La settimana scorsa Europarl non ha rinnovato il SWIFT agrmt con gli US. Adesso arriva il commento "not so SWIFT" del WSJ. PS La possibilita' di intervento del paralamento nella ratifica di accordi concernenti la sicurezza e' conseguenza del trattato di Lisbona... e questa e' una buona notizia. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704431404575066941940401092.ht... Europe Not So Swift Our friends nix an antiterror program. Since its creation after September 11, the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program—known as the Swift program—has been a key antiterror tool. But now this once-top-secret initiative may go out of business, and we can thank the European Parliament. Citing civil liberties and privacy concerns, the Parliament last week rejected an agreement between the Obama Administration and the 27 European Union governments that gave the U.S. access to financial information from Swift, an international banking consortium. U.S. authorities had direct access to the data until the consortium's American servers were moved to Europe at the end of 2009. Even last- minute lobbying from Vice President Joe Biden and Cabinet officers Hillary Clinton and Timothy Geithner were of no avail. Contrary to popular fears of "data mining," European Commissioner Cecilia Malmström said before the vote that the information remains "anonymous" and "only if there is reason to believe that an identified person is a terrorist can the data of that person be seen." She also told Parliament the data could only be used in the antiterror fight and couldn't be stored for more than five years. So far, the program has produced more than 1,500 reports and numerous leads for U.S. and European security services, according to the State Department. In 2003, it helped net Riduan Isamutddin—better known as Hambali—mastermind of the 2002 Bali nightclub bombing that killed 202 people. The European Commission, which also backed the deal, says the program helped thwart the 2006 Heathrow Airport liquid-bomb plot. Swift data also helped prevent a terror attack on Barcelona, according to Spain's Interior Minister, Alfredo Perez-Rubalcaba. So far, the media are treating the vote as a stand on principle. The New York Times, which first exposed the Swift program in 2006, wrote that the vote "underlined the differences between the United States and the European union over how to balance personal privacy guarantees with concerns on national and international security." But the truth is more prosaic and distressing: While pretending to stand on principle, the Parliament was flexing new muscles under last year's Lisbon Treaty—while also indulging anti-American reflex. Previously, the Parliament did not have the power to approve agreements on internal security. The vote underscores how slight a difference President Obama's election has made in trans-Atlantic cooperation. Had this decision come two years ago, it would have been cast as a vote of global no- confidence in the Bush Administration. Instead, it is a reminder that countries and institutions cooperate according to their own purposes, some of which have little to do with the merits. The U.S. and Europe may still salvage a deal, probably through the cumbersome process of negotiating separate treaties with 27 European governments. If the European Parliament thinks that it has made itself more relevant through its obstructionism, its conceit comes at the expense of our collective safety.