I am lead counsel for the plaintiffs in Walker v. SWIFT, a class action lawsuit alleging violations of the Fourth Amendment and Right to Financial Privacy Act in connection with SWIFT's disclosure to the government of its entire database of financial records.
The case was filed a year ago after the program was publicly revealed. Despite the public confirmations, Bush and the DOJ have signaled that they are contemplating throwing a cloak of secrecy over the case and asking the courts to dismiss it because it "threatens to divulge highly classified information." IMO, this would be an abuse of the privilege since the matter has been publicly confirmed by the Secretary of the Treasury, Bush, Cheney, and other executive department officials.
Two months ago a federal judge in Chicago found that our case could continue and denied a defense motion to dismiss. The Chicago judge also transferred the case to Alexandria, VA. Last Friday, the judge in Alexandria heard a motion from the defense to basically reverse the findings of the Chicago judge and asked him to dismiss the case.
The hearing went well. I'll post again when the judge rules. Link to Times article and quotes after the jump.
Here are some quotes to Friday's New York Times article, which can be viewed in its entirety here:
http://www.nytimes.com/...
WASHINGTON, Aug. 30 — The Bush administration is signaling that it plans to turn again to a legal tool, the "state secrets" privilege, to try to stop a suit against a Belgian banking cooperative that secretly supplied millions of private financial records to the United States government, court documents show.
The Swift program, Mr. Schwarz said, "is an Orwellian example of government overreaching and unfettered access to private financial information that is not consistent with the values upon which our country was founded."