Mr David Bickford, the first British intelligence lawyer to speak publicly in the UK, said at a conference in Cambridge, 50 miles north-east of London, that there "appears to be no justification at all for offshore bank secrecy other than to protect the criminal".

Apart from tehe confidentiality of the customer, bank, all those they trade with and all other interested parties, well then, they can`t be that important can they

He said "offshore bank secrecy can and must be abolished" and "the UK should be the first to abolish this secrecy given their control of their dependent territory offshore centres".

So because we choose to maintain a statist and totalitarian empire we had better set an example of how to do it to the rest of the world???

Mr Bickford, who now runs an international legal consultancy, said "endemic corruption" is caused by offshore secrecy, and it is "difficult to see why it is tolerated by any other than those with an unlawful disposition".

It is also diffult to see why I don`t go round to mr. Bickfords house and kill him, his dog, and his pet hamster, but I don`t, nor do I intend to, to say that we cannot see a reason for people wanting privacy is no justification for legislation that prohibits such privacy. <for any spook agencies etc. reading the above, it is NOT a death threat, it is a sarcastic comment>

He said allowing countries to maintain offshore banking secrecy is "a classic example of the corruptive influence of organised crime".

It is a classic example of privacy and freedom in a free society (not that I believe Britain falls into this category) Has anyone got this guys IQ, it`s probably the first ever negative IQ in the history of the world, cheer everyone, its a historic find. Mr. Bickford, I believe you to be a fuckwit, feel free to prove me wrong.. Datacomms Technologies web authoring and data security Paul Bradley, Paul@fatmans.demon.co.uk Http://www.fatmans.demon.co.uk/crypt/ "Don`t forget to mount a scratch monkey" -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.6 mQCNAjH9j+cAAAEEAMBvREiQR0ot9dFCO0TiSCSunAYLv2g1Bc6I3bz8FzKXNH53 6mieJf/W4rD+CxJpT0q9RQaaoRtkHJLwbjfK2il3D7mEahMAyqvF/xRJNqkXfhM3 sRJM0Jh43l+W0M5vwokbEbk25/bxWWGspTsLD3YHbzKnG6pOcL5OPIRbv66xAAUR tCdQYXVsIEJyYWRsZXkgPHBhdWxAZmF0bWFucy5kZW1vbi5jby51az4= =riHc -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----