Free Republic

Any new agreement on providing bank data to the United States - for example via the SWIFT system - must avoid "bulk data" transfers until they can be processed within the EU, warned MEPs on Wednesday. As for Passenger Name Records, Parliament opted to postpone its vote on the existing agreements with the United States and Australia and called for those accords be renegotiated on the basis of new criteria. MEPs voted on two resolutions in Brussels today, one on the opening of negotiations for an EU-US agreement to provide the US Treasury Department with bank data to combat terrorism,...

Financial Privacy is Common Cents: Government should have warrant to look at private accounts Benjamin Barr, Goldwater Institute Daily Email, March 10, 2008 What’s the value of your financial privacy? You know, things like your checking account and banking records. For most of us, the less others know, the better. That’s why it comes as such a surprise that Arizona rates near the bottom of states when it comes to protecting financial privacy. According to the Federal Trade Commission, Arizona is the number one state for identity theft. And a private research firm reports that one in six Arizona adults...

Despite the honest policy disputes over Kevin Murray's bill to seal financial records in divorce cases, the debate over S.B. 1015 has focused on just about everything but policy. The story of this bill is a story of how lawmakers and advocates make political calculations. It is about how to know when you're beat, and about cutting your losses to limit the political damage that your opposition may inflict on you down the road. To some, it is a tale of political cowardice. To others, it is a tale of the ultimate political pragmatism and democracy in action. It is...

SACRAMENTO – A U.S. District Court judge on Tuesday struck down a portion of a California law that restricts banks from selling consumers' private information to their affiliates, ruling that the state law is pre-empted by federal rules. The American Bankers Association, the Financial Services Roundtable and Consumer Bankers Association had sued California Attorney General Bill Lockyer, arguing that the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act already regulated their ability to sell such information to affiliates in other lines of business. The federal act lets banks and other financial institutions share information with affiliates about customers' "credit worthiness, credit standing, credit...