CIA has access to your bank records
By Philip Johnston, Home Affairs Editor
(Filed: 28/06/2006) <!--NO VIEW-->
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>The bank transaction records of millions of people in Britain and around the world may have been disclosed illegally to US intelligence agencies as part of the Bush administration's counter-terrorism programme, privacy campaigners said yesterday.
CIA agents and US treasury officials have been secretly monitoring financial transactions routed through Swift, the Brussels-based, industry-owned co-operative that links 7,800 financial institutions in more than 200 countries.
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=148 align=right border=0 hspace="0"><TBODY><TR><TD width=8 rowSpan=2> </TD><TD width=140><CENTER>
</CENTER></TD></TR><TR><TD class=caption><CENTER>Swift links financial institutions worldwide
</CENTER></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>Swift, an acronym for the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, provides electronic instructions for transfers between virtually every bank, brokerage house, and stock exchange and routes 11 million transactions each day.
<!--MPU STOPPED BY MEDIA -->The Terrorist Finance Tracking Program was disclosed by the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, which said they had been pressed by the administration not to divulge its existence.
American officials denied that it amounted to an invasion of privacy and said it was vital to anti-terrorism operations. It means Washington may have access not only to financial data on its own citizens but everyone else's too.
An agreement with Swift to hand over the transaction records was reached after September 11 but has never been divulged until now.
John Snow, the US treasury secretary, said disclosure of the information was subject to ''very significant safeguards'' and had proved useful to the anti-terror operations, though there were no specific examples of how it had helped.
In a statement, Swift said it had negotiated with the US treasury "over the scope and oversight of the subpoenas". Under the deal, counter-terrorism analysts can ask Swift to look for information on activities by suspected terrorists as part of specific terrorism investigations.
Swift said the agreement concerned ''limited sets of data from the office of foreign assets control of the department of the treasury''. It added: ''Our fundamental principle has been to preserve the confidentiality of our users' data while complying with the lawful obligations in countries where we operate."
Privacy International, a campaign group, filed simultaneous complaints with data protection and privacy regulators, including Britain's, in an attempt to uncover the scale of the exercise. Simon Davies, the group's director, said: ''We know very little, but it seems that the data are being sent regardless of people's nationality. If blanket authorisations are being given for millions of records, it would be impossible to separate them out.''
He said the activity was undertaken without regard to legal process under data protection law, and that the disclosures were made without any legal basis or authority whatever.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/06/28/ncia28.xml
About SWIFT
SWIFT is the financial industry-owned co-operative supplying secure, standardised messaging services and interface software to 7,800 financial institutions in more than 200 countries. SWIFT's worldwide community includes banks, broker/dealers and investment managers, as well as their market infrastructures in payments, securities, treasury and trade
http://www.swift.com/index.cfm?item_id=43232
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
By Philip Johnston, Home Affairs Editor
(Filed: 28/06/2006) <!--NO VIEW-->
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>The bank transaction records of millions of people in Britain and around the world may have been disclosed illegally to US intelligence agencies as part of the Bush administration's counter-terrorism programme, privacy campaigners said yesterday.
CIA agents and US treasury officials have been secretly monitoring financial transactions routed through Swift, the Brussels-based, industry-owned co-operative that links 7,800 financial institutions in more than 200 countries.
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=148 align=right border=0 hspace="0"><TBODY><TR><TD width=8 rowSpan=2> </TD><TD width=140><CENTER>
</CENTER></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>Swift, an acronym for the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, provides electronic instructions for transfers between virtually every bank, brokerage house, and stock exchange and routes 11 million transactions each day.
<!--MPU STOPPED BY MEDIA -->The Terrorist Finance Tracking Program was disclosed by the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, which said they had been pressed by the administration not to divulge its existence.
American officials denied that it amounted to an invasion of privacy and said it was vital to anti-terrorism operations. It means Washington may have access not only to financial data on its own citizens but everyone else's too.
An agreement with Swift to hand over the transaction records was reached after September 11 but has never been divulged until now.
John Snow, the US treasury secretary, said disclosure of the information was subject to ''very significant safeguards'' and had proved useful to the anti-terror operations, though there were no specific examples of how it had helped.
In a statement, Swift said it had negotiated with the US treasury "over the scope and oversight of the subpoenas". Under the deal, counter-terrorism analysts can ask Swift to look for information on activities by suspected terrorists as part of specific terrorism investigations.
Swift said the agreement concerned ''limited sets of data from the office of foreign assets control of the department of the treasury''. It added: ''Our fundamental principle has been to preserve the confidentiality of our users' data while complying with the lawful obligations in countries where we operate."
Privacy International, a campaign group, filed simultaneous complaints with data protection and privacy regulators, including Britain's, in an attempt to uncover the scale of the exercise. Simon Davies, the group's director, said: ''We know very little, but it seems that the data are being sent regardless of people's nationality. If blanket authorisations are being given for millions of records, it would be impossible to separate them out.''
He said the activity was undertaken without regard to legal process under data protection law, and that the disclosures were made without any legal basis or authority whatever.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/06/28/ncia28.xml
About SWIFT
SWIFT is the financial industry-owned co-operative supplying secure, standardised messaging services and interface software to 7,800 financial institutions in more than 200 countries. SWIFT's worldwide community includes banks, broker/dealers and investment managers, as well as their market infrastructures in payments, securities, treasury and trade
http://www.swift.com/index.cfm?item_id=43232
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
