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Euro MPs block bank data deal with US

news.bbc.co.uk

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Re: Euro MPs block bank data deal with US

#21

Post by jrockway »

iujhygfbh wrote: post #18
bensummers wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[citation needed] If this were the case, wouldn't it be better not to have the treaty in the first place? Then no questions are asked at all. And what was wrong with the old treaty, apart from the inconvenience of having to produce enough evidence to satisfy a British judge?

If you don't have a treaty then you are part of the axis of evil - or at the very least they don't let your soldiers play with their soldiers and your politicians don't get to stand on the Whitehouse lawn looking like a world statesman.

BS. It's the UK. They have international standing regardless of what the US thinks.

Re: Euro MPs block bank data deal with US

#22

Post by dmoney »

dantheman wrote: post #12
dmoney wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The United States constitution forbids anything like the war crimes court [citation needed]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_and_the_Internati...

From what I understand, one objection is that trying an American citizen in an international court violates the right to due process. How? There presumably is a process defined by a treaty which the US has agreed to.

The other objection: ...implies that the Court does not have the power to try Americans for crimes committed on U.S. territory.

Is it not in Congress' power to grant jurisdiction to a court?

Edit: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supremacy_Clause) This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

Re: Euro MPs block bank data deal with US

#23

Post by iujhygfbh »

jrockway wrote: post #21
iujhygfbh wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't have a treaty then you are part of the axis of evil - or at the very least they don't let your soldiers play with their soldiers and your politicians don't get to stand on the Whitehouse lawn looking like a world statesman.

BS. It's the UK. They have international standing regardless of what the US thinks.

Not since Suez, the last time the UK got to play at soldiers against the US wishes was the Falklands.

The UK has a huge amount of investment in the US, if the US were to treat the UK like it did France after they refused to join the 'coalition of the willing' it would do a lot more harm to the UK economy than boycotting Perrier did to France's

Re: Euro MPs block bank data deal with US

#24

Post by iujhygfbh »

siculars wrote: post #19

This will most certainly be a setback for tracking and disrupting terrorist/rogue state/criminal financing operations. I personally know someone who used to use Swift data (among other financial transaction tracking data) to track "bad-guys" doing very, very bad things. They are out there, they are gaming the system, they are hiding behind loop holes and they do mean us harm. Hopefully the privacy concerns can be wor…

The problem is when this is used to give eg. Raytheon the details of payments made to a European company for eg a radar system in some 3rd country - which lets them put in an advantageous position to bid for the next bit of work.

Re: Euro MPs block bank data deal with US

#25

Post by schwit »

mseebach wrote: post #13
danik wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean? First of all that was Germany, so 'EU governments' does not apply in that case. Second it is a big difference between buying information about your citizens and selling information about you citizens.

Denmark is also considering it. Yes, there's a difference, but it's still very wrong. We're talking about governments buying illegally obtained information, thus sanctioning the crime. How is this different from the government not being allowed to wire-tap its citizens, but if they go on the black market and get a black-hat to do it, it's suddenly OK? The only reason is the presence of an international border.

Illegal by whose standards?

How the information was obtained outside of Germany may be a crime, but not in Germany.

As a citizen of Germany you are required to provide to the German government information that determines taxes owed. Any attempt to evade this obligation is a crime in Germany.

In this case Germany has a right to the information.

Re: Euro MPs block bank data deal with US

#26

Post by cabalamat »

bensummers wrote: post #7
lutorm wrote: post #2

It's funny how the US feels entitled to do all these things, but when other countries want the US to allow them to do the same, there's no way. The war crimes court comes to mind as the most blatant example of this "one rule for you, another for us" mentality.

Here's a lovely example of the US declining to make things reciprocal: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extradition_Act_2003 It annoys a lot of people that the US can extradite someone from the UK without providing any evidence, yet the US never got around to ratifying it so the UK can extradite someone from the US without providing any evidence. Of course, it may just be that the UK government is a bunch of idiots who t…

> it may just be that the UK government is a bunch of idiots who think it's a good idea to give foreign legal systems this much power over their citizens

Sadly, this appears to be the case.

Re: Euro MPs block bank data deal with US

#27

Post by izend »

iujhygfbh wrote: post #23
jrockway wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BS. It's the UK. They have international standing regardless of what the US thinks.

Not since Suez, the last time the UK got to play at soldiers against the US wishes was the Falklands. The UK has a huge amount of investment in the US, if the US were to treat the UK like it did France after they refused to join the 'coalition of the willing' it would do a lot more harm to the UK economy than boycotting Perrier did to France's

Canada refused to join the coalition of willing for Iraq and we are the US largest trading partner.

Re: Euro MPs block bank data deal with US

#28

Post by stse »

jrockway wrote: post #20
lutorm wrote: post #2

It's funny how the US feels entitled to do all these things, but when other countries want the US to allow them to do the same, there's no way. The war crimes court comes to mind as the most blatant example of this "one rule for you, another for us" mentality.

Hey, all we did was ask. Your guys keep saying yes, so we keep asking. I would love to see the EU keep the US in check by saying "no" to us more often. (The US has no trouble telling the EU "no", after all.) China does it, so why not the EU?

That's just the thing. The US didn't ask the EU, they just secretly subpoenaed the records from SWIFT, which had a mirror server in the US with all the records (incl. transactions inside the EU). Breaking several countries privacy laws in the process.

SWIFT has changed their infrastructure to no longer mirror to the US, So the US pressured the European Council to create an interim agreement allowing the US to access EU banking data. This agreement was made one day before the Lisbon Treaty went into effect, which gives the European Parliament increased powers. So while the EP can't cancel the interim agreement, they've now voted against the continuation of the deal.

The resolution & Some background: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//... Council overrules Parliament: http://www.euractiv.com/en/justice/council-overrules-parliam... Recommended search term: "swift tftp"

Re: Euro MPs block bank data deal with US

#29

Post by mseebach »

schwit wrote: post #25
mseebach wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Denmark is also considering it. Yes, there's a difference, but it's still very wrong. We're talking about governments buying illegally obtained information, thus sanctioning the crime. How is this different from the government not being allowed to wire-tap its citizens, but if they go on the black market and get a black-hat to do it, it's suddenly OK? The only reason is the presence of an international border.

Illegal by whose standards? How the information was obtained outside of Germany may be a crime, but not in Germany. As a citizen of Germany you are required to provide to the German government information that determines taxes owed. Any attempt to evade this obligation is a crime in Germany. In this case Germany has a right to the information.

> Illegal by whose standards?

The law of any country anyone would consider civilized. Including Germany, Denmark, Lichtenstein and Switzerland.

> In this case Germany has a right to the information.

Well, states don't have rights. Their citizens are required to hand over the information, and the government is entitled to punish citizens that fail to do so. But that's a minor point -- Yes, Germany is entitled to that information, but they don't have a right to break the law of another country to get that information. What happened to Lichtensteins right to sovereignty?

And what if it wasn't tax information, but information on ethnicity? Seriously, information about citizens that one government "has a right to", that another government doesn't mind helping you conceal. Not to bash Germany in particular, but we have privacy laws for a reason.

I'm not a fan of tax-evasion, but tax collection is not, in itself, such a holy venture that it warrants any means.

Re: Euro MPs block bank data deal with US

#30

Post by danik »

mseebach wrote: post #13
danik wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean? First of all that was Germany, so 'EU governments' does not apply in that case. Second it is a big difference between buying information about your citizens and selling information about you citizens.

Denmark is also considering it. Yes, there's a difference, but it's still very wrong. We're talking about governments buying illegally obtained information, thus sanctioning the crime. How is this different from the government not being allowed to wire-tap its citizens, but if they go on the black market and get a black-hat to do it, it's suddenly OK? The only reason is the presence of an international border.

Governments does not really need to care for other governments laws, that's the difference. So it's neither illegal or a crime as long as a foreign government is concerned.

And yes, governments and borders go hand in hand.

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