News: European Parliament Says No to US Bank Access

From BBC News: By 378-196 with 31 abstentions, the European Parliament has voted down the agreement to continue allowing the United States' counter-terrorism authorities access to the SWIFT database of European banking transactions, citing concerns at the 'inadequate privacy safeguards'. The deal, agreed by EU governments, would have granted US access for another nine months and follows intensive lobbying on the part of the American government:

Last week the Greens' home affairs expert, Jan Philipp Albrecht MEP, said that in backing the new deal the European Commission and EU governments had "not respected the fundamental criticism about the lack of sufficient protections with regard to privacy and the rule of law".

The leader of the Socialist group, Martin Schulz MEP, said: "We want a new and better deal with proper safeguards for people's privacy."