Global surveillance-for whose benefit?

• Author: Terry Dwyer
• Position: Australian National University
• Pages: 2

Page 2

"Assessing Offshore Financial Centers" (September 2003), seems to imply that bodies like the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), and the IMF have a right to exercise "surveillance" over smaller or less developed countries. Why? For whom? Are there hidden agendas? Why should a developing country seeking to attract capital force its citizens to become unpaid informants for, say, European tax collectors? There is no moral or legal rhyme or reason to much national tax or economic legislation. There is a huge moral (and, usually, legal) difference between evils like terrorism and prolix regulations on tax, foreign exchange, or stock markets. No sovereign country should help enforce...