The recent ruling by the European Parliament not to honor a US request for copies of all European Bank Transactions made a few small waves in the news but seems not to have elicited the conversation that is truly necessary. (Source:)
The US has had access to the requested SWIFT data since 2001 but now that SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial) has moved all of their serves outside the U.S. the access is no longer guaranteed. Of course if SWIFT had not moved their servers the issue would be immaterial. So, why did they move them?
“The existence of the US server allowed American authorities to use American anti-terror laws to access European transaction data. EU law would have barred such access had the servers been on European soil.” (Source)

In other words, because of a server being in the U.S., it was routine for the U.S to inspect the banking transactions of European citizens. So if a Danish mother wired money to her daughter studying in Madrid, Spain this was vitally important for the U.S. Government to know. Why? The argument of course is anti-terrorism efforts, that tracking money movements lead authorities to terrorists. Now please understand, until the server migration, this kind of European money transfer tracking had been going on for more than seven years. However, when trying to find evidence of its effectiveness I got nothing. I have been able to find zero reports of finding terrorists via European money transfers since the monitoring of SWIFT transactions was implemented (in secret of course) in 2001.
[Note: Many financial tracking advocates use the Sauerland Group, a thwarted terror cell in Germany as proof that tracking financials works. However, it is known that NSA surveillance of emails from Germany to Pakistan were what prompted diligent observation (to eventually include financials) which in turn led to a successful raid of the group and the arrest of its members. In short, tracking financials did NOT break or even make this case. (Source)]

In light of the EU parliament decision, the discussion to be had then is not about Europe or the new EU Parliament flexing muscles, but about the U.S. and its seeming addiction to information. Since 2001 U.S. domestic (and international) surveillance has mushroomed, from the warrantless wireless wiretapping programs enacted under the Bush administration, to the NSA installing the NarusInsight supercomputer(s) on the AT&T Internet backbone in San Fancisco (and other cities) enabling the real time monitoring of millions of pieces of internet traffic simultaneously. (Source) These kinds of data collection transcend politics as President Obama on more than one occasion has elected to keep these tools and advocated honoring the revised FISA law granting anonymity and retro-active immunity for telecommunications companies which provided domestic telephone and email/chat logs to the FBI and CIA.

Therefore, the U.S. SWIFT request, that blanket monitoring on Non-U.S bank transactions continue unabated, is merely a request to preserve the status quo; the continued collection of mountains of information on citizens of other countries for little or no gain. There should be an obvious question here: After more than seven years of this domestic and international information gathering, what are the results? Is there any kind of justification for continuing to do it? In the absence of any easily found confirmation, does it even work?

I began contemplating, compiling and writing this article before the tragic and senseless actions of an unstable and cowardly man who intentionally flew his private plane into an IRS building in Texas. (Source). I would much rather have posted it as an abstract thought exercise as was my original intention. However the events in Texas made the abstract concrete. The particulars of Andrew Stack’s professional life are particularly germane because they cover both issues I have raised above; scrutiny of financial records and surveillance of internet traffic.
Andrew Stack, the perpetrator, was well known to the IRS and had his financials scrutinized diligently and repeatedly due to a spotty tax record. In addition Stack not only was the president of a computer software company but he also repeatedly composed his ‘suicide note’ online and posted it eight hours in advance of aerial his attack on the IRS building. (Source) What he posted is not vague or something misleading like a shopping list, it’s a rather specific 5 page screed that states more than once that he will be committing violent suicide in defense of freedom and to help wake people up. He rails against the US government and uses inflammatory and extreme anti-US rhetoric throughout. He even cites the FAA towards the end of the letter, surely a solid hint that his FAA registered plane might be part of his plan. (Source)

Please consider that all relevant information pertaining to Stack was domestic and thus easily available for authorities in advance under current anti-terror laws. The Narus machines are still operating, sorting internet traffic for suspicious or violently anti-US rhetoric (such as Stack’s letter?) and US financial transactions continue to be scrutinized daily and the IRS confirmed that they were well aware of Andrew Stack. Given these, plus emerging details of Stack’s increasingly erratic behavior (causing his wife and child to flee the family home) and his obvious crafting and re-crafting his last words on an internet site then posting it well in advance of his final flight, why was the attack not foiled?
There are undoubtedly as many answers to this question as there are fish in the sea. However the most obvious answer may be the closest to the truth. Information is itself, insufficient, information must be understood. Simply vacuuming up data as the U.S has been and continues to do is ineffective. It has been more than seven years since these sweeping information gathering programs have been enacted. Results are minimal and cases like Andrew Stack clearly demonstrate that these methods are ineffective. Addiction to information is like any addiction, destructive and short-sighted. I recommend the exploration of alternatives.

Nina and I spent a few days in Amsterdam. These are my thoughts…

*The city is young, in the city center, which is quite vast, youth is served throughout, and only occasional was the sighting of a person over 40 years old.

* The city was and still is rich. Much like London when touring Amsterdam it is easy to see both the stamp of new wealth, in gleaming buildings and fashionable cafes but also the epic scale of colonial power as evidenced by frequent statuary in strange places and colossal city squares bordered by monolithic buildings

* The Red Light District: I found it to be surprisingly clean and presentable considering it is awash in sex and “coffee (read hash) bars”. Transactions were conducted openly and with surprisingly little fanfare, a stark contrast to the consumption of drugs and commercial sex in North America.

Conclusions: I like Amsterdam, it is vibrant (a bit too vibrant around the train station, where crossing the street is a risk of life and limb), very photogenic and a spectacularly easy place to get around in if you know English.

For a visual essay of Amsterdam, click here: http://www.cobalisk.com/content/category/39/1/Amsterdam-2010/

When you move long distances you invariably pass through time zones. Now, time zones are artificial, but the reasons for them are real enough. For example New York is not really 4 hours ahead of San Francisco, but, since it is possible for it to be good and dark in New York and still light in Frisco they can’t both be at the same time. Railroads, both in England and America drove the point home that time needed to be standardized and then divided. In England, not an especially large country, the issue was getting everyone on the same clock so people did not leave Birmingham at noon and arrive in Leeds at 11:45am.
In the US, due to its vast size the need for large zones spanning multiple hours was made apparent by rail travel. The systems work hence the division of the globe into 24 rather oddly shaped zones. So now Muenster, Germany is 8 hours ahead of Phoenix, Arizona. Which of course makes sense, when it is 6pm and dark in Muenster, it is 10am and the day is beginning in Phoenix. Such a large gap makes contact between the two cities rather cumbersome as I am quickly discovering. Nevertheless, no point in blaming time zones, they are just the messengers.

Only those small islands in the Pacific clustered around the International Date Line really have a gripe about Time zones themselves. The distance between Samoa and Fiji is about 600 miles, a short flight but the time difference is 23 hours due to the stretch of ocean between them being cut in half by the date line. In this case it is of course absurd to insist that Fiji and Samoa are really that far apart in time. The phenomenon is little more than a seam on the baseball of the world.

For further reading on the history of Time zones, the Wiki is quite good. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_zone

For a map of world time zones, please click here: Map of time zones