THE MARKUP
Belgium Launches Investigation of SWIFT [Stephen Spruiell]
We're starting to see the consequences of Keller's bad call:
Last month the New York Times broke the story that CIA agents and US treasury officials have been secretly monitoring financial transactions routed through Swift, an acronym for the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication. [...]
The European Commission has already said that EU law does not cover the handing over of financial data by Swift. The European Parliament will debate the US action on Monday.
Belgium Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt has ordered an investigation into the activities of Swift, which is regulated by the Belgian central bank and is subject to Belgian law.
There you have it: a public debate about the program in the European Parliament — during which sensitive details about the program are sure to be repeated over and over in several languages — and an investigation launched by the Belgian prime minister. Why should any company in any country cooperate with the United States? Its assistance will almost certainly become a major liability once the
New York Times splashes the details all over its front page.
ALSO: For further reading on the consequences SWIFT might face for helping the U.S. gather intelligence on terrorists, read
this.
07/02 01:12 PM
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