Don't put me in the LovesGWBush camp, I don't watch Fox News - live in a urban liberal haven and walk to work. I've read Chomsky for years. BUT I'm finding it hard to respect my fellow liberals on this war with terrorism thing. Its freaking serious and real, and it means data mining, inspecting suspicious behavior, arresting people, and dropping bombs in areas of the world.

Liberals should be ok with all of t

Re:

[PPH]

Swift has helped us root out terrorists for many years now.

I doubt that. The 9/11 attacks, the bombings in Spain and London and the (very few) plots that have been broken up share a couple of interesting characteristics. They are very low budget operations. They involve people not previously under suspicion for prior terrorist activity. Both of these make it highly unlikely that surveillance of financial transactions will expose terrorist operations in the planning stages.

Odds are that the Bush administ

Re:

[Fulcrum of Evil]

What the hell do terrorists have to do with the Iraq war? Saddam had nothing to do with the crowd we're fighting. And if you're going to harp in 3000 dead US soldiers, don't forget the 100k dead Iraqi civilians - they had no dog in this fight.

Re:

[tygt]

Terrorists had nothing to do with the Iraq war.

That was then, this is now - I suspect that we'll have plenty of terrorists who (a) got pissed off at the U.S.A. because of how this war has been fought (note - I believe that the outcome could've been considerably different had more than 5 minutes of "the people will love us for liberating them" thought been put into reconstruction - maybe consider fixing what you bombed, right away, while the country was in shock at the massive defeat and change?), and (b

Re:

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Oh, okay, looks like you're not one of the Saddam/AlQueda crowd. The guys in Iraq now aren't all terrorists. Some are, sure, but yeah, a lot of the people in there now are resistance fighters.

Re:

[dbIII]

there's been 20-30 in the last two years.

Sometimes the same ones get announced twice. Then there's the petty crims in the wrong place that get hailed as terrorists so we can have another show trial. Then there's things like the liquid explosives hoax that still makes it a pain to go through airports. Becuase due process is not being followed we have a lot of ghouls using the deaths of a lot of people in New York as the excuse for pushing their own petty agendas. Fighting terrorism becomes picking on sc

Re:

[vidarh]

It's enough to look at relatively recent US history to see that the US government is perfectly happy to make life miserable for people who have not done anything illegal. Or have you forgotten for example about McCarthy, and about the widespread blacklisting over political views that used to go on?

The innocent DO have something to fear: That at some point whichever administration gets into power will have different ideas about whether they are innocent or not.

Re:

[bhima]

"The innocent have nothing to fear" Only an Authoritarian would say this. Privacy is human right and it doesn't matter what I am doing, I deserve privacy. I could be having sex with girlfriend, I could be teaching my daughter to sail, or I could be searching for 'lolpigs' on the internet. Doesn't matter. In any civilized society judicial oversight would be protecting those rights.