Word: europeanized
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Until recently, SWIFT had its data servers on U.S. soil, giving American authorities the jurisdiction they needed to access them. But at the end last year, the servers covering European wire transfers were moved to Switzerland and the Netherlands, forcing the U.S. to seek European consent to continue sifting through SWIFT's database of some 8,000 banks. The U.S. says the information, which includes customer names, account numbers and amounts transferred, is needed to root out the various terrorist organizations that move funds around the world. In 2003, officials say the program helped Thai authorities capture Riduan Isamuddin, also...
Nonetheless, the move enraged other European lawmakers, who said the Parliament was merely pontificating. "The European Parliament has thrown its toys out of the pram and put a crucial counter-terrorism data-sharing agreement with the U.S.A. into jeopardy," said Timothy Kirkhope, a lawmaker from the British Conservative Party. "It is not fair that the U.S.'s efforts to tackle terrorist financing have become embroiled in an argument between E.U. institutions." European and U.S. officials will almost certainly need to craft a different kind of pact now. While Washington could cut individual deals with the banking centers of Belgium...
...democratic system that allowed the Parliament to have a say on the issue is only two months old. Under the E.U.'s Lisbon Treaty, which came into force in December, Parliament members now decide jointly with European governments on legal affairs. And by blocking the SWIFT agreement, they proved that they were not shy about exercising their new powers. Dutch lawmaker Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, who led the Parliament's attack on the deal, said if the Obama Administration had proposed such a data-sharing arrangement in the U.S., "we all know what the U.S. Congress would...
...Parliament members chose to take a stand on the bank data issue is a little surprising. The Terrorist Finance Tracking Program (TFTP) has always been a controversial initiative. It was secretly set up after the Sept. 11 attacks, allowing CIA agents and U.S. Treasury officials to sift through the European financial messaging data collected by SWIFT, an international bank transfer consortium based in Belgium. When the arrangement came to light in 2006, it outraged civil liberties advocates and prompted the European Union to outline certain conditions under which the U.S. could access the information - the precursor to the arrangement just...
...European governments said the bank data legislation, while not perfect, at least required U.S. authorities to abide by several European demands on data protection and improved oversight. Yet despite their pressure - and last-minute pleas by such high-ranking U.S. officials as Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner - the European Parliament voted down the measure on Feb. 11 by a hefty margin of 378-196. After the vote, the Obama Administration called it "a setback for U.S.-E.U. counter-terror cooperation." (See who's who in Barack Obama's White House...