Again fear wins over civil liberties

The EU Commission concluded that the Swift Banking Consortium in full cooperation with Swiss, Dutch and also Maltese banks broke EU data protection law when it gave the Bush administration access to millions of records of private financial transactions. Banks across the EU and Switzerland shared responsibility with Swift for the breach of European civil liberties.

The US has defended the secret information transfer programme started after 9/11. But critics in Europe argue that Swift placed the US's security interests ahead of European norms of human rights.

A separate investigation by a Belgian privacy commission concluded in September that Swift had flouted European privacy rules, calling the secret financial transfers "a gross offence against customer confidentiality". In a recent hearing the European Parliament wanted to know why they had learned of the transfers from newspaper reports rather than from the European Central Bank, which knew of the transfers as early as June 2002.

Several banking and customer protection agencies want to know why the banks cooperated with the CIA and kept their co-operation as well as their data-protection offences covered up.

Swift has argued that cooperation with the US Treasury Department and CIA in counterterrorism investigations had been "absolutely legal" and had been essential in helping authorities prevent terrorist attacks.

"This is why thousands of lives have been saved," Leonard Schrank, Swift's chief executive officer said, criticising the watchdog for underplaying the issue of security.

An unproven excuse, used too often nowadays in any situation, in any explanation, just to keep civil liberties at bay.