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Financial Responsibility == Terrorism?
An anonymous reader writes "Capital Hill Blue is reporting that recently a retired Texas schoolteacher and his wife had a little run in with the Department of Homeland Security. The crime? Paying down some debt. From the article: 'The balance on their JCPenney Platinum MasterCard had gotten to an unhealthy level. So they sent in a large payment, a check for $6,522. And an alarm went off. A red flag went up. The Soehnges' behavior was found questionable. [...] They were told, as they moved up the managerial ladder at the call center, that the amount they had sent in was much larger than their normal monthly payment. And if the increase hits a certain percentage higher than that normal payment, Homeland Security has to be notified.'"
Seriously, it's getting pretty bad. Everything you have to notify the government for.
When I was flying back from Europe, I had to fill out a form with who I was, and my home address, and an emergency contact (if I so wished).
They set it up like it's some sort of idea that all flights into the US require all US citizens to be recognized and accounted for, so that if it goes down? or something like that? that they can know for sure who was on board, and can start contacting people ahead of time?
The requirements for entering the US are so ridiculously more complex than any other country I've visited.
I am unamerican, and proud of it!
I am a consultant for a large national bank and just took this Money Laundering course. Wow, was it creepy. Yes, if you are a stupid crook you will get caught. If you are a normal human being you can get really nailed.
The weird bit about this class was the continual referece to getting to know you customer. Which is of course imposible. So they set out all these questions and senerios to help you "GUESS" if there was a problem.
This isn't even about terrorism, this is part of the War On Some Drugs. This is "Know Your Customer" from years ago, been going on over a decade in one form or another.
Any unexpected transaction these days gets the once over, any cash purchase over X gets reported to the FBI. (Last I heard, X was $10K) Buy a car with cash, get investigated. Walk into an airport with a sack of cash and it will simply be taken, no appeals, no trial, no recourse. Simply being in an airport with cash is a crime subject to asset forfeiture. Bitch too loud and they will simply arrest you along with the money. Been that way since the '80s.
Democrat delenda est
Perhaps the threshold is a percentile for the company...
In this case, I think a $6,000 payment to JC Penny (a department store) is quite unusual.
Now, to figure out who's laundering money through JC Penny...
The construction company where I work has never been asked to report five figure checks, and we get them all the time.
Bob Kerr's column is full of stories like this. Some are more believable than others. This one lacks substantiating evidence, and is pretty tough to believe without it. Since 9/11, I've made transactions like that, and I'm not even old and retired; I'm young and can barely make the payments on my raised ranch...I've never had this sort of problem.
Why would the company not post the transaction while they investigate? Wouldn't it make more sense to NOT alert "terrorists" that they're suspects?
I'd like to see some proof, so I'll know to be properly scared when I pay off credit cards.
Procrastination -- because good things come to those who wait.
I twice have purchased a new car at the dealer by writing a five-figure check for the full amount before driving away. I had no problems either time.
You wired the money... Two cars ago I paid for a nice car with cash. I had the money at hand, depositing checks from multiple accounts, only to have some clown try to charge me for a cashiers check and hassle me about when funds were ready (moving from accounts within the same bank) because they had to certify things. I was certified or at least fit to be tied - so I said fine - I'm not paying for a check, give it to me in cash. (for the record, my bride said it was a bad idea) I expected hassles from the bank, who delayed, had me fill out forms, and do a thumbprint.
The car dealership were the once that surprised me. Seems spending a healthy amount of cash for a car set off flags there as well. They asked if I could deposit the money and write a check! Several forms later, and a 'I told you so...' I had the car. Pre-war on Eurasia, so I suspect things are worse today.
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
In effect, if you don't want the government to observe you, and you act accordingly, that in itself will get you reported and can lead to you being charged with a crime. Thoughtcrime, indeed.
Nice article, and it goes into just enough detail to explain how the system works.
I think the summary is.
The person was informed that cash movement of over $10k has to be reported.
They then stop their normal legitimate pattern to avoid this reporting. In this case they were clearly trying to avoid the reporting system. They not only dropped most of their transactions below $10k, but also made deposits through an intermediary to avoid detection.
It would be similarly suspicious if someone went out of their way to use the store exit that didn't have the RFID tag sensors, but ONLY after being told that exit didn't have them.
I think you need to look up the definition of 'straw man'; I think that government access to financial records, which includes purcase records, mind you, was the topic.
Moreover, I hardly consider asking the government to abide by the Bill of Rights as an appeal to emotion, and I'd also think that suffices as a very concrete reason for being bothered. Nice try, though.
Of course, the person involved wasn't incarcerated, but they had to take time out of their normal daily lives to deal with overzealous law enforcement; that's potentially lost wages, a hell of a lot of stress, and a very big pile of resentment, because innocent people *really* *hate* being accused of a crime, and doubly so when the accusation is for an asinine reason.
More importantly, this guy did something small. Reeeeeeeeeeeally small. And he then had to justify his actions to law enforcement. What if he had done something only slightly more suspicious, like maybe paid off a few credit cards before nabbing some foreign currency for his upcoming vacation?
Now, here's the emotional part:
I am honestly scared every time I fly back into the U.S. I, personally, have never been mistreated by customs, but I've seen the harassment that more 'suspicious-looking' individuals have undergone, nevermind that I'm just as likely, if not more so, to be a terrorist as the Indian guy in line behind me.
I am really bothered that my countrymen see nothing wrong with ignoring the Constitution whenever convenient. That Americans like seeing all those new 'security measures' at the airport, nevermind that it means that I've got no choice but to check my bags in whenever I travel, because my nail clippers might be a 'deadly weapon of terrorism'. Of course, the wine bottle I've got on me is totally safe, and could never be used to hurt anyone...
More importantly, I'm really bothered that we pull stunts like this at home, along with the whole problem of not being able to run an election, while at the same time claiming abroad that we are 'champions of democracy and freedom'. People in other first-world countries don't hate Americans, but they certainly don't like our attitude when it comes to the soverignty of other countries.
I'm not saying that we're the worst, of course; the German government is very serious about making sure the Nazis never rise to power again, and I've had friends dragged in front of the police (German citizens) because they did something to tip off the Nazi-o-meter. But the Germans don't claim to be the 'Land of the Free', we do. Why don't we act like it?
Ok, end the emotional side of my rant.
--
I Hit the Karma Cap, and All I Got Was This Lousy
The reasoning behind this is because, generally, if you have that much debt, you do *not* have the means to pay it off. The reasoning continues that people deep in debt can get desperate--and indeed, they do. Many financial crimes have been born out of pure desperation.
Therefore, they generally reason that any time you suddenly have a large pile of cash, they want to know where you got it from (the implication being that you might have stolen, embezzeled, or acquired it from some other illegal activity).
But yeah, it's not exactly a good thing for your privacy. Even so, there are enough laws on the books that merely having too much *cash* is a bad thing. I think that you can be accused of drug trafficing or something silly for having more than $10k in cash, too, but IANAL and that may just be some random Internet rumour.
And the idiotic thing about this is if the retired Texan schoolteacher had actually been planning buying a truckload of fertilizer and diesel and driving it into a church/mosque/synagogue/abortion clinic; he would have been alerted that the feds were onto him and gone undergound; or accelerated his plan to get it done before he was caught. So as an anti-terrorism measure, it's counter-productive.
dude, i've been through this a couple of times with my bank.
I freelance as a consultant for film. I fell into the gig by accident: I'd written a film for a producer (I was writing movies on the side at the time - doing pharma research during the day) and he needed me to do the financials for the film as well. He thought the financials were thorough enough to recommend me to his (rich) friends who were also looking to invest in film. They'd hire me to evaluate projects both as a line producer as well as market analysis in terms of prospects, etc.
My first check from this endeavor was more money than I'd ever had at any single time. I was on set, so I had the money wired into the account.
While on set (out of the country) I tried using my atm card. No dice. I couldn't log into my online banking. When I got home and went to the bank, I got the suspicious "wait right here" while the CS person went and got a manager. I told them what it was from and that it was legit. They did a background check. My account was frozen for 30 days while they checked it out. I got a business account after that - but occasionally, credits to the account are routinely frozen, especially if I'm dealing with a new client who hasn't wired in anything before. Apparently, entertainment shell companies are a favored vehicle of money launderers.
Good times.
un burrito me trampeó.
(a) You show up at the bank with $15k,
(b) The teller asks you to fill out the CTR form,
(c) and you try to restructure your deposit to avoid the CTR requirement.
You *know* that some law like this had to be on the books to try to minimally enforce filing requirements.
If you don't like it, don't try to deposit all at once. Problem solved.
Human being (n.): A genetically human, genetically distinct, functioning organism.
My grandparents and parents were intensely aware of their privacy and its erosion. For their generations though a good deal of that was considered just a side-effect of social or scientific progress.
Microphones became more sensitive? Well, of course some jackass was going to use it to record you against your will, jackasses have been around and will be around.
The government specifically using and developing new technologies and techniques for spying on its own citizens? THAT was something to worry about... 1984, Fahrenheit 451, The Fountainhead, Anthem...
My great grandmother was interrogated by the SS for 12 hours on a rumor that she was a sympathizer to the bank president who had been turned in on suspicion of not being a good member of "the party" which later turned out to be entirely false and propogated by the local priest who was a toady to the Nazis and coveted the man's house. His reward for the "information" was of course the house but my great grandmother lost some of her good standing in the community and the president "disappeared".
Privacy matters to my family even if we haven't done anything illegal.
I just found out there's no such thing as the real world. It's just a lie you've got to rise above. - John Mayer
I figure I paid about $65 in extra interest charges over the 2 week hold period. But there are strict regulations on credit card payments. I recall reading regulations that they have to credit your account as of the postmarked date, if you send a check by mail, although they don't have to release your credit limit until they're sure the check cleared. This is to prevent them from grabbing more interest by kiting your check, or from zinging you with extra late fees while they hold your payment an arbitrary time. It seems to me the CC company violated this regulation in my case.
Howdy from a fellow West Virginian! I do know about WV and 4WD (since I own one too). But to keep this ontopic....
"AFAIK, that did not raise any red flags. If it had made trouble, I know the phone numbers of my senator and my reps and I have the freedom plan. Somewhat akin to saying I've got a shotgun and a shovel, any questions?"
That doesn't mean you weren't reported. All it means is that nothing came up to require further investigation. I used to work for DHS (FEMA before that and now I work with the State) and can verify that the "super spooks" in the law enforcement part of DHS are paranoid to the point of needing good drugs. You were checked but nothing tripped the "this is someone to watch" flags. What tripped it for this couple was the fact that it was a credit card they were paying and the way they paid it was "abnormal". What I want to see reported (but we will never know) is what ELSE tripped the further investigation. It isn't just one thing like this but usually a string of things out of the ordinary.
B.
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
These things are really bipartisan with 9/11 just advancing what would have slowly occurred over the next 20 years to occur within just a few. Prior to 9/11 and during the 90s they used things like "It is for the children", to pass laws like these. For example during the Clinton years we had the bipartisan "1996 Welfare Reform Act". What most Americans do not realize that Act created the single most invasion of every Americans privacy in history. (enacted long before 9/11). Due to the Welfare Reform Act every employer is required to report their employees (or face fines) to the new hires database. The new hires database is used to track where Americans citizens are working at all times in case they ever father or mother a child. Therefore the used for the purpose of locating you for lifestyle child support collection.
Just replace Anti-Soviet and Counter-Revolutionary with the word Terrorist and you'll get something that is uncannily similar to this:
* n.b. the abbreviations may not match up with the descriptions because they are acronyms for russian words.
The above list was taken from Solzhenitsyn's study on the Gulag. They were criminal codes (mainly Article 58) used by the soviets as reasons to send people the off to the Gulag. Note that the first two (ASA and KRD) were used very liberally, for example, some engineers were warning that a particular railway system was not going to work. They were slammed with KRD and tossed in the Gulag. Later on the system failed as they had warned. They were brought out to fix it but put back as soon in when it was done.
Perhaps Bin Laden had nothing to do with 9/11? This is quite the opposite of what most everyone seems to assume, but when the FBI's suspected suicidal hijackers start turning up alive after 9/11, I think we have to question their whole case:
1 51.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1559
And that is hardly the end of the problems with the official story of 9/11. There are plenty of sites that have raised legitimate issues with regards to the nature of the WTC building collapses (3 buildings suffered complete, symmetric collapses that resembled controlled demolitions) and the "failure" of the air-intercept system.
While the above may seem to be off-topic, consider what has been justified on the basis of the official story. Shouldn't we be a little more sceptical of this version of events, as it is often the justification for so much that goes on?
Isn't this just the bank's scaring policy to extend the debt period so the interest payments continue ? I understand the security aspect but I also understand that the bank may use that excuse for their own benefits. You might pay back next time half the sum. The other way around: if you are a terrorist is it easier to get a loan than to pay it off ? Must be cheaper if the terrorist act is a one way ticket to the next skyscraper.
"It's effectively illegal to leave your house without a government issued ID anymore. A friend of mine (a republican no less) was riding her bike during the 2004 RNC in New York City. She wasn't part of, or even close to the protests, but she looks "weird" she's young, she's not white, and she has tatoos. She ran a stopsign on her bike (pretty much standard practice for cyclists at 4-way stops) and got stopped by a cop. He would have let her go, but she didn't have an ID on her. As a result, she spent 18 hours sitting on a hard cement floor with her hands plastic-tied behind her, with no access to food, water, or legal counsel.
She never got her bike back, and her suit against the NYPD was thrown out of court, as apparently, they were acting 100% within the Patriot act."
lemme guess - land of the free right? not that the UK is much better.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
That part is straight forward, however, any customer who acts is a way which can be considered as suspicious also has to be reported.
What's suspicious, oh all sorts of things, there's a long list of actions which could be considered as possibly suspicious and the final things on the list is, of course, "Any other actions which could be considered suspicious". With a video showing a person who is acting nervous while looking as if he is trying to decide whether or not to transfer some money as a good example.
Keep in mind that not reporting any of these cases is considered a crime, for which the company could be heavily fined or even closed down and it's managers jailed. This of course results in the company reporting as many people as possible in order to escape from the bad side of this ill-defined law. Of course the Customs and Excise commision hardly ever follows up on any of these reports, but it does mean that if at some point some one decides to get you for money laundering, there are probably already more than enough reports made by nervous bankers to put you away for quite a while.
Quantum Physics a.k.a. sub-molecular statistics