It's the bloody politicians.

As you probably know, about 6 years ago, Bush put in a secret tap on a server based in the USA belonging to SWIFT, which handles bank transactions between virtually all European banks, so the US government was spying on all our bank accounts

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

When discovered, SWIFT moved their servers out of America.

Instead of apologising, the Bush government made a deal with corrupt EU politicians to make a law that let them still have access to the data.

http://brusselsblogger.blogactiv.eu/2009/11/26/swift-eu-to-grant-usa-nearly-unlimited-» access-to-all-eu-banking-data/

Now the European parliament are in control, they are planning on repelling this awful infrigment into our privacy.

Americas response? If you do that, we'll no longer share information on terrorist suspects with you.

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,5220092,00.html

As some people have commented:

Copy-Pasted from elsewhere :

"The US has threatened to withhold cooperation on terrorist intelligence if the bank data deal now in place is canceled..." One would think that if combating terrorism was truly a US priority, the administration would continue to share terrorist intelligence regardless of what the EU does and instead threaten to withhold chicken wings, or iPhones, or Big Macs, or something else NOT security related.

Copy-Pasted from elsewhere :

The thing that amazes me is that the EU denies because of privacy concerns and then the US tries to negotiate (sometimes called 'blackmail') the deal by withholding intelligence on terrorism! And so the issue is quite clear. Give up your privacy else the US will not try to help prevent terrorism despite the US's declaration of a war on terror and its facade of integrity to 'do its best' in that effort. I am sincerely bothered that a nation so 'right' about terrorism and its purposes of fighting terrorism, would not do everything possible to prevent it, and would deliberately NOT fight terrorism for petty political purposes. And the US wonders why people around the world hate them... It's scary that the rest of the world sees the difference between the words and the actions but the democratic voters of the US are largely unaware. I guess this is partially due to the fact that American Politics are so bipartisan that the focus of questions is on the party and not of the sum of the whole. Thus they have news that relates to how one candidate might be wrong, or another might be corrupt, but none that truly reflects upon or questions the actions of the nation as a whole. It isn't a conspiracy theory to say that major media in the US is in cooperation with its corporations and lobbies to make more money; the connections are clear and publicly available. It isn't any stretch of imagination to think that a corporate news source that is directly connected to other forms of business would skew its facts and present information that in ways that would benefit its business. Such wide-scope congolmerate-corporations are complete enemies to truth and competition; the extended shame of it being that the GOP, the party whose members vote to retain small government and market competition continually elects leaders/lawmakers that do not do so and bend over quite easily to corporations.

Any thoughts?

Here is the reason Americans are disliked.

http://www.funny-games.biz/pictures/850-world-map.html

Jamie, I don't want to get into a political discussion here, but the idea is to cut off the terrorists' funding. Without funds, they cannot do much damage.

I used to work in the legal department of a small local bank. Before we could close the loan, the bank had to check a special list that contained names to which we could not lend, and they were not all arab or middle eastern names either. Most of our clients were from Latin America, and there were a lot of common Spanish names on that list. I wouldn't be surprised if my name is on that list, since my first name and maiden name are extremely common (that's why I combine my last name with my husband's last name). Before we could lend to anyone who had that same name, our bank had to submit a lot of personal information of the client to be sure it wasn't the same person on the list, and get a clearance. If we should ever have lent to anyone who was actually involved in terrorism in some way, our bank would have been shut down, and possibly someone would have gone to jail.

So, the idea is to prevent terrorism by cutting off their funding. In order to do this, we have to lose a bit of our freedom of privacy, but it's a small price to pay to prevent terrorism.

Anyway, I'm looking at it from a different perspective than you are, but I don't mind losing a bit of my privacy for the greater good. Anyone who doesn't have anything to hide shouldn't mind either. This isn't a perfect world, after all.

It's big brother in my opinion.. terrorist will still get funding without going through traditional banks. And terrorists have been around before WW1 ... if I remember history lessons Italy had terrorits hired by political enemies to quash, terrorize, and destroy opponents. Hence where the word and practiced origniated. These were not associated with mob families. So these guys never went to banks either.

Anyway...Bush did very undemocratic things...but then again he never did believe what he said. Don't do drugs and both he and his girls were on drugs. No abortion and one of his daughters had one.

And it amazes me how much personal freedom we all have given away in the past decade in the name of protecting the nation.

There will always be terrorism in the world, but the world has changed a lot since WWII. Before it was small-scale terrorism, but now we have the means for large-scale terrorism with nuclear weapons that can affect the entire world. For that the terrorists need large-scale funding, and that can only be done through banks. We'll never be able to stop terrorism, but we can hope to try to prevent it on a large scale at least. Or at least put as many obstacles in their way as possible.

And as I said before, I don't care if my bank accounts are scrutinized, or if my communications are monitored, if this will help curb some illegal activity that will hurt lots of people.

I'm not into politics at all, so this is only my personal opinion. Maybe our government is wrong in trying to control the terrorists' funding through the banks, but maybe we are right, and we are helping to prevent some large scale terrorism. I'd prefer that we err on the side of caution.

jimha wrote:

Here is the reason Americans are disliked. http://www.funny-games.biz/pictures/850-world-map.html

It's true. Europe is full of pussies and Commies. And Eurins...

And Bush told Clarkey he didn't have to pay you back...

Terezia wrote:

It's big brother in my opinion.. terrorist will still get funding without going through traditional banks. And terrorists have been around before WW1 ... if I remember history lessons Italy had terrorits hired by political enemies to quash, terrorize, and destroy opponents. Hence where the word and practiced origniated. These were not associated with mob families. So these guys never went to banks either. Anyway...Bush did very undemocratic things...but then again he never did believe what he said. Don't do drugs and both he and his girls were on drugs. No abortion and one of his daughters had one. And it amazes me how much personal freedom we all have given away in the past decade in the name of protecting the nation.

HOLY... When did you get internet in the Uninhabited Zone???

muscovy_2000 wrote:

Jamie, I don't want to get into a political discussion here, but the idea is to cut off the terrorists' funding. Without funds, they cannot do much damage.

No, my point is, the USA want to retain access to the bank details of ANYONE in Europe, without offering the equivalent in return.

And when Europe says "that's not fair, either we share or we don't, it's not fair to be one way only" America says "If you don't do it our way, we will no longer share terrorist information with you.

So, in that event, how the HELL would America not telling Europe about terrorist threats they know about be about cutting off terroism?

That was the point of my posting.


But to address the side-issue, Fair enough, but I actually disagree with you. We have lost so much privacy for little benefit. What happened to thing like court-orders? evidence? reasonable suspicion?

Are you happy with the fact we've lost so many freedoms, the terrorists are winning through our own governments fault.

And to show I'm attacking the issue, not you lot personally The UK has the greatest number of CCTV cameras per head in the world, and they have not helped stop ANY CRIMES.

Yet, they are building more... It's bigbrother.. America and the UK are using terrorism as an excuse to get more control

And the rest of your point about verifying people is fine - that's the way it should be. I'm not travelling to America, I'm not appying for a loan, or doing anything dodgy, so why should some USA politician on a whim be able to stroll through my bank account details?

Jim wrote:

And Bush told Clarkey he didn't have to pay you back...

Hahaha you git!

Actually, I had a letter from Clarkey only last week, saying he was sorry to have done a runner, and he'll send me a cheque for £1,600 soon.

I wasn't going to mention it until a cheque actually arrived and cleared....

Jim wrote:

jimha wrote: Here is the reason Americans are disliked. http://www.funny-games.biz/pictures/850-world-map.html It's true. Europe is full of pussies and Commies. And Eurins...

Haha, I'm a pussy!

Anyway, this is Imerialist Britains view of the world:

Yes, I know I've posted this before...

Spoiler (Click here to reveal) :

*put in a spoiler box by BobLHead so we can make believe that the resizing code works (until you open the box)



.

Jim wrote:

Terezia wrote: It's big brother in my opinion.. terrorist will still get funding without going through traditional banks. And terrorists have been around before WW1 ... if I remember history lessons Italy had terrorits hired by political enemies to quash, terrorize, and destroy opponents. Hence where the word and practiced origniated. These were not associated with mob families. So these guys never went to banks either. Anyway...Bush did very undemocratic things...but then again he never did believe what he said. Don't do drugs and both he and his girls were on drugs. No abortion and one of his daughters had one. And it amazes me how much personal freedom we all have given away in the past decade in the name of protecting the nation. HOLY... When did you get internet in the Uninhabited Zone???

Haha Jim...you must've missed those Sci-Fi shows about the future where everyone in America seems to run away to Canada for freedom!

We call it 'pioneering'.

[quote=" Haha Jim...you must've missed those Sci-Fi shows about the future where everyone in America seems to run away to Canada for freedom![/quote]

Don't laugh because they are coming again. This time to escape economic armageddon.

Jamie, somehow your map broke the board. The right half of the entire thread is completely off the monitor and the map doesn't get reduced to fit on the page, like other images. I have a 22" widescreen monitor, yet I have to scroll back and forth to look at the map or to read anything. Does that happen on your end too, or is this just a Windows problem?

Just curious, 'cause normally large images just resize to fit the resolution of your screen.

We've already begun to ethnically cleans the Uninhabited Zone by sending them all to Florida. Vancouver is going on the market next week.

Nope, it's messed up here too.

Seems Dan has managed to break the resizing code!

Love the map Jamie. LOVE it.

The map is hilarious, and I can see the humorous logic behind most of it, but I'm still trying to figure out why Nicaragua is in Eastern Europe.

Hee hee, no idea! Note also how Portugal appears 3 times!

jamie wrote:

Hee hee, no idea! Note also how Portugal appears 3 times!

I figured that's because Portugal had a lot of colonies in Africa, so that's why it's funny. But Nicaragua in Eastern Europe?

Terezia wrote:

Haha Jim...you must've missed those Sci-Fi shows about the future where everyone in America seems to run away to Canada for freedom!

LOL Oh yeah and they still are. Canada had to tighten its borders. But no freedom comes without price I am told. all the time...... We are hated for being big, bossy, and bold.
Just like an older nasty sister

What possible claim does Angleland have to the Kamchatka Peninsula? And I'm reclaiming Wrangle Island for America. And the Beaufort Sea. Well, I guess that comes with the Uninhabited Zone, and that's ours by default.

muscovy_2000 wrote:

jamie wrote: Hee hee, no idea! Note also how Portugal appears 3 times! I figured that's because Portugal had a lot of colonies in Africa, so that's why it's funny. But Nicaragua in Eastern Europe?

Oh I see! Hmm, dunno.. Jim will know, unless it's just random!

Jim wrote:

What possible claim does Angleland have to the Kamchatka Peninsula? And I'm reclaiming Wrangle Island for America. And the Beaufort Sea. Well, I guess that comes with the Uninhabited Zone, and that's ours by default.

I dunno where any of those are, but you can have England, as long as you don't let the fundies in.

Isn't jamie lucky to write to an open society that extends to him a platform of his ideas.. I'm sure he's doing everything he can to stop his country's Official Secrets Act---

What's your point? If you read my posts, you'd see I criticsze the UK government more than any other.

Also, you seem to not have heard about the 'freedom of information act'.

You're right , jamie, I haven't read your posts. Usually when I see America bashing, it comes from a source filled with more vitriol than knowledge of history and cultural schema. Perhaps your title sounded more filled with angst than you meant. I apologize if this American read you incorrectly. Americans are a generous people and I should promote that.

I'm sorry the title seemed provocative. I didn't mean it that way. The title was out of desperation.

I don't WANT America to be hated in the world, but I've seen a LOT of anti-American posts regarding this issue (and others)

I'm not allowed to make this a party issue, so I'll talk generally. Sometimes your departments make policies that are so unfair to others, and it does neither side any good in the long run.

I mean, come-on, do you really think it's FAIR for America (and I'm talking about policy makers, not the general public) to have all my bank details, and those of every person in Europe? And not to offer a similar thing in return?

And now, as EU has canceled the agreement (which your politicians carried out covertly for 6 years), USA has threated to not share any terrorist information.

So, the claim now, is if the USA knows the details of an impending bomb plot in London, they really won't tell us about it ?

How dumb-arse crazy is that.

Anyway, because of this decision, these are the sorts of posts you now get to see:

 

And frankly, can you blame them?

p.s. Take a look at these 2 topics:

Topic 8266 Topic 8327

and even more here!

http://www.thebgb.net/viewforum.php?f=12