Hey Big Spender: will Osama's account be found in the CIA's new programme?
The American Central Intelligence Agency will be allowed to look into the bank records of the European Union’s citizens under a plan to fight terrorism, reports the British “The Sunday Times”.
The aim of the programme is to trace transactions of people suspected of terrorism.
The anti-terrorism agreement between Washington and Brussels will come into force in two months. It requires all 27 member states to give the CIA access to their citizens’ bank records to make it easier for American investigators to trace terrorist financing.
Last week the EU agreed that its member states will be obliged to reveal classified bank data to the CIA as a matter of urgency. The records will be kept in the US for five years.
The American terrorist finance tracking programme will analyze thousands of transactions by sifting through records from the Swift global banking system, which links almost 9,000 financial institutions in 209 countries and routes 3.3 billion euros a day.
The agreement is criticized for being only one-sided as it does not enable EU authorities to search bank accounts of US citizens in America. (mg)
Source: The Sunday Times