Friday, February 2, 2007

Watchdog Attacks Us Swoop for Bank Secrets Europe's main privacy watchdog yesterday said that the banking secrets and rights of millions of people and businesses were being abused on a massive scale by a clandestine programme giving US agencies access to the information. It accused the EU's banks and financial authorities of doing nothing to stop the breaches. In a damning report on the covert transfer to US agencies of the details of millions of financial transactions by EU citizens, Peter Hustinx, the European Data Protection supervisor, accused the European Central Bank of complicity in the system that has been used since 9/11 and which was deemed illegal by European data protection agencies two months ago. The Belgium-based company Swift (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) has been supplying the US Treasury and the CIA with details - such as names, account numbers and sums involved - allegedly as part of George Bush's "war on terror". After 9/11, Swift agreed to cooperate with the US Treasury by creating a system where personal data is transferred to a "black box" owned by the US authorities, enabling "massive transfers of data" and the "focused searching" of the information by US agencies. The Brussels-based company says it is obliged to cooperate with the US authorities because it is subject to US subpoenas and could be fined for ignoring the requests. The system, which is estimated to include the bank details of more than 4m Britons, was operated secretly for years until it was disclosed last summer. A Belgian investigation into the scheme found that Swift was operating in uncertain legal territory. Privacy watchdogs across Europe concluded in November that the company was breaching data protection laws and privacy rights. Mr Hustinx said yesterday that the Swift operation "has breached the trust and private lives of many millions of people". He accused the Frankfurt-based European Central Bank of failing to demand a halt to the operation and of keeping quiet for years on the controversy. The ECB denied responsibility and called instead for the European and US governments to "clarify" the dilemmas thrown up by a clash between privacy rights and combating terrorism. 2:29:49 AM

Workplace Prof Blog: Ninth Circuit Revises Workplace Privacy Ruling A few months ago, we wrote about the 9th Circuit case of United States v. Ziegler, in which the court had found that a private sector employee had no legitimate expectation of privacy under the Fourth Amendment when government agents sought to use evidence from his workplace computer in a criminal prosecution. This finding was based on the fact that his company had access rights to the computer. Orin Kerr of the Volokh Conspiracy vehemently opposed this reading of what the Fourth Amendment requires and now the 9th Circuit panel has reissued its opinion in the case, United States v. Ziegler, No. 05-30177 (9th Cir. Jan. 30, 2007). Although the result comes out the same, Orin is now happy because the court's reasoning is more consistent with Fourth Amendment precedent in this area. Here is some of what Orin said yesterday about the case on The Volokh Conspiracy: 1:55:45 AM

Sowing the Seeds of Surveillance. Sowing the Seeds of Surveillance. History suggests the spy technology we build to catch terrorists will eventually be used to bust minor scofflaws. Commentary by Jennifer Granick. [Wired News: Security Blanket] 1:49:55 AM

© Copyright 2007 Paul Hardwick. Last update: 3/4/07; 9:08:03 AM.