Geneva, 1 April 2000  -  On both sides of the Atlantic, individual privacy used to be a deeply enrooted common value.  Yet, in the last fifty years in particular, governments and office holders here and there have busily developed ever new reasons, excuses and pretexts for weakening, then braking and now all but totally abolishing real privacy as the hall mark of Western civilization and the market economy.

        Constitutional and lesser specific guarantees notwithstanding, in this upside-down world the transparent citizen as a servant of the state has largely replaced what was supposed to be the transparent state as a servant of the sovereign citizen.  But no tree grows infinitely into the sky.  And some current anti-liberty, anti-privacy and anti-market measures may actually hasten the day when even the most prestigious institutions, such as the Paris-based 29-nation Organisation for Economic Development and Co-operation OECD, will have been brought back on their original track and ridden of their Orwellian outgrowths.

        Traditionally, and for historical reasons, Americans generally have cared a lot about personal privacy (house, medical records, gun ownership, etc.).  Yet - and until the recent, below-mentioned excesses of some U.S. administrations regarding bank client snoopings - on matters of their personal wealth, Americans have differed fundamentally with their European brethren who, since time immemorial, have felt the need to actively guard against confiscatory measures by whoever happened to be their ruler.  As illustrated by the Australians' long-time casual acceptance of multi-party telephone lines, pioneering societies have evolved differently from those of the Old Continent particularly in cultural and privacy matters.

        Thus, contrary to American and other non-European OECD countries' traditions, the Europeans' sense of privacy automatically covered wealth privacy.  As the French penchant for the right to anonymous gold possession illustrates, in some cases this has even been focussed on material wealth.  And that's not surprising either, given "unequaled protection" and "anonymity" going as far as an officially recognized new name each foreigner, criminal or not, can still receive upon joining the French Foreign Legion (Michael Pollak, "Foreign Legion Wants You", International Herald Tribune", 3 April 2000).  Which, incidently, may make the Foreign Legion the world's most loyal practitioner of the state principles formulated centuries ago not least by Adam Smith and Whately, namely:

the state may legitimately impose financial or blood sacrifices on its citizens and foreigners - which may seek refuge on its territory for themselves and/or for their wealth - only "in return for the protection afforded by the Sovereign." (as quoted in The Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition, vol. XVII, 1989, p.679)

       Today - tellingly on fool's day - another outgrowth of lex americana universalis is being put into force by the Swiss Government.  Henceforce, in the all-purpose name of fighting drug crimes, money laundering and international terrorism, all "financial intermediaries", from hotel clerks to lawyers and bankers, will cease to be able to legally act as their client's confidants.  Instead, under threat of prison terms, they will be obliged to act as government agents, reporting any suspicious financial transactions to the Swiss authorities.  Readily available complete and up-dated records will have to be kept not only on "politically exposed persons" but on each client with significant transactions.  And visitors to and residents of Switzerland, in the event, will be requested to justify the origin of the funds involved in past and proposed financial dealings.

        Over the past decades, Swiss gullibility has brought us the practically unenforceable insider law and similar lowerings of the universally appreciated Swiss banking culture to the needs of often myopic hard ball-playing foreign office holders.  So much in fact that some months ago the Wall Street Journal expressed its dismay at these developments by asking whether Swiss banking services are still needed.  For some time then, it looked as if the Journal defended individual privacy and bank client secrecy more persistently than even some Swiss bankers, trade associations and politicians.

        Now, belately, some awakening on privacy matters is taking place.  On both sides of the Atlantic, government-directed privacy violations are touching off political groundswells.  Last year, a flood of over 200.000 letters and e-mails by American citizens forced the U.S. Government to withdraw its new "Know Your Customer" (KYC) rules that would have covered all banks and depository institutions.  It became the nucleus of a legislative drive to change the U.S. Bank Secrecy Act and do away with the "Suspicious Activities Reports" (SARs) and all other Big Brother infringements on wealth privacy.

        To be sure, the Government has not given up.  And it undoubtedly will continue to pursue its policies under whatever guise may sell best, politically.  Yet, things are no longer what they used to be until recently.  At the congressional hearings held last month on the proposed "International Counter-Money Laundering Act of 2000", U.S. lawmakers showed an unprecedented receptiveness for arguments in favor of financial privacy.  And chances are that they may not like what they see, once they will have taken a closer look at what's going on at the OECD where U.S. interests, too are undermined by stealthily introduced anti-liberty, anti-privacy and anti-market policies.

        On this side of the Atlantic, last February, the European Parliament held widely-reverberating hearings on Echelon, i.e. the satellite-based global surveillance system which controls practically all telephone, fax and e-mail communications anywhere anytime [see also the European Parliament Echelon Hearings Report at http://www.iptvreports.mcmail.com/stoa_cover.htm]. Under the leadership of U.S. intelligence services, Echelon is carried out in cooperation with Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.  So far, the explanations a former CIA director was called upon to furnish publicly did all but calm the outrage expressed among European citizens and politicians.

        Of course, the furor over large-scale electronic spying among allies may in part be artificial and serve primarily to hide still other aspects of the electronic espionage on the economic front which has intensified in the post-cold war period, particularly among allies.  Nevertheless, the sensitivities thus revealed on privacy matters by lawmakers on both sides of the Atlantic are seen to be significant.  They open up opportunities for corresponding institutional reforms in line with article 12 of the UN Declaration of Human Rights which specifies:

"No one shall be subject to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence ..."