Belgium probes US bank record searches (okay under Belgian law?)

[sabra]

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=businessNews&storyID=2006-06-26T111429Z_01_L26722895_RTRUKOC_0_US-SECURITY-SWIFT-BELGIUM.xml&archived=False

Belgium probes US bank record searches

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Belgium's government is investigating the legality of counter-terrorism searches by U.S. officials of thousands of private records held by Brussels-based international bank cooperative SWIFT, a spokeswoman said.

U.S. media last week reported that the U.S. Treasury Department had since September 11, 2001 been tapping into records of the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) for evidence of potential activity by terror groups.

Belgian Justice Minister Laurette Onkelinx learned of the searches from the media and asked Belgium's national security services and counter-fraud office to produce reports into the matter before the end of the week, a ministry spokeswoman said.

"She wants to know if these actions taken by the U.S. and SWIFT are okay under Belgian law," Annaik De Voghel told Reuters on Monday. Security officials will discuss the issue later this week, she added.

[Vidar]

1. Nice to see the Belgians go after the terrorist-in-chief.

[Kagemusha]

2. If this was to get US bank records, how is this legally kosher?

I don't get it. I know Rep. King said it was settled law since 1976. 1976? What happened in 1976 to make obtaining bank records in this fashion, as if from a hostile foreign nation with which the US is at war, legal? And who didn't tell all those Republican senators refusing to allow anti money laundering laws that such laws were not needed because the US could already snatch all it wanted?

[peacetalksforall]

3. I'm sure Sen. Roberts will explain it all to us in detail so that we can

see the wisdom and the proof of this honorable endeavor.

With all due sarcasm.

[peacetalksforall]

4. Bravo to Belgium for looking in to this. Does anyone know if they were

a coalition partner? If yes, that may not bode well. Being a partner, as we've learned, wasn't necessarily limited to sending soldiers or medics. Some, we're learning, participated passively by allowing fuel stops for rendition flights. Some allowed prisons.

I hope Belgium is clean. It will be interesting if the IMF under Wolfkiwitz who is based in Belgium and in the same city as SWIFT was instrumental in this set-up.

[izzie]

5. My thoughts are that it will be the Banks that do something.

Banks must know that all that information will be used for more than terrorist. A lot of the neo-con stuff was we must stay the power of the world and we are slowly getting replaced. That information has to be of interest to big business and who will control the worlds business. EU is getting to powerful. This was just a way to get into all that information. One has to recall that Iraq went to Euros just before Bush came into office. Does any one know just how much oil dealing in dollars means to us? Or that is how I look at it. Not terror but profits.

[Kagemusha]

6. What I wanna know is if the banks were informed.

We know the telcos were financially compensated. From what I'm hearing, Western Union and First Data weren't, but in the case of the latter, according to TPM, it volunteered your, mine, everyone's credit records that passed through its system to the feds, no questions asked. Question: Did they inform the banks of that? There's talk of customers suing but in this case, the real customers are the banks, not individuals who are customers of the banks themselves.

I really want to know if the banks themselves betrayed the public's trust or credit information companies stabbed them in the back without their knowledge.

[Judi Lynn]

7. Legality of US bank data searches probed in Belgium

Legality of US bank data searches probed in Belgium
By Emma Davis
18 minutes ago

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Belgium's government said on Monday it was investigating the legality of counter-terrorism searches by U.S. officials of thousands of private records held by Brussels-based international bank cooperative SWIFT.

U.S. media reported last week that the U.S. Treasury Department had been tapping into records of the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications since September 11, 2001 for evidence of potential activity by terrorist groups.
(snip)

"The monitoring of SWIFT's activities that do not affect financial stability is not a matter for the oversight group and therefore the U.S. Treasury subpoenas of SWIFT were outside the purview of central bank oversight," it said in a statement.

European Parliament lawmakers demanded more information and said the reports, in the wake of allegations of secret U.S. "renditions" of terrorism suspects in Europe, again suggested Washington was going too far in its security policies.
(snip/...)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060626/ts_nm/security_swift_belgium_dc

[gasperc]

8. Bush Inc is really having a fit over this

like the government HASN'T been monitoring bank transactions, the patriot act outlined the monitoring of transactions, so why is the administration becoming so strangely unglued???

probably a)want to use press as a punching bag to goose the GOP base

b) hiding yet another secret from the public

[madrchsod]

9. what information are they passing on

to us based corporations on other competing companies in europe or the east?

[Copperred]

10. This is the END OF SWIFT

SWIFT was, and it is now completely over, SWIFT was the most trusted name in the entire financial services world.

It is now OVER.... I can see why Bush is freaking.......

Something new will have to be built......banks around the world no longer trust Swift...and that is really fucked up.

RK

I was surprised they let Bush even do this...really bizzare...and they will now pay greatly for it.

[Fountain79]

11. From the NY Times editor...

It's not our job to pass judgment on whether this program is legal or effective, but the story cites strong arguments from proponents that this is the case. While some experts familiar with the program have doubts about its legality, which has never been tested in the courts, and while some bank officials worry that a temporary program has taken on an air of permanence, we cited considerable evidence that the program helps catch and prosecute financers of terror, and we have not identified any serious abuses of privacy so far.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/25/business/media/25keller-letter.html?_r=1&8dpc&oref=login

If this does turn out to be completely legal then wouldn't it have been a mistake of the NY Times to report it?

[Eugene]

12. Reuters: Belgium washes hands of bank trawling by US

Belgium washes hands of bank trawling by US

Jun 28, 2006 — BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Belgium appeared to wash its hands
on Wednesday of secret U.S. counter-terrorism searches through the records
of a Belgian-based organization that handles global financial transfers.

Confidential data supplied to U.S. authorities by the Society for Worldwide
Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) had been collected by the
firm's U.S. subsidiary, a government statement said.

The Belgian government had asked its intelligence coordination body to check
whether the country's laws had been respected and whether the interests
of Belgian citizens had been affected by the transfers.

However, the preliminary conclusion that only SWIFT's U.S. subsidiary was
involved suggested the Belgian government did not feel a need to get involved
in the affair, which has sparked left-wing criticism in Europe and the United
States.

<snip>

Full article: http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=2129012