Private Banking Files Are Private, Unless Bush Says Otherwise

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European banks have been bastions of privacy for quite some time. Swiss banks are of course the most famous, but banking privacy laws are pretty strict throughout western Europe (unlike in America, where Equifax knows more about your checkbook than you do). In possible violation of those laws, however, a Belgian banking consortium opened up their files to the CIA, and it may cost them--but not if the President has anything to say about it.

Swift, the banking consortium, responded readily to unusually broad subpoenas for information from the Treasury Department starting months after 9/11. Swift's relationship with the government was revealed by the media last summer, and two U.S. banking customers are suing Swift on invasion-of-privacy grounds. The suit was expected to be thrown out due to America's lax privacy laws, but a judge refused to drop them.

Enter the ultimate protector of citizen's rights--the Bush Administration.

Invoking the "state secrets" privilege (a tool rarely used by other administrations but becoming the go-to argument for Bush, who has used it dozens of times), the administration claims that the lawsuit will disrupt a vital national security program and will reveal "highly classified information." Bush says it's a vital national security tool (other vital national security tools: repressing whistleblowers, not reading the news, firing independent prosecutors, and making rosy predictions about the future of a country you can't visit without a flak jacket), and the Justice Department is taking an active interest in shutting down the lawsuit.



 

 

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