News: European Parliament due to Decide on SWIFT Soon

From the Financial Times: We have reported on the issue of US access to the SWIFT banking transactions database before. The agreement provisionally came into force on February the 1st, but is subject to confirmation by a European Parliament vote in the plenary session of 8th-11th of February next week. The FT reports that the Parliament, long concerned at the privacy implications of US access, is likely to vote down the agreement in the face of strong objections from the US:

Adam Szubin, director of the Office of Foreign Assets control at the Treasury, said the intelligence programme processing the Swift data "provides perhaps the most important source on terrorism financing".

The European parliament looks set to block an interim agreement negotiated by the European Commission and representatives of the member states. "It's very unlikely to go in favour of the Swift agreement," one diplomat said.