Unlike NSA Leaks, HSBC Leaks Actually Serve Public Interest -The iPINIONS Journal

I have written many commentaries denouncing Edward Snowden as more traitor than hero for leaking NSA secrets. Here are illustrative excerpts from two of them.

From “Judge Ruling on NSA Spying…,” December 18, 2013.

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I too would be championing Snowden’s professed cause if he had taken his treasure trove of NSA secrets to a reputable newspaper, like the New York Times or Washington Post, instead of entrusting it to a news hustler like the then-obscure lawyer/journalist/blogger [Glenn] Greenwald.

Recall that Snowden initially claimed his only mission was to inform the American people about the NSA’s surveillance activities. Well, with apologies to George W. Bush, he had just cause to declare ‘Mission Accomplished’ six months ago.

Moreover, rather than fleeing like a fugitive, Snowden could have become a confidential informant (like a latter-day Deep Throat), continued on with his seemingly idyllic life in Hawaii, and left it to his newspaper of choice to expose all of the secrets that are fit to print … in a manner that does not compromise national security.

Instead, this narcissistic, self-righteous, naive and self-appointed arbiter — not only of what metadata the government can collect, but also of what documents it can classify as top secret — conspired with Greenwald to make his face every bit as famous as his leaks. In the process he unwittingly (or wittingly) handed the ‘NSA’s crown jewels’ over to America’s two most-formidable adversaries, China and Russia, on a silver platter. No Chinese or Russian spy could ever have achieved such a feat – even in his wildest dream.

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From “Ignorance Prevails re NSA Spying and Snowden Leaking,” June 14, 2013.

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In this age of Google, Facebook, Twitter, and WikiLeaks people have developed the schizophrenic need not only to share everything about everything, but also to keep private everything they routinely share in every venue – from social networks to shopping malls. (TMI might as well stand for, Tell me … immediately!)

Alas, just as there’s no reconciling their schizophrenia, there’s no rationalizing their outrage over the NSA monitoring their promiscuous and indiscriminate footprints (online and via telephone).

For, evidently, these nincompoops think it’s okay for Google, Amazon, Yahoo, and others to spy on them to sell them stuff, but not okay for the NSA to do so to keep them safe. And don’t get me started on how they blithely give up truly sensitive personal information for the privilege and ease of buying stuff with credit cards, which makes the generic phone records the NSA collects seem even less intrusive than a traffic cop’s speed gun.

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Mind you, despite all of the media coverage, there was nothing illegal or unethical about any of the NSA activities Snowden revealed. What’s more, neither Snowden nor any of his supporters have ever cited a single case where the NSA used its surveillance techniques to violate the privacy rights of any law-abiding person … anywhere. (I noted – in such commentaries as “I Spy, You Spy, We All Spy,” July 2, 2013, and “Germans Exposed as Spying Hypocrites. Others Will Be Too…,” August 20, 2014 – how subsequent leaks about the surveillance activities of other intelligence agencies vindicated my initial take on Snowden’s NSA leaks.)

Now, by instructive contrast, I am proudly hailing Hervé Falciani as far more hero than traitor for leaking HSBC secrets.

HSBC’s Swiss banking arm helped wealthy customers dodge taxes and conceal millions of dollars of assets, doling out bundles of untraceable cash and advising clients on how to circumvent domestic tax authorities, according to a huge cache of leaked secret bank account files…

The HSBC files, which cover the period 2005-2007, amount to the biggest banking leak in history, shedding light on some 30,000 accounts holding almost $120bn (£78bn) of assets.

(The Guardian, February 8, 2015)

Unfortunately, like Snowden, Falciani undermined his noble cause by fleeing Switzerland and trying to peddle these files for a windfall. That cause, of course, is outing tax cheats from every corner of the earth who use Swiss banks to conceal their misdeeds.

Fortunately, as reported on Sunday’s edition of CBS’s 60 Minutes, even though he found refuge in France, Falciani found nobody willing to pay his price. So, by default, he ended up entrusting the files to the universally respected International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which includes reporters at Le Monde in Paris and the BBC in London.

In any event, the secrets in these files are just the latest revelations to make a mockery of Switzerland’s vaunted reputation as the neutral home to eminently trustworthy brokers of world peace, makers of expensive timepieces, and managers of secret bank accounts.

Here, for example, is how I commented years ago on leaks from pre-Falciani whistleblowers, which provided incriminating evidence for the U.S. Congress to hoist Switzerland’s biggest bank, UBS, up by its own petard:

Frankly, I’ve always been stupefied by the fact that Switzerland has been able to thrive in the international community by laundering cash from narco-traffickers, kleptomaniacs, and tax cheats, while countries like Columbia (during the 1980s) and Guinea-Bissau (today) have been condemned as narco-states.

(“U.S. Forcing Swiss to Give Up Its Hallowed Bank Secrecy Laws,” The iPINIONS Journal, August 20, 2009)

Mind you, despite the relative lack of media coverage, the public interest Falciani’s Swiss leaks serve is not limited to outing 100,000 private tax cheats, including celebrities like singer David Bowie, actress Joan Collins, and model Elle Macpherson. Never mind that even I am intrigued by the fact that thousands from 30 countries in the wider Caribbean are being outed by the ICIJ’s February 8 repot; not least 202 HSBC customers in The Bahamas, my place of birth, who hold secret bank accounts totaling $7 billion.

But his leaks also implicate a fair number of politicians, including the late Jean Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier of Haiti, the late Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, Bashir al-Assad of Syria, and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt. Which is very incriminating, of course, because secret bank accounts in their case are as probative of theft of public funds as videotapes of politicians hauling away cash directly from national banks.

This is not the forum to delve too deeply into what these leaks portend for politicians. Especially considering the greater worry that, if past leaks are prologue, very few, if any, of these tax cheats will ever be criminally prosecuted … as all of them should.

But it would be remiss of me not to mention how similar leaks have made a mockery of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s carefully crafted reputation as a public servant of very modest means (and desires).

For example, reports based on pre-Falciani leaks gave me cause to comment here:

It should have come as no surprise when Bloomberg published a September 17, 2013 report headlined, ‘Vladimir Putin, the Richest Man on Earth’ – with an estimated fortune of $40-60 billion. And bear in mind that he comes from peasant stock and has never held a non-government job in his life.

(“Ukraine’s Never-Ending Europe Spring,” The iPINIONS Journal, December 3, 2013)

Similar reports followed, here:

Two associates of President Vladimir Putin profited from a state scheme to buy expensive medical equipment – and sent money to Swiss bank accounts linked to a property known as ‘Putin’s palace.’

(Reuters Investigates, May 21, 2014)

And most recently here:

Drawing on firsthand accounts from exiled Russian business tycoons, writers and politicians, as well as the exhaustive research of scholar and best-selling Putin’s Kleptocracy author Karen Dawisha, the film examines troubling episodes in Putin’s past, from alleged money-laundering activities and ties to organized crime, to a secret personal fortune said to be in the billions.

(“Putin’s Way,” PBS Frontline, January 7, 2015)

This is why hailing a despot like Vladimir Putin as the most powerful politician in the world makes about as much sense as hailing a drug lord like Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán as the most powerful businessman. But I digress.

The point is that, with all due respect to Swiss chocolatiers (and watchmakers), Falciani’s leaks reveal that Switzerland is becoming as known for bankers who facilitate financial frauds as Columbia is for dealers who manufacture illegal drugs.

But at least Columbia appears to be mending its ways, which is far more than I can say for Switzerland. Frankly, helping rich people cheat tax collectors seems rather fitting for Swiss bankers. After all, they sealed their secret reputation for skullduggery by helping German Nazis expropriate the wealth of Jews they planned to exterminate.

Silly me, I thought they repented from their wicked-banking ways over a decade ago. The leaks back then exposed the way officials at UBS shredded documents pursuant to a scheme to deny legitimate claims by Holocaust survivors to their old bank accounts. This landed Swiss bankers in the hot seat before the U.S. Congress, where they not only promised to make restitution but professed unqualified repentance to boot.

I duly commented, betraying naïve hope, in “The Belated Conversion of Hitler’s Swiss Bankers,” April 25, 2005.

Here is an excerpt.

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Investigators revealed that – to ingratiate themselves with their preferred Nazi customers – Swiss bankers routinely violated the terms of accounts held by Jews by simply informing them, “The situation has changed.” The bankers then ‘aryanized’ those accounts by selling them to Nazi sympathizers at a fraction of their value. No doubt records of these fraudulent transactions (among others) are what the bankers were shredding so anxiously.

Exposed as Nazi collaborators, institutional fraudsters and congenital liars, the Swiss settled with the U.S. government and World Jewish Congress. The terms, in part, called for the Swiss to establish a $1.25 billion fund to compensate all Holocaust survivors. The global significance of this concession, however, cannot be overstated. Because it not only indicted Switzerland’s banking practices but also shattered its carefully cultivated acclaim of being a safe-harbor (of neutrality) as war raged in Europe during WWII.

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Meanwhile, it’s hardly surprising that the Swiss government now considers Falciani as much of a traitor as the U.S. government considers Snowden. It is disappointing, though, that the international media are according Falciani’s leaks only a fraction of the notoriety they accorded Snowden’s. Granted, Snowden’s leaks garner about as much media coverage these days as a Julian Assange press conference. (Exactly.)

In any case, I maintain that a whistleblower like Falciani, whose leaks expose illegal banking activities on a global scale, is far more worthy of praise than a blowhard like Snowden, whose leaks did little more than compromise the ability of law-enforcement officials to prevent terrorist attacks.