The US will keep their fingers from my bank data

[germanguy]

The European Parliament has refused acceptance of the SWIFT Agreement.

American Intelligence Agencies will have no access to the so-called SWIFT-Data, the banking details of money transfers made by Europeans internationally.

They still can ask according to existing agreements, if they have fact-based requests.

So, what does this all mean ?

1. The EP used it´s enlarged power given by the Lisboa Treaty
2. The Europeans showed the US that they do not rubberstamp everything the US claim to be necessary in the so called War against Terror.
3. The US used harsh pressure, incl. personal visits of envoys to EMPs and other methods of rather "impolite" pressure, which obviously was the wrong way.

Think it vice versa:

Would a US citizen be happy, if a copy of every written cheque, every credit card transaction and every bank detail (name, occupation, financial status) is automatically transferred to the German BKA, the British Secret Service, the French Secret Service etc. ?
Certainly only for good and noble reasons and never to make any kind of economic espionage...

So. if you want something, club the guy and take it or ask in a polite way. And think about it which way will get you better cooperation in the future.

regards
ze germanguy

 

[editec]

No better way to take on organized crime than by going after their bankers.

Of course this is also an enormous invasion of everybody else's privacy, too.