[privacy] SWIFT: CIA's Secret UK Bank Trawl May Be Illegal

["Fergie" <fergdawg () netzero net>]

Via The Guardian (UK).

[snip]

A covert programme under which confidential information about British
banking transactions is passed to the CIA with the full knowledge of
the government may breach both British and European law, the Guardian
has learned.

The information commissioner, who is responsible for enforcing the Data
Protection Act, is investigating the arrangement, which has seen
details of computerised transactions from around the world passed to
the CIA in an attempt to spy on the financiers of jihadist terrorism.

The US government has acknowledged that the agency has been receiving
international financial records from the Belgian-based co-operative
which processes money transfers on behalf of the world's banks. The
programme was launched in the wake of the September 11 attacks.

Data handed over each year by the Society for Worldwide Interbank
Financial Telecommunication, or Swift, includes the details of an
estimated 4.6 million British banking transactions.

[snip]

More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,1854813,00.html

- ferg


--
"Fergie", a.k.a. Paul Ferguson
 Engineering Architecture for the Internet
 fergdawg(at)netzero.net
 ferg's tech blog: http://fergdawg.blogspot.com/

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