In a draft statement, which will be completed and officially issued today, the European Union panel, charged with monitoring legal and privacy issues with SWIFT, said financial institutions across the bloc shared responsibility with SWIFT for the breach of European civil liberties.

The United States has defended the secret information transfer program, which began after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States. But critics in Europe argue that it placed the United States' security interests ahead of European norms of human rights.

A separate investigation by a Belgian privacy commission concluded in September that SWIFT had flouted European privacy rules, calling the disclosure of secret financial transfers "a gross miscalculation."

It would be nice if we played well with our "Neighbors"...