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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.'"
This isn't surprising. I work for a regional bank. Every employee is required to undergo training to know "what to look for". Doesn't matter if you are a teller, or a computer help desk operator. Anything over a certain dollar limit must be reported. As time goes on, the threshold has lowered. Pay off your house early? Gets reported. Large deposit? gets recorded. And anything overseas gets more scrutiny than J-Lo's panty lines.
The training creeped me out. the uber-patriotic person assigned to train our group was so into it. 3/4 of our group thought it was great... bringing down meth dealers who weren't smart enough to structure their money better. In fact, however, structuring is a crime as well... Go just below the radar one too many times, and you can be charged, eevn if there is no illegal activity behind the generation of money.
And, I would be wise to post AC (I won't, so this message might get more credibility) as advising someone how to avoid setting off the bells and whistles is a crime too.
We don't live in 1984, but we might be at 1983...
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
I have no idea why a much larger than normal payment would trigger red flags for suspicious behavior. But then, I'm not responsible for Homeland Security.
From the article:
The flags were cleared, they didn't lose money, they don't live under a cloud of suspicion.
Until or unless we know what behaviors might be red flags for suspicious possibly terrorism-related activity, this story is mildly interesting at best.
The headline for this article is misleading at best: "Financial Responsibility == Terrorism". Noone was accused of terrorism. And, writing a check for $6500 on a credit card sounds to me like typical financial matters, but maybe not "responsible", i.e., we have no idea if they were running large balances against no income, etc. (As a matter of fact, they say in the article they were making this payment because their balance "had gotten to an unhealthy level".
As for unusual financial transactions raising flags, this is not new as reflected in one of the posts in the referenced article:
Of course, I'm sacrificing karma to take the unpopular view.
So....it's a sign of impending terrorism to decide to pay down your debt? Smooth move, guys. Wouldn't suicide terrorists get a card, and max it out - knowing that they will never have to pay it off?
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!
Is there another source for this information? Quoting from CHB tells us more about the submitter and the submitter's reading habits than anything factual about the story.
And Bin Laden is still free.
Isin't that funny you can be freer in Afghanistan than in the US.
Everyone on /. send me a dollar. I will apply it to one of my credit cards and then we will see how quickly the FBI shows up. I don't mind taking the hit. So as soon as I collect a dollar from everyone I will make the payment. Not a problem. Glad to do it. It's all for the experiment.
Given that the United States is supposed to involve government by "the people", it always amazes me that "the people" choose to subject themselves to so much pointless bureaucracy.
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.
Large financial transactions are monitored. They always have been. However, the threshold of "what's interesting" to the government has been lowered. Do I think this particular instance makes sense? Of course not. The government is simply trying to track "large" movements of cash that are outside of the mainstream to catch money laundering. I had a similar experience recently when I bought a new car and paid cash (recently inherited some $$$). Do I find it annoying? Yes. However, I also find it a necessary nuissance to help keep smugglers and criminals from easily moving money around through our banking system.
If you've got a better solution, I'd love to hear it.
This has absolutely nothing to do with terrorism, and it's been around for quite a while. The purpose is to catch drug dealers. Whether that's an appropriate thing for the government to be putting so much effort into or not is another matter.
This article is sickening. I understand that there is a need for watching large amounts of money that trade hands, but c'mon, we're now starting to scrutinize people who work to pay off their debts? If they're tracking us enough that they know on average how much we pay on credit cards per month, you'd think that the (insert government/corporate monicker here) would have an idea that people would like to get out of high-interest credit cards.
Personally I think this sounds like a poorly-shrouded excuse for this credit card company (among others?) to scrutinize their customer's finances and try to intimidate them into staying in debt for longer periods of time. Sickening IMHO.
As long as there is a Second Amendment, there will always be a First Amendment.
For a government that is deep in the pocket of credit card companies, the bankruptcy bill was the first step....
Intimidating people who pay off their debt early is the next step.
After that... jail time?
"The requirements for entering the US are so ridiculously more complex than any other country I've visited."
And yet the illegal immigrants keep coming.
I've payed my tuition on my credit card a few times (almost $5,000) and paid it off the next day. No interest, no fees... just 1% cash back!
Though, I suppose JCPenny is more... terrorist friendly??
Clearly what every patriotic and nationalistic citizen should do is maintain a large debt, so that they can send their monthly interest donation to the good credit company. It's honest companies like this that hold the world together, and we should support them!!
Seriously though - I wonder who has to pay the interest on that $6,522 between when they sent it, and when it was finally cleared to be put in their account... Actually, I don't wonder at all.
The original article came from the Providence Journal via Scripps Howard.
Have to stop paying the bills – otherwise they'll think I'm a terrorist!
Creative misinterpretation is your friend.
My question is...how exactly would this identify terrorists - who are, presumably, the people that a filter like this would be intended to identify? I can certainly understand that unprecedented financial behavior can, in a very small percentages of cases, indicate illegal behavior (drug dealing, primarily), but how is this within the scope of the jurisdiction of Homeland Security? Don't we have the DEA and IRS for things like that?
It frightens me that the Department of Homeland Security has become the bohemoth it has, and it seems to me that it will, in short order, become the beaurocracy that it was intended to improve upon. Frankly, I hope that will be the case, as the alternatives are frightening; beurocracy was built into the constitution, specifically to limit the powers of the federal government.
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. - Albert Einstein
Although it is definitely misapplied in this case.
Here's how you can use a credit card to launder money:
1. Sign up for a credit card.
2. Charge a few things on it, say, $100.
3. Send in a check to pay your credit card bill. Say $5000.
4. When you "find out" you overpaid, request a refund.
I know, this sounds like a pretty crappy money laundering scheme. And it is. But enough people have done it that banks have to look out for it. So when you overpay your bill by too much, alarms go off.
Other things that set alarms off:
1. Cash deposits over $600 (I may be slightly off on this amount, can't remember off the top of my head)
2. Many cash deposits slightly under $600 (seemingly to dodge the $600 alarm)
There's other stuff that will do it too. Can't remember them at the moment though.
There are two possible reasons that I can personally think of.
Basically, anything sudden is a big red flag to the DHS, and other authorities. Most people don't do sudden stuff like suddenly pay off ~$6,500 of their credit card debt in one payment. It's unusual, and also carries a significant enough amount of a question as to intent that the action was done, that the rarity of investigating it, is outweighed by the potential gain if it catches just one terrorist, or "domestic perpetrator of violence".
I am unamerican, and proud of it!
Pull the $6,600 back out. If they complain, say you tried, they didn't want it. If only the world could work that way. They call Homelan security if you do pay, they call the FBI if you don't.
Aside from the massive privacy implications that concern us all, it's not that ridiculous to be suspicious of someone suddenly paying off a large amount of their bills, especially if there's nothing in their history to suggest that they'd be able to. Honestly, large cash influxes to do so often mean promotions at work, winning the lottery, etc., but they also can be a sign of a whole host of unsavory sources of income -- domestic drug dealing, acting as an agent/mule to the international drug trade, prostitution, gambling, spying, etc.
Whether we like to admit it or not, money is a primary motivating force behind questionable activity. Money, sex, drugs, and ideology are pretty much the big four. Whenever there's a red flag in those areas, it's reasonable to think what's going on might be suspicious. Whether or not that warrants being formally investigated is another point entirely, but you can't deny that someone who only pays off a small amount of their bills suddenly having the ability to pay off $6000+ looks suspicious at least on paper.
From the article:
Eventually, his and his wife's money was freed up.
The flags were cleared, they didn't lose money, they don't live under a cloud of suspicion.
Oh, that's quite okay then. I guess it's fine to confiscate people's money as long as you give it back in the end (I hope they got paid it back with interest, otherwise they did lose money), and there's no problem with investigating people for entirely spurious reasons as long as you don't cause them too much mental anguish while you're busy accusing them of acting like terrorists.
Big Brother is watching you, but don't worry, he's a very kind big brother and he won't torture you if you haven't done anything naughty!*
* Unless you look kind of foreign.
And, writing a check for $6500 on a credit card sounds to me like typical financial matters, but maybe not "responsible", i.e., we have no idea if they were running large balances against no income, etc. (As a matter of fact, they say in the article they were making this payment because their balance "had gotten to an unhealthy level".
And? That's between them and their bank. If they're running large balances against no income, their bank would be unwise to continue to lend them money, and should consider requiring security for any further loans. I fail to see where homeland security comes into it.
As for unusual financial transactions raising flags, this is not new as reflected in one of the posts in the referenced article:
This kind of spying isn't new. I bought a vehicle in 1990 and wrote a check for it. The dealer had to record where I got the money because "the IRS wants to know the source of any payment in excess of a certain dollar amount."
Again, that makes sense. The IRS clearly needs to keep track of large money transfers. The American people have generally accepted the idea of federal taxes, and as such accept that a federal tax agency needs to know who has what money so they can be taxed correctly (and punished if they're not paying their fair share). Homeland security doesn't come into it.
Even if you take the line that large payments might be a sign of money-laundering going on, surely money-laundering is the FBI's remit, not the Secret Police^W^WHomeland Security?
America - still more free than North Korea!
Capitol Hill Blue is never very reliable, this is the same place that claims to have 'classified reports' from the US Secret Service saying that Cheney was in fact drunk when he accidentally shot Mr. Magoo. While that is still up for debate, if said reports do exists one would think that they would have been better publicized?
Link Here
So why is homeland security investigating this then? Why not IRS, or even the FBI. Why homeland security?
evil is as evil does
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
I have no idea why a much larger than normal payment would trigger red flags for suspicious behavior.
The question is what did you do to get all this extra money? Did you commit a crime? Or did someone of disrepute give you the money to launder?
The purpose of these laws is to make a big stack of cash relatively useless. That helps make stealing or otherwise illegitimately "earning" a big stack of cash less inviting. Sure, you can steal a million dollars, but then you can't do anything with it.
Yes, but the point is the government organization receiving these reports is HOMELAND SECURITY. In other words, that which everyone predicted has happened. Homeland Security is now handling day-to-day law enforcement -- but, unlike, say, your local PD or the FBI, Homeland Security doesn't answer to anyone. Homeland Security can literally do ANYTHING and you have no recourse.
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PGP Key ID 0xCB8FF658
I get it... terrorists buy bomb making equipment on their credit cards... then to have a "clear conscience" afterwards, pay their credit card off before blowing themselves up!
Give the DHS a Nobel prize... pure stroke of genius!
But seriously, why would terrorists be using credit cards (which already leaves a paper trail) and not cash, secondly, if you were a terrorist, why pay off the debt?
Excuses Are Like Assholes - Everybody's Got One
How will the economy function if the credit department can't count on 25% interest on that ^$6500 they are owed? Those people are hurting the economy by taking charge of their debt load!
Oh You POS
You mean these people are not loading more debt (Oh my bad..."leveraging Other People's Money") onto their JC Penney's card to do their patriotic duty of financing a new plasma big screen at 27% interest? It's is every American's duty to conform to the purchase requirement of their individual Urban Pacification Device, tuned to the channels provided by Comcast Corporation.
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
track people being financially responseable in order to catch terrorists. Because all know that while Jesus/Allah/ Budda (I love you all) excusee mass murder, they never forgive credit card debt.
run for something, I'll vote for you. (because I have no mod points)
Forget targeting people trying to get out of their credit card mess...Homeland Security should to be looking for the large cash deposits and not legitimate transactions where there is an obvious paper trail.
I think the Rule up here in Canada is any cash over $10,000.00 is reportable.
I guess I'm going to be screwed this month. I purchased a Mac Mini (PowerPC) a month ago with a student discount, made a double payment of $32 on the first statement that I got, and I paid off the balance of $851 when I got my tax return this week. I guess the FBI will be staking out my apartment now. Worst... the Mac Mini doesn't do a good job crunching the numbers for my nuclear weapon design -- uh, class project.
Enron dumped hundreds of millions of dollars off-shore and the government never suspected a thing.
These people pay off $6K of debt and they're investigated and you support that.Yeah, it's called "Freedom".
Sometimes it means that the criminals get away, but that's part of the price of Freedom.
Since I haven't paid anything in the last few months, anything I put in above $0 would be an infinite percentage increase over the last few months. How am I supposed to get started paying that off?
Ooookay, let's think this out. You're Joe Creditcardbanker, and you get a payment from Mr. Citizen for $6500. You screw up a little and neglect to credit it promptly. Now Mr. Citizen calls, angry. WTF? Where's my payment, dude? You've got two choices, Joe:
(1) Uh...I messed up, Mr. Citizen. Sorry! Please don't sue us!
(2) Not my fault, Mr. Citizen! You should see the forms the gummint makes us fill out when this happens! Blame Homeland Security! Blame Bush! Osama! Lions and tiger and bears, oh my! Come to think of it, you're gosh-darn lucky we managed to credit you at all...
In other words, let us take due note of Hanlon's Axiom: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
>I have no idea why a much larger than normal payment would trigger red flags for suspicious behavior.
You don't ? How about this: A sudden inflow of money in the market, disrupting economy, causing inflation and mass panic ?
Or: Is there something better than money to spread anthrax ? The more money circulating, the easier to spread anthrax.
I started to post the amount that constitutes a red flag. It isn't much and the fact that the amount is a secret is even more ludicrous. But, then I started to question whether I felt up to challenging the PATRIOT Act by disclosing this information and... I chickened out.
I guess it works! We're all fucked!
I just got a loan to consolidate my debt. I'll be paying $20k worth of credit card debt in the next couple days. Each card will probably send up a red flag since all Ive been paying lately is just the minimums.
If they show up, I'm going to fight them- to whatever end. Somehow, I doubt they will though.. just a hunch.
So why is homeland security investigating this then? Why not IRS, or even the FBI. Why homeland security?
Because they're the new shiney branch of the executive branch with the money to actually look into these sorts of things.
Also, correct me if I'm wrong (anyone) but I believe that the FBI is now a part of the DHS.
I am unamerican, and proud of it!
Of course, I'm sacrificing karma to take the unpopular view.
You crazy sonuvagun.
The FBI is part of Homeland Security now. The IRS will be soon.
>
>And Bin Laden is still free.
He hates us for our freedom. All this means is that he's got less and less reason to hate us every day!
So let me get this straigt... If I don't pay my bills, my credit goes to crap and I become a deadbeat. If I do pay my bills, I'm a terrorist.
If I pay for items using cash, it is assumed I am a terrorist. If I pay for items using a check, the Ministry of Homeland Defence will question me for being either a terrorist or criminal. If I pay with credit, Chase (or whatever other company my credit cards go though) will break my legs with interest, plus the same penalties for non-payment or payment of bills.
WTF???
Navicula hydraulica plena anguilarum est. Omnes castelli tuus nostri sunt. Ed elli avea del cul fatto trombetta.
They're coming after you, now.
The purpose of the plan is not to catch drug dealers. That's goverment doublespeak. In reality, the reason we call drug dealing a federal crime is so we can `rationalize' such liberty-encroaching plans.
Eventually, his and his wife's money was freed up.
Enough said.
I don't see how this relates to terrorism at all, and my guess is that is doesn't relate. The government has always flagged large, unusual transactions of money. Mainly, they want to keep on the lookout for illegal income (drugs, etc,) and they also want to make sure that you paid taxes on any unexpected income. If someone who is has been collecting unemployment for the last 6 months suddenly pays off a $15000 debt or buys a new car with cash up front, chances are something illegal is going on. And if you happen to win $15000 on a trip to Vegas and you come home and put it in the bank, the government wants to make sure that you pay taxes on it.
Like I said, I doubt that this is really terrorism-related. It's more likely that this is another example of the government using their extended terrorism-fighting powers to fight regular crime instead.
it is *not* the business of the government. yes, you are 100% right - the couple in TFA are not under a cloud of suspicion, and their payment eventually went through
however, homeland security goons are familliar with some of the intimate details of their finances, and the just makes me feel icky
"it's not that ridiculous to be suspicious of someone suddenly paying off a large amount of their bills, especially if there's nothing in their history to suggest that they'd be able to"
So why would I loan you anything if there was no hope of paying it off?
Of course, your post will get you mod points from the anti-Bush
Yes, we can't have anybody questioning the motives of the great American shepherd "Dubya" now can we.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
Oh gee, I wonder what they'll come up with next?
CHB is a rag. It's complete trash and they've been known to ouright fabricate stories and sources. If it's got CHB behind it I don't even trust the people mentioned in the story actually exist.
Don't stop at this story if you doubt it. Click over a few and be amazed... these folks well and truly do make FOX look "fair and balanced" - emphasis on the "balance" part.
As for unusual financial transactions raising flags, this is not new
For the uninitiated, the law under which this was done is the Bank Secrecy Act in 1970. It was recently rolled up into the USAPATRIOT act, which "updated" it to account for the new ills of society.
The DHS isn't just about terrorism. It covers other aspects related to this story.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
The real story here is that the Department of Homeland Security is also responsible for credit fraud. One of the scams people pull is to steal a number, write a bogus check to the credit card company for that card (which guarantees the credit will be there), and then spend the amount that was written on the check before the check is cashed (and detected as bogus).
The auto-trip flag for this is that when a large payment comes in that's many multiples of the payee's normal history, the credit card company will hold the payment until the check clears, which is within 10 days at the outside.
In other words, this has nothing to do with terrorism, the fascist Bush regime, the gestapo at DHS, or any other Orwellian fantasy you can cook up. It's an arguably poor fraud prevention measure, nothing more.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
It sneaks up on you. Many, many years ago, I opened a bank account; nobody asked what I did for a living, nobody asked where the money came from. Several years ago, my wife and I got a small safety deposit box for wedding/engagement ring storage, and the questions went on and on, esp. regarding my wife's self-employed status. Now I read a story about folks paying off a credit card debt that they could afford to pay off, and having their assets frozen. In a few years, will I go into the bank attempting to transfer funds between accounts, only to find everything frozen while they do a background check?
I predict that wall safes and such are going to come back in style one of these days, and (esp. considering interest rates on accounts being negligible) bank accounts are going to be the place exclusively for money that's moving, not money that's being saved.
I periodically pay off previously accumlated debt when I get company bonuses, etc. I've done what they did at least 5 times in the past 5 years and never once heard from DHS. I suspect there is more to their story than they are providing. Don't forget that the card issuer, as well as DHS, is prevented from telling their side of the story due to privacy concerns.
I had a real hassle when I bought my house. I told the mortgage about a bunch, but not all, of my accounts. When I went to pay the down-payment, I took the money out of somewhere else. It became a major hassle; they insisted I had to take the money from an account I had previously told them about.
I ended up taking an early-withdrawl penalty on a CD so I could do that.
All that energy to BOO something that wasn't ment to be a correction while ignoring the post that was attached to it.
Look AC, I was raised in New Mexico, where parts of it you have to cross border control points to get further into the United States.
Frankly, I've seen the impact of illegal immigrants into an area, and it just. ain't. that big of a deal to me. Frankly, I could give a shit if you don't like illegal immigrants, or you don't like that they're still coming.
I neglected the post's content entirely just because it was uninteresting and a stupid and useless topic to me. I've lived in areas of high illegal-immigrant population, and it just doesn't bother me like it does all the racist bigots.
I am unamerican, and proud of it!
Funny you mention Waco. Just last weekend I was talking to one of the neighbors of the Dividian compound. Not members. Neighbors. Their telling of the story is that other than some target practice, which is a common activity in the area, the Dividians were a quite group that didn't bother anyone. Per their telling, some neighbors go annoid with the noise from target practice, and called the cops. The Sherrifs went out, and had the whole thing sorted out well before the Feds showed up. The guns they had were legally purchased and delivered via FedEx.
Based on this, and what I saw on the news, sometimes when you are not doing anything wrong, you DO have something to worry about.
Actually, this seems to be the arguement. But in reality the organized crime that not so surprisingly infests a good portion of the commerce in this country has ways to deal (think: someone on the payroll + proper response strategy to launder the ill-gotten goods) with these kinds of problems... it's just the small-timers that are caught.
In the end it's our freedoms that are trampled on, and those are going to be hard, if impossible to ever win back... especially since now, anything related to "terrorism" has effectively no oversight or appeal.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
What a load of crap. The US claims to have frozen most of Bin Laden's assets and cut him off from any money he had. It's very unlikely that his money is helping him much. That is, at least, if you believe the US government.
I'm a bit skeptical that Homeland Security really requires this info. If it does, certainly the company can give the specific part of the law that requires it. Several companies have been caught requesting extra personal information "as required by the Patriot Act". When pressed, they were unable to show how the PA applied and had to back down. The patriot act make a very useful cudgel for getting customers to do what you want.
The whole DHS thing is farcical and "keystone kops" esque to me. They're so bumbling and fumbling and catching innocent American citizens for the crimes of people who came to this country to perpetrate evil. They had more than enough info on the 20, I don't understand why innocents have to pay for their ineptitude with more scrutiny and even worse ineptitude. Terrorism is the new communism. You can say anything if it's "to fight terra". If you pay off your debt, then the terrists win.
I hate sigs.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
I wonder what being flagged means. Would their phone calls to other countries start getting monitored? This is the sort of thing that people should be using as an argument against wiretaps without a proper warrant.
I had to fill out all these forms to tell them how much money I made last year. I had to tell them all sorts of other information. If that's not an invasion of privacy, I don't know what is.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
My program printed "false".
Someone looks into your car at night, then looks around as if to see if anyone's watching. Criminal? No. Suspicious behavior? Yes. Worth monitoring? Yes. Person guilty of anything damaging? No. If you can't act on probable actions, you can't do anything to prevent a crime. As long as you use suspicious behavior as a hint of possible plans, rather than evidence of wrongdoing. Problem is I know a lot of people who only look for confirming evidence and ignore all disconfirming evidence.
First, last year, I went into the bank and handed them a check for $10K. The year before, same thing, but paid off the other credit card. Paid off my one remaining crdit card this year, put the rest in savings, then took out a new car loan. Now today, my income tax return check came in and I have to deposit that ($3K). They are going to wonder what is going on......
Seriously, they didn't even ask questions. Of course, I have been a customer at this bank for 25+ years now.
He hates us for our freedom.
No, that's what the US government WANTS you to think. Try escaping from what you've been brainwashed into believing for a moment and think rationally about whether all of the thousands of "terrorists" are all so crazy that they just have a simple hatred of freedom, or want to kill you (and themselves, in the process) just because they're jealous of "your freedom".
"Terrorists" (aka "freedom fighters", when they're not fighting the US) are not crazy. Typically, they're well-educated and fairly well-off. Most of the "terrorist attacks" in the past couple of decades have been motivated by the foreign occupation of a country where there are religious differences between the occupiers and the people that live in that country.
I bet that if Iraq were to occupy the US for even a single day, you'd see ten times as many attacks on Iraqi occupiers by Americans than you would see on a bad day in Baghdad. No country likes being invaded. Treat others as you want to be treated.
Keep your eyes to the sky.
One of the ways that they catch spies who've started selling secrets to foreign governments is by identifying if they are "living beyond their means." Even so, one would imagine that $7K wouldn't set off that alarm. That's a lucky streak in Vegas.
A down payment on a new home is more the magnitude that I would be thinking.
While the original sources of this story aren't the most reliable in the world, it's likely that there's some truth to it. There's a reasonable discussion at http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/03/the_ terrorist_t.html . Essentially, cash transactions over $10K have always been monitored, but now financial institutions other than banks have to do analogous reporting. And DHS has nothing to do with it; it's FinCEN, which is part of the Treasury Department. The fact that the person in question triggered such an inquiry at $6500 is probably due to the wide latitude that the regulations give to financial institutions to implement the reporting requirements.
A friend of mine used to be a vice president at a big tech firm. He lived in CA. The company he worked for eventually went under and he went looking for a new job. No matter how overqualified he was though, he couldnt get another job. Finally one of his interviewers told him why. A few years back he had gotten a bill for a hit and run in NY. He hadnt been there that day, and it was physically impossible for him to have done it, but someone had "seen" his license plate. His lawyer told him that it was better to pay the $75 dollars than to pay him 600 or 700 to go out and fight it for him. So he paid the bill. Then, a few months before the company, which was involved in some defense projects, he got into an arguement with his neighbor, and ended up in a shouting match at the bottom of his driveway. About a week later the guy died of natural causes. When his company went under, everyone had a security check done on them by the Office of Homeland Security, without their knowing about it. This report was available to any company that he applied at for a job. In it, it said that he had committed a hit and run, and that after a loud and violent arguement with a neighbor, the man died. That was why he wasnt able to get a job. That was about 2 years ago now, and he still hasnt gotten a job. Innocent until proven guilty? Bullshit.
I paid of 3 off my credit cards totalling over $10K last year!!
Your comment is assinine and has nothing to do with TFA.
First, this was six thousand dollars... not exactly inflation causing, eh?
Second, this was a single check mailed to a single creditor. One could just as easily send an envelope full of IRRATIONAL_FEAR to whomever they wanted to with out attaching a monetary device to it.
Along similar but perhaps sillier lines, I contacted freescale semiconductor with a question about how to handle a particular floating point error in a PowerPC processor. I received an interesting email stating: "Unfortunately at this time due to the Transactions Regulations (31CFR560) administered by the US Office of Foreign Asset Control we not able to respond to your inquiry" I was stunned!, I live in Australia, a supposed ally of the USA in the war in Iraq (though much of the populace does not support it) However when I got to the bottom of it, I had accidentally entered my country of residence in the log-in profile as 'Afganistan' instead of 'Australia' Obviously, we can't have terrorists knowing about how to handle a floating point error can we!! Anyway, once I changed my profile to 'Australia' all was good. Glad most terrorists wouldnt think of doing that... John
Just to put things into perspective, you have a greater chance of being killed or injured by your own car than you do suffering death or injury from a terrorist attack.
/.
Which is why you need a driver's license, are required to wear seat belts, can't drive before a certain age, and have to drive a vehicle that meets government safety standards. It's also why you're required to have regular inspections, and why you can be pulled over and ticketed for driving with faulty equipment, or arrested and jailed for driving under the influence or even just recklessly.
In other words, not a good example to support your argument. (Which I basically agree with otherwise.)
But this all misses the point. Where is the rest of this story? All we know from this article, factually (or at least according to these people, who may or may not be telling the truth), is that one is a retired schoolteacher and they were contacted by homeland security because of a large payment they made. We also know that this guy has a lot of anger towards the government that may or may not have been caused by this action by DHS, or it may have existed previously and manifested itself in other ways. We don't know for how long or why these people were under surveillance by DHS - and some people have pretty good reasons for being under surveillance. (Yes, even Americans - remember Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols?)
Now, if large payments alone were a trigger for a DHS audit, you can bet it would be front page news. Millions of people every year make large payments into their IRA's or on their home mortgages at various times for tax purposes, or other reasons. I myself have made payments larger than $6,000 on both my credit cards and student loans, and I can assure you that's not my normal payment amount - but I have yet to be contacted by DHS. Why is that? The only difference between me and this guy, according to this article, is that he is a retired Texas schoolteacher and I work in the entertainment industry. The DHS must love their cable TV.
No, it just sounds fishy. Either the story is made up, or there's a long backstory here that we're not getting. Otherwise this surveillance would appear to be basically random (targetting some people who make payments like this but not others), in which case they may as well just close their eyes, open a phone book and point to get their latest victim. Why even bother?
Sometimes I do get a little tired of seeing these conspiracy theory stories on
And perhaps you are willing to wink at criminal behaviour so that you can secretly wire a few thousand quid to your mistress without having a few questions raised. I am not.
And here we have it, folks. That fantastic attitude called "If you don't like it, you must be doing something wrong". Every scare and people like you grant the government more power to brighten your fucking night light. It's okay to trample our civil liberties as long as those nasty drug traffickers are brought to justice.
Fuck you, Ritz.
If other reasons we do lack, we swear no one will die when we attack
Well it is interesting that they go after the overpayment of credit cards. But what about the people who made boatloads of money on 9/11 betting on the airline stocks to crash. It was well documented that right before 9/11 there were lots of (put/call?) options placed on the stocks betting that they would drop.
There was a lot of noise made about it initially, since this money could be tracked, but nothing ever came about. I read some report that the non-action was due to "privacy" constraints.
hahahahahahahaha! RIGHT! You, sir, have no concept of the suicidal mind...
If you have some incredible insight into the suicidal mind, why are you either a) not dead yet, or b) post as a logged in user as a respected member of the psychiatric community.
There are a number of people who choose to commit suicide because they feel they were forced into that position, but they don't want to punish those who they know and love. They feel that their death is the only real solution for the whole matter.
Putting it bluntly, paying off large amounts of a debt is an action, which can easily be construed as resolving worldly details, which people often do when they know their death is imminent. Whether that knowledge comes from knowledge of a fatal disease/condition, or an intention on their part to end their life.
In all cases, if someone is depressed and starts paying off debts, that's a very bad sign, and would suggest to any compitent psychiatric personal who knows about him would take as a big red flag. There are other indicators that indicate a likelihood that someone might commit suicide, such as feeling alone, sudden and/or drastic change in their life, or feeling insignificant/meaningless.
But anyone who is suddenly putting earthly affairs in order is definitely a danger to themselves if they're in otherwise perfect health.
I am unamerican, and proud of it!
Anyone who voted Republicrat or Democan, shut up and go sit on the sidelines.
You've already demonstrated that you want an intrusive, activist government, you have no room to complain now. You ASKED FOR THIS.
______________________________________
A vote against a Libertarian candidate is
a vote to abolish the Constitution itself
There is so much BS out there about Homeland Security
And some slimeball companies are using this to keep people from paying down credit card debt
Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock. Will Rogers
Oh, really. Has it stopped drug smugglers and criminals from moving money around? They seem to be managing okay. Unless I missed the headline that the drug trade dried up overnight.
Why you might think that large criminal organizations have figured out how to move money around without raising any flags. *shock* *gasp*
So you, him, all of us have to put up with "necessary nuisance" while the big criminals manage to get by. What has that sheep like cooperation bought us? Less drugs? Nope. More security? Sorry. How about a massive money-sucking federal bureaucracy with nothing better to do than stick their nose in the business of ordinary citizens? Yup, got that one.
And people like you are the reason they keep getting away with it. Yes, that's personal.
Suddenly I have the urge to brush up on the words to O' Canada. We seem to have power hungry right wing extremists on one side and twitwits saying things like, "If you haven't done anything wrong, you don't have anything to worry about" on the other. And I've had enough of the former and am disgusted by the later. You both deserve each other.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
...guilty until proven innocent. :-(
No wait... are you telling me that...the government of all people...is...is...spying on me! [shocked gasp] Oh my god! Do you think they might be monitoring my calls to my family overseas too... Naaa... They wouldn't stoop that low.
Sounds to me like you should be telling your friend to sue the department of homeland security for the lost wages and for emotional anguish. There absolutely must be several civil violations in these despicable actions by the government which would allow him to completely take them for necessary income to live comfortably for the rest of his life.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
I never thought terrorists would be so diligent to pay off their credit cards before committing acts of terror. Stupidest thing I've heard in a few hours.
G
"If you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about."
You're just screwing with my mind right?
That may be true in "Leave it to Beaver land" or "Father Knows Best land" but not in the real world. If you haven't noticed let me clue you in. Our government no longer represents the people. The slime balls running the country don't believe an justice any more. All they care about is corporate money honey.
So domestic spying CAN NOT be allowed as there will surely be cases where bogus charges will be brought against innocent people for political reasons or to advance someones hidden agenda.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
And who pays the doctor bills for their stress-induced stroke?
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
In the story the credit card company said the funds were held up due to security reasons. Thus I assume the credit card company was collecting interest during this time. Which means it is to their advantage to do this. It seems to me that credit card companies do all they can to nickel and dime you (more like 39.95 you) for example paying a day late. This annoys me since they get to charge you interest and would prefer you to be late. In so far as overboard security procedures it is an example of a win for Bin Laden. Probably does little for real security but bleeds our resources. Which by the way was in a recent statement as a goal of Al Queda
Most people don't do sudden stuff like suddenly pay off ~$6,500 of their credit card debt in one payment.
Chyea, right.
$1,600 a month is on the low side for my household bills Visa card and I pay it off each month.
The bill I paid last month was over $11.5k (Christmas, tuition, downpayment on a car on top of my regular bills) and I paid it off with a check.
Then again I have been doing it for years, and for me that is business as usual.
Maybe they trigger on unusual behavior, like folks that make minimum payments forever on their card, with the balance slowly growing over years on several cards, all of a sudden sending in a big chunk of money (which IMHO $6,500 isn't - there are days I wear that much in jewelry - hell there are some days I have that much on me in cash) sets of some flags.
Point 1 in your post has merit, but the last thing on a suicidal person's mind is trying to maintain his credit rating (point 2 in your post.)
What it boils down to, though, is KGB Big-Brother'ism. Big time.
Ask yourself - do you genuinely feel safe saying 'unpatriotic' things, even in your own home?
In Soviet Russia, free speech owned YOU! (and now, for a limited time only, in the USA too.)
I feel like one of the little Jewish kids in Poland (1941) that watched the first few waves of people taken away, sort of hiding in the shadows and thankful that I didn't get taken away too. Wondering what was happening, and if everything was going to be ok. I'm a little too young to remember - how'd that work out the first time?
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
i can't speak for anyone else, but i know that a hold placed on my bank account would ruin me. i would not be able to pay rent, buy food. i would probably be evicted from my house.
all because some monkey raised a flag on a "suspicious" transaction.
true - nobody went to jail in this case... but you seem to not be accounting for how easily innocent lives can get screwed up when flags are raised and accounts locked.
maybe you should revisit your argument?
Yeah that's right. And people can't be held without being charged and the government can't tape our phone conversations with out a warrent...
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
Things you do that are okey today and aren't okay tomorrow won't be held against you tomorrow.
Yeah, until you do them again tomorrow. Either you were trolling or you missed the point of the parent post. Freedoms that we enjoy today may be gone tomorrow in the name of "the children" or "terrorism" or political points of view (abortion, etc.).
The GP post's original argument, "don't do anything wrong and you'll be fine.." has a huge flaw: Who decides what's right and what's wrong? You think the governmentt will always line up with your point of view about what's right? Who'll win if that disagreement comes to blows?
The unfortunate truth is that Bush has spared no time or energy to sacrifice our civil liberties, supposedly in the name of security. But he has NEVER sacrificed any business liberties for this same goal.
He'll never get in the way of a business's ability to make a buck, even if it increases potential threats to Americans. But as far as our personal liberties granted by the Constitution and Bill of Rights, they can be trounced upon to 'keep us safe' (oh, and make some more bucks for some friendly businesses too).
make world, not war
There's been a form 8000 something that anyone in business has to report a cash (including drafts) transaction over $10K.
'Cept now it's DHS and the triggers are lower and the stakes are higher.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
ScuttleMonkey posted:
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 article says that someone at JC Penny's credit card customer service claimed that Homeland Security had to be notified. There was no mention of Homeland Security actually being involved.
-l
...k market.html
2 /www.worldgame.org/wwwproject/
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2704stoc
And 6 grand is what in comparison?
The fact of the matter is that when you screw other over badly enough you can expect relalition.
And thats whats going on, The Bush Administration is parionoid because they are becomming aware of how damn much they have screwed others over.
WTC came was attacked once before 9/11 and targets of WTC, Pentagon, White House say what?
Wrongful manipulation of world economy with political and military backing..
So now the world stock markets must be terrorist activity, considering how its manipulation resulted in dotcom boom (easy winnings had to be put somewhere) and buts (easy come easy go) and the losers, worldcom, enron, etc.. whom still haven't told the american public what they were really doing.
South east asia, indonesia is 88 percent muslin (CIA info).
All it took to help set off the war drums on iraq was one lone high ranking enough, military official, who would not be questioned about there entry into a US military base containing anthrax stores, knowledge how to handle it and newsmedia addresses....
who would be stupid enough to not know the bush administration would fall all over themselves abusing the anthrax events
to get the media to bang war drums for bush?
Who are the real terrorost?
The most terrorism I have seen is not the WTC comming down but the very long running war drum banging of the bush administration against a country that most certainly did not have anything to do with WTC...
Prove that god doesn't exist? You can't as that is a scientific impossibility. So was proving Iraq didn'[t have any weapons of mass destruction. And teh US hasn't been able to find any.
Remember the smallpox threat that was use in all this?
The truth is. :
http://www.unesco.org/education/tlsf/theme_a/mod0
The question is:
Why are we not doing what we know how to, have the resources and man power to genuinely remove what terrorist use to gain support and followers?
The real terrorist are the ones parionoid of retailation, because they have been so damn fucking bad on others.
This is all about the war on drugs. Yes, never leave a bank with more than $5K in cash. If a criminal catches you with it, it's gone. If a cop catches you with it, it's gone. What has this country come to?
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
I'm in charge of a company wide software package at a large financial institution. I occasionally get passed up to me really screwy things that come from representatives or customer service reps that are, shall we say, sub-par. Is the web site not performing a calculation the way you expect? Try reimaging your computer they say.
99.9% of the time people do the right thing. But with a zillion transactions you get some people that don't want to do the job and make up an excuse. So before I'd blame the government, I'd want to see some kind of proof that
a.) the people really were told this,
b.) that the customer rep really did get told this,
c.) that the people in charge of the system really did think that they had to do this,
d.) that someone in the government thought they should do this, and
e.) that the government really did want them to do this.
It is a long chain. Don't just question the authority of the government, question the authenticity of the article. Then when you've proved that out, you have more weight questioning the government.
That was exactly the bullshit scam that PayPal pulled on me to "freeze" my account, thousands of dollars, for over a year. I'm sure banks got the Feds to write those rules to cover their new "obligations" to hold onto billions in "questionable", interest-bearing transactions. Which they invest while they hold it.
There should be a penalty for wrongfully intercepting those transactions. A just world would hold the banks, and those parties who make these bad models they apply unilaterally, liable for the losses and damage - if only inconvenience.
--
make install -not war
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.
If that's the case- how many people here think that this little incident will be completely expunged from their records?
Anyone?
I didn't think so. This little 'innocent incident' and their reaction will be quietly filed away with the feds, their banks, and most likely Equifax, Experian, etc.
So, what we have here is something that will be on their federal & financial records for the rest of their lives- and they did nothing wrong.
What happens the next time they decide to throw $3k at their credit card? Someone runs a credit check? They want to pay cash for a car?
What a load of crap. The US claims to have frozen most of Bin Laden's assets and cut him off from any money he had. It's very unlikely that his money is helping him much. That is, at least, if you believe the US government.
Are these the same US sources that claimed there were large numbers of WMD's in Iraq? The problem with Al-Qaeda is precisely that they don't use regular routes for transferring money, infromation, weapons or anything else. Messages are carried between Al-Qaeda leaders verbally or in encoded dispatches by couriers, money is moved in hand luggage, or if they do use banks they spread the money all over the place in an inconspicuous manner. There is conveniently vulnerable no central Al-Qaeda cash repository that a bean counter at the Department of Homeland security can shut down by setting a few check boxes in a web interface and hitting the 'OK' button. The reason the USA is having such problems with Al-Qaeda is that Al-Qaeda members avoid using electronic networks for moving information and money whenever they can and when they do use these facilities they do so in a way that is almost impossible for even the USA's most expensive toys like the Echelon system to keep track of. To keep track of people like this you need extensive access to human intelligence assets which the US intelligence services, until 9/11 at least, thougth they didn't need any more. Of course that attitude has now changed which is why they have subcontracted 'efficient interogations' to places like Egypt in so that GW Bush can pretend to retain a vague air of credebility when he criticizes China, Russia and even Iran for human rights violations. I'm sure freezing Bin Laden's personal fortune probably gave Al-Qaeda some problems but it didn't cut them off from all of their financial assets and it certainly didn't hurt their ability to raise money.
... everyone pay off their debts..
Then we can claim they are wasting tax payers money and busy doing things that have nothing to do with security.
We can fire them.
Then again I have been doing it for years, and for me that is business as usual.
Right, the key here is that the action is an unusual behavior.
Maybe they trigger on unusual behavior, like folks that make minimum payments forever on their card, with the balance slowly growing over years on several cards, all of a sudden sending in a big chunk of money (which IMHO $6,500 isn't - there are days I wear that much in jewelry - hell there are some days I have that much on me in cash) sets of some flags.
Wow, you wear some expensive jewelry. I'm definitely not poor, but even for me $6,500 would take 2~4 paychecks to save up, so about two months. Now, consider that I get paid more than any of my friends, most of my friends in New Mexico hardly make 6,500 in a quarter of a year.
Sure, $6,500 may not seem like much to you, but usually the people paying minimum on their credit card do *not* have the kind of money to just whip out $6,500 and pay it off.
Point 1 in your post has merit, but the last thing on a suicidal person's mind is trying to maintain his credit rating (point 2 in your post.)
It has nothing to do with maintaining his credit rating. In fact, people in this sort of a situation, where they're making low payments all the time will actually likely get penalized for paying off their credit card (!!!). The issue here is that paying off debts is one way of resolving earthly matters, this is usually a reasonable indicator for suicide.
The idea is that if say, a parent feels "forced" into suicide, they may know that by paying off their debt it will save their children headaches. Pay off all your debts, except now you don't have any money left to live with. But that wouldn't be an issue for very long, would it? Now, their children are saved from their mounting debt, and they've resolved the issue.
I am unamerican, and proud of it!
In Canada we've had a somewhat similar system for quite a few years. Above 10K, a deposit has to be reported to the CCRA (roughly equivalent to the IRS, at least with respect to taxes). This was originally intended to hamper the drug trade. Whether or not there is a more sophisticated system based on past transactions for trying to catch "terrorism", I don't know.
Stands to reason, you have an anti-terrorism department which has nothing to do with stopping terrorism. Why not investigate perfectly normal people which also have nothing to do with terrorism!
Just like the greatest threat to freedom in the USA is not terrorism, its Bush.
Until a trust mechansism is in place or the internet become fragmented, anonymity will continue to become just an illusion, privacy will become something more well defined. Those who own the data, own you. It's not 1984, but something more different.
You're right, the world is changing. Civil liberties and expectations of privacy are so pre-911. I join you in welcoming our new era of governmental intrusion and fascism.
Most people don't do sudden stuff like suddenly pay off ~$6,500 of their credit card debt in one payment.
Happens all the time. There's quite an industry in re-fi's and second mortgages so that you can pay off high credit-card debt. Lowers the interest rate and that interest might be tax-deductable, to boot. Done it myself more than once. (These days though I pay the card off every month.)
You'd think DHS could find a more relevant use of their time than chasing down all those transactions.
-- Alastair
"I'd rather let a hundred guilty men go free, than chase after them." --Chief Wiggum
'nuff said
This same thing happened to me. I inherited some money when my mom died, so a couple of months ago, I paid off my $7500 credit card balance, I mailed them a check for the full amount. About a week later, the payment still wasn't credited, so I called them and they said it takes 7 to 10 days for such a large check to clear. Yeah right. They told me to call back if it wasn't credited after 10 days. It wasn't, I called back again, they said if it wasn't credited after 14 days, call back again. It wasn't, I called back again. THIS time, I insisted they get a 3 way call with my bank to confirm the check had cleared. They credited my account during the phone call.
But after reading the article about the guy who got turned in to Homeland Security for paying $6500 on his JCPenneys account, now it all makes sense. I saw another version of this news article, it said the "bank security act" requires credit card companies to report large payments. I can't find any such law, there's a Bank Security Act of 1974 but that far predates the existence of Homeland Security. The closest regulation I can find is the requirement to report cash transactions larger than $10k to the IRS.
This is all so much bullshit I can't believe it. It's some sort of secret law, or more likely Homeland Security has duped banks into playing along with an imaginary law, just to get more data on totally innocent people. I am infuriated. I can't wait to see what happens when I try to board an airplane, now that DHS thinks I'm a terrorist, I bet I'm on the No Fly List.
From the article:
Eventually, his and his wife's money was freed up.
Propose a better system you say? Oh, I don't know, how about a little thing called "innocent until proven guilty"?
Yeah, I know, what a radical and outlandish suggestion...
Of course the feds are interested in the movement of money over x. And I see that there are plenty of readers eager to justify the monitoring of citizens all in the name of security.
It is interesting that the justifications that existed when the level of x was thousands of dollars are now quoted when x is hundreds, when in theory, the effects of inflation should cause x to increase.
In a few years, as technology, and data storage, and indexing allows, all transactions will be reported, catalogued, and analyzed, all in the name of security, and there will be plenty of readers that will be happy to step up to the plate and explain the justifications.
The real reasons of course are about control of the masses, and to maintain authority by reminding all citizens that they are being watched and can be brought in to explain their actions and transactions at any time should their activity, be it financial or political opinion, raise an eyebrow in Washington, or the local town hall.
While this particular example of credit card activity may or may not have occurred, the interesting point is that the assumption is that if someone's financial activity appears to change to a third party, the first party must explain their behaviour, as if there is a presumption of wrong doing.
This is in opposition to the principals set forth in the Bill of Rights and the forth amendment:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
Since there is no probable cause to believe that a person with $600 or some other arbitrary amount has acquired the funds through illicit mechanisms, requiring the person to provide documentary evidence is clearly an illegal search and seizure.
This also may be a violation of the tenth amendment:
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people"
Since the ability to keep tabs and monitor the general population is not expressly granted to the federal government by the constitution, such activity must be the domain of the states. This is why the feds now claim that this is part of the "war against terrorism" to create a federal interest in monitoring of ordinary citizens, just like the illegal wiretapping of ordinary citizens phoning back to the old country.
The future is bleak, and the trends before us further demonstrate that these United States have continually moved from a democratic republic for the people, by the people, to a fascist state that operates in the interest of the new aristocracy, let's not forget that the most interesting of all financial transactions are the least scrutinized.
Has any else noticed the huge transfer of wealth from public coffers to private hands..? (hint: it was more than 600 bucks).
This is nothing new. The IRS has been doing this for decades. Withdraw too much money from the bank and get reported to the IRS. Deposit too much money and get reported to the IRS.
The only difference is that the IRS hasn't been "associated" with the Republican party like Homeland Security has, so no one cares. The hypocrisy out there is amazing. Tracking large cash transactions to stop terrorism is thought of as reactionary conservative government out of control. But tracking large cash transactions to stop drug smuggling or tax evasion is a big yawn. But there isn't any moral difference between the two, unless you base your morality solely on the party in power.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
The fact is, you are not giving up rights to BE safer, since this law will not help... you are giving up rights to FEEL safer.
Well, speaking as a person who is not the least bit "terrorized" by terrorists, I have only one thing to say - grow a set of balls before you give away MY rights simply because you're irrationally afraid.
This space available.
If and when I win the lottery, keep the funds somewhere other than an American bank. Or at least don't have any funds in America that I can't afford to have 'lost', frozen, appropriated or otherwise affected by knee-jerk government so-called 'anti-terrorist' policies. Second note to self: Don't buy land, either - politicians can and will grab it if they feel like it. And don't buy stocks or shares - you never know when a company's about to go Enron. And don't donate to political parties - their leaders have a habit of being impeached. And don't keep cash - police and/or DHS are likely to confiscate it. Perhaps I should invest in being poor...
I am not sure if Kerry's administration would have orchestrated 9/11. Of course with the diebold voting machines rigged, he never had a chance.
And perhaps you are willing to wink at criminal behaviour so that you can secretly wire a few thousand quid to your mistress without having a few questions raised. I am not.
It totally blows my mind that there are people who think the way that you do. Personally, I can't distinguish that attitude from fascism. So help me out. I have an honest question for you. What is your bright line? At what point would you consider surveillance to be too much? Would you say that the government ought to monitor ALL financial transactions, no matter what amount? If not, what's an appropriate threshhold?
Would you advocate high-sensitivity anti-crime mechanisms in other aspects of daily life? Is it a good idea for cars to be outfitted with sensors that would report (and ticket) you if you change lanes without signalling, make a rolling stop, exceed the posted speed limit, etc. Should your computer be monitored to make sure you don't download unauthorized mp3's, forward newspaper articles without permission, save copyrighted photos, etc.
Is a society with no potential for illegal behavior whatsoever a good society?
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
Banks operate this way internally too, in deciding if they should shut down a card for fraud. They take a number of factors in to consideration like how much the amount was (the more it is the more suspect it is), how out of the oridinary it was, who it was to, etc. So for example you could go make a $1000 credit card payment to Dell, and it'd go through unquestioned because it's normal for that merchant. However making a $1000 purchase to Gamestop would get flagged and you'd get called (happened to my parents when their card was stolen) because that's irregular. However if you regularly made large charges to Gamestop it would go through fine, as would it if it were a $50 charge.
I would guess it's similar for the transactions reported to the government (it's long been the law that transactions above a certian level are reported). If it's a payment from a business owner to a business supplier that is regularly made, it gets no mind at all and is never know to anyone but the computers. However if an individual all of a sudden makes a large payment to a long time creditor, they have a look to see why that might be the case.
Oh, oh, and prisoners aren't tortured, they are only agressively "interrogated" for months on end.
If DHS can get warrants to search my library perusals and force anyone involved to not let me know about it, I highly doubt a call-center rep will have access to any sort of comment on anyones file that says "Homeland Security locked account."
It just doesn't make sense simply because if the person in question WAS a bad guy, he now knows he's being watched for sure, if he wasn't positive before.
More than likely this couple was 2-3 days away from their next billing cycle and JC Penney wanted their monthly share of ~21-28% APR on a $6,500 payment and just posted it late intentionally.
... And they don't always stick to the 10K limit.
... they assumed it was stolen or drug money and wouldn't touch it.
I tried to deposit $6500 cash into my credit union once
Needless to say, they don't get to hold my cash anymore, it all gets the high interest, zero fee treatment at ING Direct.
Whenever your credit union / bank causes you problems, start talking about ING Direct very loudly so the other customers can hear. You'd be amazed at how quickly your insurmountable problems vanish.
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
It's not perfect, but check out http://opensecrets.org/ they have a good breakdown of what a candidate recieved, how well disclosed it was, and where it came from when the source was disclosed.
Next Monday, lets all pay down our largest bill by $1,000 or more. That should swamp their system for a day or two.
San Francisco Photographers
The FBI and the CIA are not a part of the homeland security dept.
evil is as evil does
This has been going on for many decades. The systems was started in order to catch organized crime and drug dealers. In the 1970's my grandfather paid cash for a car, approx. $7,000. He received a letter from the IRS asking where the cash came from. I believe his letter back to the IRS said something like "From my savings account you nosy SOB."
You've already demonstrated that you want an intrusive, activist government, you have no room to complain now. You ASKED FOR THIS.
You can say that again.
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
"Because they're the new shiney branch of the executive branch with the money to actually look into these sorts of things."
Well good to know the FBI, IRS, and local authorities have all run out of money to do their jobs. I guess homeland security will be taking over all law enforcement from now on.
"also, correct me if I'm wrong (anyone) but I believe that the FBI is now a part of the DHS."
Consider yourself corrected.
evil is as evil does
Personally I think we need to expand Homeland Security, not reduce it.
If expanded, the Dept of Homeland Security could make sure our zippers are all zipped up, make sure our garage doors are closed when we leave the house, reduce the amount of noise pollution and review all the bogus parking tickets I've gotten over my life and reimburse me 90% due to past years of unconstitutional kangaroo court process.
"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." -Jesus Christ The Lord's Prayer
The story sounds real enough to me. But the spin is very misleading.
.. activity .. has actually been going on for a long time now. The only new thing is that the Secret Service is part of the Department of Homeland Security rather than the Department of the Treasury. Otherwise, the story is one that could have happened anytime since credit cards became popular.
Ever since the Secret Service was created in 1865, its primary duty has always been to investigate counterfeiting and financial fraud.
One of the main indicators of fraud is unusual financial activity. For example, if you make a single deposit of a very large amount of cash at a bank (more than $10,000, IIRC), then the bank will notify the Secret Service, and they will probably investigate your action. There are other things you can do which attract their attention.
From the story, you'd think that this is some new form of overreaching by the federal government enacted since 9/11. But this particular
"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity but they've always worked for me" - HST
Read about the Smith Act passed in 1940. Admit you're a member of the Communist party, a party which was equated with meaning "overthrowing and destroying the government of the United States by force and violence", and you could go to jail. Nearly 200 members of the Communist Party stood trial, and many were convicted, just because they were members of the organization, not because of any other action.
Also, the famous "Hollywood Ten" never said they were or were not part of the Communist party, yet they were convicted for contempt of Congress and were blacklisted.
Go back a little further and look at the Red Scare of the '20s, where things were even worse.
isn't hit and run a felony? that could be the problem, since most corporate insurance forbids hiring felons.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
this makes too much sense to not get flamed on Slashdot.
LOL.
If someone phones in a death threat, do you not monitor phones and such in order to catch them?
Yeah. You pull the call history of the one phone involved and find the person. You don't go out and harass people at random because they called someone and... hey, our death threat guy called someone too!
we're just trying to figure out who they are.
Great! Here's a hint to get you all started: JC Penney is not a front for a terrorist organization. Neither is Mastercard. Paying your bills does not make you more likely to blow up a building.
First They Came for the Jews
First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.
Pastor Martin Niemöller
It can't be anymore obvious, can it?
If they plan to hand the card off to another suicide-bomber-in-training who will assume their identity.
Lots of ridiculously innocuous-seeming transactions could be used for similarly nefarious purposes. The financial details of the transaction often don't fully clarify its purpose, that's why DHS has to sometimes go knock on doors and send letters demanding explanations. Not that I would like it, but I don't like suicide bombers much either.
My bicyles
You can look at http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/interapp/editorial/ed itorial_0644.xml to see a sort of org chart for Homeland Security. They own Customs, Immigration, TSA, FEMA, USSS, Air Marshals, Coast Guard, and various other things.
They don't have the FBI, CIA, NSA, DEA (although they have an Office of Counternarcotics Enforcement), the US Marshals, or BATF.
Hmm, did you notice above that USSS (i.e. Secret Service) is part of them? Which means that they do have federal juristiction over financial fraud. (The protecting POTUS thing is just something they do in their spare time)
They also, interestingly, have a department of Civil Rights & Civil Liberties: Daniel W. Sutherland is in charge. You'd think that being a Civil Rights lawyer who works for the Government would be difficult, but he's managed it for almost 20 years...
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
Late last year, MBNA, Citibank, and Bank of America, the biggest three credit card lenders, raised their minimum payments to 4% of outstanding balances from 2%, effectively doubling the minimum monthly payment.
Given that these were retirees, on a fixed budget, paying off these high interest unsecured loans would be prudent in light of this change in minimum payments.
And maybe they were just doing what one of my aged uncles used to do: he'd say "Borrow, borrow, borrow, die. It's the American Way. Let the kids fucking deal with it after I'm gone".
Me, I had my fill of high-interest credit cards. I'm down to two, an Amex Gold and a Citi Card, both of which I've had since the '80s, both of which get paid off every month. Amex expects that, and they make up for it by charging vendors something like 2% per transaction. Citibank must hate me; lenders call people who pay their balance every month "deadbeats". Sort of ironic.
When the dot.com bubble burst, I was holding $15K of high interest (8.9%) credit card debt. I paid it off before 9/11/01. No alarm bells there.
But recently, I sold off some stock in a company that bought a company that bought a company I helped found and deposited the money in my checking account (it was drawn against a Canadian bank). I had to speak to three managers before the transaction would be processed. I also had to "grease the wheel", assuring the manager that I intended to invest some of the money in a CD and put the rest into mutual and equity funds that the bank's investment division offered. After that, I was treated like a visiting pasha; they offered me their Premiere Banking private services, and the pretty girl who stalks the bank lobby holding a clipboard helped me fill out the necessary forms. I swear, I could have asked her for a happy ending when it was all over.
But I had no doubt that behind the scenes SARs (Suspicious Activity Reports) were being filed on me.
Man, I should have asked for the hand job.
k.
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart." - Anne Frank
You really don't know sarcasm, do you ?
I wonder how they determine what is unusual. I bought a new car juat one year ago--paid by check. No questions, no problems, no bank holds etc. Maybe my regular transactions are larger--I paid a lot more than the $6500 the retired teacher paid.
Sounds like this credit card company doesn't like it when people pay off their really high interest rate cards.
Anyone hear of refinancing high interest credit card debt with a fixed term home equity loan? Happens all the time. How can this be so unusual for a credit card company to see?
Not knowing what the "certain percentage higher than normal" threshold is, I'd like to see if this retired teacher/ACLU could sue the c.c. company to see if this is a practice used by this company to discourage payment of large balances. I hope this guy didn't have to pay interest on his c.c. balance while the validity of the payment was investigated.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Honestly, this isn't really about giving the nod to criminal behavior. This is about treating innocent people like criminals.
Trolling through bank records looking for bank transactions which might point to criminaal behavior is pointless when they don't even have the resources to investigate all the resports of scammers they receive anually.
Thats like patrolling the yacht club instead of responding to a reported burglery in process in the ghettos. Yeah, if you catch someone it is likely to be a bigger dollar amount involved but you'll make more of a difference if you stop known crime.
The system as it is causes more harm than good. Ruining the lives of thousands in the off chance that you might find someone who is actually doing something illegal. Doesn't sound like a logical trade to me.
What's the appropriate response, and how do you go about making sure its heard? Does that response change as the days and weeks pass? The point is simple: This type of thing is pretty unacceptable, and what is anyone really doing about it?
We can harp on this stuff all day long, but until someone, or more likely a large group of someones, is willing to stand up and actually make a difference, its not going to change or stop.
From the article:
Eventually, his and his wife's money was freed up.
The flags were cleared, they didn't lose money, they don't live under a cloud of suspicion.
Fine then. Hand me all your money. I'll give you a receipt and give it back to you in a month.
Oh you have mouths to feed and bills to pay?
So much for no problem. What you meant to say is it didn't happen to you and therefore it's not your problem.
Get a clue.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
...they don't live under a cloud of suspicion.
How do we know? There is no oversight of DHS by citizens. Any report we got from DHS about this situation is certain to be heavily redacted and there is no way to know what level of suspicion these people are held under by DHS, IRS or any other government entity.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
Perhaps someone here can explain why $millions or $billions that go missing or magically appear in corporate bank accounts are not worthy of any attention by CEOs or law enforcement, but Joe Bloggs paying his amex off is a suspicious terrorist-type transaction.
The fact that $billions can still go missing when groups like Bechtel, Enron, Halliburton, etc are involved is pretty damning proof that the government is in bed with the big-league criminals.
You had an onion tied to your belt, which was the style at the time... ... ;)
sorry, coulnd't resist.
I'm assuming from the way you worded your post you're a US citizen. If you're not a citizen, well, the following only really applies to citizens and you can read about how the US so warmly treats its citizens that travel there.
The US does NOT welcome you back from a trip to Cuba with welcome arms unless you either have a license to travel there from OFAC, or if you went there quietly and never mentioned it to immigration.
If you go to Cuba without a license (eg to visit your dying grandfather), and are honest enough to tell immigration about it when you come back into the USA, you get a big Illegal CUBA stamp on your passport, and then get a friendly threatening letter from OFAC a few months down the line. Sometimes they'll 'nicely' let the problem disappear for a $10,000 fine. That's a nice pair of welcoming open arms there, pal.
And the open arms aren't necessarily guaranteed even if your travel to cuba is licensed. I've travelled to Cuba twice, both time perfectly legally as licensed with OFAC. One of those times we first flew to Canada, then to Cuba. Believe it or not that was the easier way to go. The more difficult way involved flying to Miami first, and then dealing with the absolute worst set of red tape I've ever dealt with in any travel. If going out wasn't bad enough, coming back through Miami was absolutely horrible, when my girlfriend and I didn't join in the immigration official's anti-communist tirade, he sent us and our luggage to be hand-inspected for evidence of illegal farm visits. Again, nice open arms there.
And to anyone reading this, if you are issued a license to go to Cuba, think seriously about going through Canada (or Mexico) first, instead of flying through Miami, it will really make your life much easier.
make world, not war
Yeah, until you do them again tomorrow.
Unless you were, say, a communist in the 20s. Jesus christ, don't they teach history any more?
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
I'm curious. Just how does an unsubstantiated bald assertion get modded to 5 so quickly? And a wrong assertion at that--as another replier noted, capitol hill blue just reprinted a Scripps story. Yes, CHB is a muckraker site. But, well, there's a *lot* of muck in this administration and this congress (and the last congress, and the one before that...). Reporting on corruption, law-breaking, and personality defects of those in power does not make it untrue.
I strongly suspect we're seeing the usual "attack the messenger" defense here.
Remain calm! All is well!
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.
You know, there are nicer ways to say this. Like, "Actually, no, it isn't a part of the DHS."
Of course I'm known to be a blunt son of a btich myself. But in those cases I try to put up a link to an authority:
I am unamerican, and proud of it!
Zero.
There weren't any cells in the U.S.
They've only charged ten men in the entire gulag system they've built around the world. And those aren't exactly airtight cases.
Over thirty men have died from "stress" during imprisonment and torture. None were charged.
They've not arrested a single man who actually plotted 9/11. They've bodyguards, drivers, one guy who wore a wristwatch "similar to those worn by terrorists". The bulk of those picked up in Afghanistan were fingered by enemies of the fingered who also got a fat cash payoff for giving up "terrorists".
The main reason is that the actual terrorists died in the planes. The second reason is that Bin Laden et al had a month to evacuate Afghanistan before we started bombing the poor bastards who had nothing to do with 9/11.
So, no terrorists. We've suspended the constitution, created a Gestapo, and are building Prison America to keep ourselves safe. And we've nothing to show for it.
bin Laden got what he wanted: the removal of the U.S. military bases from holy Saudi Arabian soil, and the provocation of the U.S. invading the middle east. He's really no more reason to hit us. Why bother? We've turned every muslim in the damned world against us. He got a lot for his money.
But we've got exactly nothing.
talk about blatant karma whoring, you made the exact same reply to another post earlier in this topic...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
Can't have Bin Laden paying down his bills. Next you know he'll start returning his library books from 1973!
Table-ized A.I.
So it's OK (legal) to kill people (Kurds), just as long as it's your own citizens? How racist and spineless of you!
damaged by dogma
i had the same thing to say. so?
:)
if i were to express the same opinion to two different people over the course of couple minutes does that make me an opinion whore?
I still right a couple times a day. Doesn't mean you trust it to tell the time.
Duuuuuhhh...
Screw them. I say drive them nuts. Make your payments erratic all the time. If millions of people start doing this purposely all the time, how can they possibly manage all of it? Would be fun to open an account at two or three different banks and move $10,000 of it from bank to bank every other day. Nothing illegal done. But you'd generate a lot of extra work for those idiots.
You give them your money, help them transfer it, and they promise to pay you a large dividend. An easy way for the law enforcement to lead to the scammers!
Exactly which of the Powers of Congress enumerated in the Constitution authorizes the government to mandate that credit card companies divulge "suspicious" transactions to the government?
Jack? Jack Thompson, is that you?
Or is it just other fuckwad that thinks "It was a joke" is a great defense against accusations of stupidity?
I don't think you should have been modded troll, because based on your post history I think you were being honest.
That said, I totally disagree with you. You are a fool. Put the koolaid down.
Think I'm extreme? What have your moderate views and voting choices done for us? They've gotten us here, that's what. Time for a change. Turn off the TV, forget about "compromise," and quit worrying about "wasting your vote." If what we have now isn't the result of wasted votes, I don't know what would be. Vote Libertarian. Vote independent. Run for office yourself. Ask your state to call for a constitutional convention. Won't do it? Ask yourself this: What would make you change the way you think, vote, and live if not the things you've seen, read, and heard about our government from reliable sources in the past 5 years? WHAT IS IT GOING TO TAKE FOR YOU TO UNDERSTAND THAT THE PEOPLE YOU'RE VOTING FOR DO NOT SERVE YOUR INTERESTS?
DHS was a consolidation of a wide variety of agencies including Immigration, Coast Guard, FEMA and Treasury. I suspect that DHS inhereted some jurisdictional mandates regarding bank fraud and money laundering from Treasury.
My understanding of this case is that banks are obligated to report transactions over a certain size. However, many banks have started the practice of voluntarily flagging transactions for various reasons.
How do we tell which liberties are essential and which aren't?
"Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" perhaps? Having a delay in my payment being posted to my account just doesn't seem to qualify.
Shall that be determined by which ones the current administration wants to take away from us?
Uh, did you read the personal examples of how finances and travel have been under a microscope for decades? That this is not something new this administration have started?
Exactly which of the Powers of Congress enumerated in the Constitution authorizes the government to mandate that credit card companies divulge "suspicious" transactions to the government?
Seems like they have the right to look at all transactions:
"The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;"
"To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;"
Seems like they have the right to define certain financial transactions as felonies:
"To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;"
"To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;"
"To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof."
As Jon Stewart said last night at the Oscars: "Movie piracy is wrong. Just look what you're doing to the people in this room. Many of the women can barely afford enough clothing to cover their breasts."
Definately the best reason to pirate I've ever heard!
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Deposits get placed on hold all the time.
The money placed on hold in this case was a PAYMENT, not a deposit, which means it did nothing to his ability to eat and pay rent. At most he had to wait a few days before balancing his checkbook.
Sounds like an aged, pissed off hippie to me ("We're a product of the 60s"), just blowing smoke. So to speak.
Deposits get placed on hold all the time as well. If you expect large checks to clear instantly, you'll be in for a disappointment. Especially if you use an ATM. If you do it in person, you usually get your money much faster, especially if you have them call the home bank and verify the signature.
"If the government becomes capable of making it impossible to organize an armed revolt the Constitution has pretty much failed."
Too late than by a long shot. There is no way an organized armed revolt would even come close to success. The second amendment doesn't allow me to own a fully loaded stealth bomber. Even then it wouldn't be nearly enough. The second amendment out lived it's intended usefulness a long time ago.
Laws can't be created ex post facto in the US.
1972 copyright extention act?
Obviously, you can at least change laws retroactively with enough money.
You asked someone to correct you, I did. Did you really also want me to give you the google search I used? Anyway the wikipedia page on homeland security lays it all out in plain english.
evil is as evil does
These would initially go to the fed who would pass them on to DHS, IRS or whoever. The whole thing makes the financial institution err on the side of over-reporting. Not raising an SAR on something that turns out to be an issue (i.e., that Egyptian's down payment for flying lessons) will dump the FI in deep trouble with the regulators.
In most cases the problem can be sorted with a quick call for a reason and a source of funds. In this case it should have been clear that the people had other funds and they were looking to pay of their debt. With a reasonable explanation, all should have been quickly settled.
Oh, I do AML/KYC systems for a largeish bank so this is why I can comment.
See my journal, I write things there
Uh, hello... the mighty U.S. military is currently getting its ass kicked in Iraq by a bunch of uneducated ragheads with knockoff AK-47s and crude improvised bombs. If it works there, it can work here.
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.
"Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" perhaps? Having a delay in my payment being posted to my account just doesn't seem to qualify.
Government poking into your private afairs conflicts with liberty, and is actually quite explicitly mentioned in things like the US constitution.
The delay in the payment is not the problem, the cause of that delay is.
There are other options, you know -- taxes that don't require invasion into personal privacy; this is just one more reason why the personal income tax is broken. See the FairTax for one example.
Just because something is established doesn't mean it's good.
1. buy gold, but not in large amounts per transaction because even then the evil-tm govt will RECORD IT.
2. buy silver, since it will go up percentage wise more than gold, but takes more room, bummer.
3. convert CC debt to normal loans, paying normal loans should be on a crappier radar run by dumb idiots that just read computer based reports that barely passed highschool btw.
4. allocate say 50% of your income to debt payments, thats managable. Eat those 23cent noodles from china/day, yes boring/dull, but packed full of calories.
5. read books how in the 40s IBM helped hitler and the nazis on DATABSE MANAGEMENT and RECORD KEEPING and TRACKING PEOPLE to achieve their aims, now your SOL, since the govt loves it.
6. tease the idiots with false positives, they will get sick of it.
7. Pay your bills late 100%, but always over pay by 1% rouning up to nearest $10, the more wierdness there is, the harder their software will have to work to account for the un-eveness.
8. Stay out of the radar, by 'faking' a normal person by using your electronic transactions for normal purchases such as food/toilet paper.
9. Get a job at the govt, know their secrets, work like a lazy sod and get paid 30% more than the corporate slave.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Jeez man, 1991, Assign key F1 to text - NO CARRIER.
Old school man, those old term progies, classics, sometimes more cuteness/usefullness then modern crap.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
So you're screwed when you show financial responsibility because it puts you on one of Homeland Security's black lists, and screwed if you don't because you a) lose money on the interest you pay and b) you get worse conditions on your credit card. I can't help admiring the system.
Dick Chaney shot someone, no charge. wow i love laws.
Randy Duke steals millions, hes ok... Bill ORielly the moron, lies to death and its ok because if you say, "i believe..." it sok.
One rule for poor schmucks, another for rich prix with $100million influences.\
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
This was the 1950s remember: "Member of Communist Party" = "Spy"
"Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything" -- Josef Stalin
Straw man, false dichotomy and so and so on.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
except maybe by your own elected officials. Someone else already said this but I would rather die at the hands of terrorist than to be oppressed by and goverment that was supposedly elected by the people. Also most people are missing the point, AND, taking on this Patriot Act mentality. I heard a fellow say that he didnt mind if the goverment listened to his phone calls and emails because he had nothing to hide. There are so many people out there that think this way. People that have been conditioned to think that they dont need rights of privacy because they have nothing to hide. These same people also vote:(
These SON OF BITCHES in D.C. took 9/11 and ran with it. And its only the beginning and it doesnt matter who you vote for. They are all part of the same fraternity, Politicians, any one who wants that job doesnt deserve it. It is getting harder and harder to use cash, I have had problems paying rent and cellphone bills with cash in the past. Doesnt prosecuting, or even scutinizing, someone for paying off there debt in a timely fashion send a very clear and frightening message about the direction that the United Stated of Amerika has already taken. I dont really feel that paying larger sums than normal for a dept should be of interest to someone with the power and fear of terror to "CREATE" new criminals, citezens of this once fine country the USA, not foriegn terrorist. Legal residents of this country are now under attack by the very laws that were supposed to be enacted as a knee jerk reaction to TERRORISM.
Wake up. Its only going to get more interesting before its gets better. If that is even possible now.
This is very interesting to know. I was seriously just about to pay off one of my credit cards (to the tune of 10k) when I read this story. I usually pay about a grand, and was just going to do an online payment for the whole thing. I'm thinking it might be better to split my payment between a couple of different online payments and mailing in a check. I think they let me do three online payments in a billing cycle, so I could do three online and mail in a check for the rest.
Or, do I want to just pay the whole thing off to see if I get screwed like this, too?
This whole thing seems ridiculous to me. Ever since 9/11, the government has just consolidated more and more power, and for what? How many terrorists have actually been charged for 9/11. ONE? One guy, and the case against him isn't even that compelling. How many OTHER terrorists have been charged (let alone convicted) for 9/11? ZERO? Have my billions and billions of tax dollars done a single thing? I think not.
Sure, Bush makes a big deal time and again about how we foiled some plot here and there. When has there been a credible threat since 9/11? Tell me, how many times has there been specific information that an attack was imminent since 9/11? ZERO? That's what I thought.
What is really the damn shame in all of this is that we're going to cut off our noses to spite our faces in 2008. When Hillary the Socio-fascist runs for President, we'll put her in office just because Bush is an idiot, but we'll even worse off. The government would have already taken all of our personal freedom, and her government would be well-poised to take what freedoms are left and put us under the control of foreign governments.
It's a shame, but I feel like our country died on 9/11... the terrorists got exactly what they wanted, and they are out there laughing their collective asses off as we speak.
Dudes, 10-20% of the world economy depends on blackmarket/greymarket/illegal drugs etc....
If you could stop it overnight and stop all businesses/transactions you would see a massive world wide
depression economy failure, because there are lots of people employed covertly by these under the radar cloak
scam businesses, and no one cares, because people have cash and money to buy stuff so that corporates keep on earning
their share and increase in sales. Wipe out 10% of all customers/jobs/businesses overnight, boom every corporate
would DIE.
Spend $20billion to stop $1billion, its ok. Stop $20 trilion and your toast. No one cares, if its not big enough, and
lots of middle men get their share, then no one complains. Business as usual. Call it 'profit' on services with no scrupples.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
China/Asia is buying the T-Bill bonds the fund the debt...
Wakeup, BIS wants a collapse of the money world so as to have one currency it can control
Just wait.
Screw debt, keep it flat, let it fail. The elitepowers at be, want failure, want wars, want plagues, want
Bird Flu, they want 90% of earth humans to die, its their plan.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
I spent the last five years in Seattle. After a handful of border crossings by car and plane trips, I can safely say that flying beats driving any day of the week. The hassle at the border is absolutely ridiculous.
If any one really wanted to be bad, and blow any thing up, they wont have to buy it all in one
transaction, they could save up their own personal shit over 365 days and create enough chemical
explosives to do real harm. I mean any real real real bad person wouldnt just do it over the weekend
they would plan it over 1-3years. Why blow things up any way, its so old school, do it aka demolition man,
or hell, block all toilets in a city, if no one can shit, it'll be a real stinking bad day/week.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Terrorists pay bills?
The Fourth Admendment does protect against unreasonable searches and seizures, however, these searches are reasonable during a time of war.
It's a trade off, freedom versus American lives. How much freedom are you willing to give up to save a thousand American lives? How much will you give up to save a hundred?
There was a scandal in my area, about twelve years ago, where several car dealers and a large number of car salesmen got into trouble for outfitting the area's drug dealers with very expensive cars on a cash basis. They were charged with money laundering and failing to report large cash transactions. I don't know why they didn't just lease the cars, that wouldn't be as obvious as walking into a dealership with a big bag of cash.
Well, just offhand, I believe that buying a car, particularly if one is paying cash, probably generates fewer records than leasing. Let me see... either I walk into a car dealership, put down the cash, and walk out with a car within an hour or so, or I get my legal signature on several pieces of paper as well as other identifying data, then have to regularly return to the car place or make payments. Which one generates fewer ties between me and the dealership? Admittedly, paying with cash is unusual enough these days that it makes peoples' heads turn, but I could see it from the drug dealer perspective.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
The reporting of large financial transactions has nothing to do with 9/11 and the security paranoia since then.
As the parent mentioned, any transaction over a certain amount is flagged.
Transfers with certain banks or countries known to be "friendly" to money-laundering get flagged.
Unfortunately too many Slashdot "authors" are more interested in a good panic and outrage over the privacy intrusion, rather than investigating the facts of a situation. (OTOH, this is Slashdot. "Facts" are mutable here.)
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
The training creeped me out. the uber-patriotic person assigned to train our group was so into it. 3/4 of our group thought it was great... bringing down meth dealers who weren't smart enough to structure their money better. In fact, however, structuring is a crime as well... Go just below the radar one too many times, and you can be charged, eevn if there is no illegal activity behind the generation of money.
Having been a bank teller as summer employment, I can vouch for a good bit of what you say. But, to clarify your statement, you won't get "charged" with anything in a legal manner. You just come under more scrutiny. If your accounts all check out, then there's generally no problem. It's an annoyance, true, but it's not the OMFGWTFBBQ-Homeland-Security-wants-my-ass threat some people in the thread are making it out to be.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
Dude, gold is king.
Gold coins are 'legal tender' so a $5 gold coin is really worth $560USD, but is 100% tax free and duty free.
You can legally fly out of usa with $5m worth of US gold coins ie a suit case, weighing LOADS, so you'll have to pay
about $1000USD excess weight charges. But its 100% allowable, you can do it.
Why do you think at the swiss airport under the tarmac, there are 'gold vaults' where people can 'swap/trade' gold
before it gets to customs and transfer what whatever country to another country as long as you land at swiss airports.
http://www.skolnicksreport.com/mragmob.html
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Don't propagate this self-aggrandizing meme.
People in other countries often love American culture and
American people while rejecting the US foreign policies.
Really listen to people in the middle east.
Read some Thomas Friedman columns.
Don't just repeat verbal droppings from others.
In Mother Amerirussia, ve have vays of dealing with people who don't pay ..... I mean do pay their bills
Okay, this is scary. This week, I sold about 100 shares of company stock in order to pay off my American Distress card, and make a double payment on my car loan. Does this mean I should expect a call from DHS sometime soon?
It seems a bit scary that we're now monitoring things this closely. We have abilities that Orwell couldn't have imagined, and probably would have left him shaking in a cold sweat if he had know about them. Now it seems that exercising some common financial sense can bring you to the awareness of these people. Also, it seems that if they're looking at every little thing like this, the signal to noise ratio of the information they have to sort through is so low that they'll never be able to spot any real terrorist activity.
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
The last major drug "war" in the US gave us:
Thousands shot to death in gang turf wars. Chicago alone was supposedly home to 800 dead in a dozen years.
Thousands dead or injured from bad, tainted, or poisonous concoctions.
Smugglers, runners, and illegal manufacturers rich beyond belief.
Houses in every block offering a cheap high.
That was Prohibition.
Since it ended, things have been much calmer, wouldn't you agree?
.sig: Now legally binding!
But it would help if there was a snowball's chance of a Libertarian actually WINNING something. :(
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
I'm not a big Ayn Rand fan but something in Atlas Shrugged did strike me as interesting... To paraphrase (because Rand would take over 40 pages to say the following)
It's impossible to rule a society of honest men. So when there aren't enough criminals, those who would rule create laws that turn honest men into criminals.
The laws serve no purpose except to be used as leverage on otherwise honest people.
Oh for crying out loud the whole story is bogus. Only ***CASH*** transactions totaling $10,000 or more in a single day need to be reported to the government. And even then the transaction is not delayed or anything it JUST GETS REPORTED. Either the person telling the story is lying or the guy at the Credit Card company is lying about why the transaction was delayed. So unless you go withdraw or deposit $10,000 in CASH in a single day (I can deposit a 10 million dollar check and not get reported) then you don't have anything to worry about.
I'm about to pay off half of my remaining debt on my car and I'm leaving the country this weekend. So if they don't get to me first look for my photo on the news =). They might doctor up the stock photo by adding a turban or something.
this is the most important sig ever! In your face 446154!
FYI, this would be the laws that John Kerry pushed for. Not saying the Republicans aren't equally responsible, just keeping it real.
Carrying massive credit card debt is the American way!
Somewhat.
The forces in Iraq are working under a ridiculous rules of engagement set. This is to prevent an even worse international backlash.
If the US forces were to have to fight off an internal revolt, I'm not exactly sure they would exhibit that same amount of restraint.
Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
US author, diplomat, inventor, physicist, politician, & printer (1706 - 1790)
Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826), to Archibald Stuart, 1791
Politicians are like diapers - they should be changed frequently and for the same reasons.
The credit card companies have always been paranoid. Even before Patriot Act, my credit card was flagged once because I went to 2 different music stores within 15 minutes of each other. Well, store A typically had lower prices, but they didn't have everything I wanted, so I also went to store B. Had to spend almost half an hour on the phone with the credit card company that same afternoon (they called me at home, this was a Saturday) trying to convince them that it was a proper charge.
"22 astronauts were born in Ohio. What is it about your state that makes people want to flee the Earth?" Stephen Colbert
...but that doesn't mean they should live up to it.
It's a tricky issue, there. The UK has much higher taxes on alcohol and tobacco than France - so much so that it's very cost-effective for people living in southeast England to get on a boat to France, load up on cheap drink and smokes and bring it all home. Calais is full of giant booze stores dedicated to serving the British, so much so that they speak English and accept payment in pounds.
Under European law you can bring back as much as you like for personal use. The single market, free trade and all that. But if you're bringing it in to sell on you have to pay British taxes on it, taxes which are frequently dodged by dodgy traders heading over to Calais with big vans. So Customs have this idea of a 'personal limit' - an amount above which they assume it's not for personal use. I think this is more or less based on what they used to allow, back before we joined the Common Market.
The personal limit is not a law, just a guideline... but the problem is that Customs tend to treat it like it's carved in stone and brought down the mountain by Moses. With a bit of luck Brussels will convince them otherwise, and we'll be able to stock up for our big New Year party or whatever it might be without worrying about having to explain ourselves to some neanderthal in an official hat.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Transactions of at least $5,000 that the institution knows, suspects, or has reason to suspect have no business or apparent lawful purpose or are not the sort in which the particular customer would normally be expected to engage and for which the institution knows of no reasonable explanation after due investigation.f
http://www.epic.org/privacy/rfpa/
http://www.fincen.gov/sars/sars_by_numb_issue5.pd
The best remedy for tyranny is action. Two hours a month volunteering to elect candidates who will put a stop to this slide into fascism will do infinitely more good than a million hours posting on Slashdot. Or pick up the phone and call your Congressman. They do listen, because you might be anybody, with a big enough circle of acquaintances to change votes and make the difference between them getting elected or not. Or give money to a campaign, although that's a distant third and kind of a cop-out, because it comes without qualification. That is, they simply deposit the check and either spend it well or not.
The only way our democracy will work, the only way to get it back, is for each of us to pick it up by the scruff of the neck and shake it until the rotten bits drop out.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Listen, nothing really negative happened to the people in question. So, their account and payment was temporarily placed on hold. What's the big deal? They weren't falsely accused of supporting terrorism. They weren't thrown into prison. It's simply a safeguard to prevent money launderers and their like that support terrorism, drug cartels, etc.
Frankly, I'd be upset if an alarm wasn't raised and Homeland Security weren't notified of something like that. It is somewhat anomalous for someone to suddenly pay off that much money when historically they haven't been paying squat. In this case it was a false positive; in others, perhaps not.
Privacy? Please people, insurance and credit card companies are legally allowed to mine more data about us than Homeland Security is. Why? Because privacy advocates are all up in arms about any sort of data mining in the government, even if the activities are relatively helpful and non-intrusive. And the privacy advocates know about the data mining because government is transparent relative to credit and insurance agencies. We have no idea what kind of data mining is being performed there -- and they're only out to get our money, not protect our families...
01100111 01100101 01110100 00100000 01101111 01110101 01110100 00100000 01101101 01101111 01110010 01100101 00101110
Last month I got a letter from my bank questioning my transfer activity, I had apparently made too many transfers(8) from my savings to my checking.
It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.
Technically usury, the lending of money at interest, is forbidden under Islam, and so is doing receiving a loan at interest. This is called Riba in Islam and is to be avoided as Haram. Using a traditional credit card is against Islam because of this.
That said, al Qaeda terrorists adhere to the tradition of the Takfiris, rejectionist Muslims who believe that it's okay to kill other less pious Muslims and to live in sin to blend in with a populace to achieve their goals. This is why the 9/11 terrorists and the Madrid bombers looked like perfectly normal Westernized immigrants; standing out would prevent them from striking a blow to their enemies.
Given that conflict of interests, I really just can't predict one way or another whether a terrorist would have a credit card and whether or not they'd pay it down except for the purposes of avoiding bad (or no) credit, which can close doors that they need to be open.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Actually, that's not true. The US government accepted Article V assistance from NATO. Several NATO AWACS aircraft were dispatched from Europe to help provide airborne early warning over the continental US in the days after 11 September. The link doesn't mention the types of assistance provided, but I know from my own military experience that AWACS were provided.
Sean
two points:
the "bunch of uneducated ragheads" are willing (in fact honored) to die for their cause: Are you? Is the average american?
The current 'losing' situation isn't so much a loss as a failure to win - i.e. stalemate. Vietnam changed how war is fought. And unless you are willing to commit genocide, the US will never win a war in the way that the (for example) 1st and 2nd world wars were 'won' (i.e.: the other side signed surrender after sustaining sufficient losses.) Vietnam changed the rules of battle, and your "bunch of uneducated ragheads" are never going to sign surrender... specifically because some well educated puppet masters keep pulling their strings.
If you think imaginary property and real property are the same, when does your house become public domain?
I had a similar problem with ATMs a couple of years ago. I had an account with a local commercial bank for years. A couple of years before this event, I had bought a car with a loan through a credit union, which automatically pulled money from a credit union account, so I set up my bill pay service to automatically transfer enough from my main bank to the credit union to cover my account (plus some extra, just in case).
So, one fine Sunday I need $1000 cash, also to purchase used goods. Can't go to the bank because it's closed. I go to my bank's ATM and withdraw $750, which is as much as it will let me have. Then, I stick in my credit union card and try to withdraw the remainer from the account and it won't let me. I try less, and I'm able to withdraw $100. I figure maybe I'm hitting some ATM limit, so I go to another bank and use their ATM. Same thing. Balance check shows plenty of cash, but if I try to withdraw anything I get "daily transaction limit exceeded." I was able to withdraw a combined total of $900 from two accounts, both of which had plenty more available in them. So apparently, daily ATM withdrawal limits don't just apply to accounts, they apply to specific people.
-- OpenVerse Visual Chat: http://openverse.com
Most civilized nations are picky. I would love to emigrate to Holland or Germany, but getting a job is tough and they don't let you in without one.
Blar.
If you have been drinking and need transportation, I reccommend calling a cab/taking the bus/train/subway/walking.
I used to bulls-eye womp-rats in my pants
...your money could have been returned to you.
"Interesting to see how intolerant the left really is. We should have absolute freedom...as long as you agree with us."
I wasn't aware that "freedom" is something only the left care about.
This is pretty much spot on... but Homeland Security? It is standard practice for unusually large payments like this to be reported to the IRS, who will usually snif around and ask where the money came from. They don't care if you stole it, just that you paid taxes on it - illegal income - including theft, drug sales, and bribes - must be declared as "self-employment" on your taxes.
If you make a large deposit into the bank, a large purchase in cash, or whatever, the IRS will likely come knocking - this happened to me after running almost $1500 in change through a coin counting machine at my bank.
The fact that Homeland Security is starting to get involved in this now could mean that DHS is trying to watch everybody as much as possible no matter who or what they are, or it could mean that DHS's powers are soo poorly and broadly defined that it's now become the default point of contact for the government "just in case."
I think the more important question is what he was doing spending $15,000 on an engagement ring. That's a lot of money to waste on a piece of jewelry.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
Government poking into your private afairs conflicts with liberty, and is actually quite explicitly mentioned in things like the US constitution.
Where? A business transaction with a corporation is not "on your person", in your "house", part of your "effects" - property, or limited to your "papers" - you've allowed the corporation to have your transaction on their papers.
In other words the following does *not* seem to apply, also note the word "unreasonable":
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated"
However the following does seem to apply. Congress has the right to enact legislation to monitor financial transactions:
"The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises."
""To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers."
The flags were cleared, they didn't lose money, they don't live under a cloud of suspicion.
They didn't lose money, but if there had been payments they couldn't make during the course of the investigation becuase their assest were frozen by Fatherland Security, they very well could have.
Banking systems only work if there's a predictable amount of time between when a transaction is made and when it is processed. If a third party can arbitrarily hold up your funds for an indeterminate amount of time, you're better off keeping cash in your mattress.
I bought a vehicle in 1990 and wrote a check for it. The dealer had to record where I got the money because "the IRS wants to know the source of any payment in excess of a certain dollar amount."
That was the Internal Revenue Service. This was the Department of Homeland Security. It's a different issue.
Well considering it IS tax season, I think they shoulda called the people and asked them before turning them into the gov't for paying down a credit card. I do think they went a lil overboard with the Homeland Security thing. Honestly, for one, is a terrorist gonna pay down their credit card when they come into money for a bombing? And two, who would steal your identity or credit card statement to pay $6,000 on it for you? I understand the credit card company calling you to verify you really did spend $10,000 in one weekend, but to report you for paying your debt back?
=*^.^*=
Where? A business transaction with a corporation is not "on your person", in your "house", part of your "effects" - property, or limited to your "papers" - you've allowed the corporation to have your transaction on their papers.
Letter vs spirit of the law, which one do you believe actually captures the intention of said law better?
Also, I hope that you are not arguing that paying off a debt is reasonable cause.
"The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises."
And how does that apply to a transaction for paying off a debt?
It is interesting imho how you interpret one part overly narrow, and another part overly broad.
It's pretty pathetic the way partisan politics sucks people into blindness. As other people have noted, it's been going on for years. Clinton's administration attacked our rights in certain ways. Bush's administration attacks them in others, sometimes building on Clinton's, sometimes in new ways. But it predates both of those.
A lot of people got excited by the first Mr. Bush's comments on the New World Order. A bunch of other people got excited by Mr. Cinton's comments on the New World Order. I looked at the fact that two people and parties who are allegedly diametrically opposed on so many things agreed, and got extremely nervous.
I can watch movies about secret government agencies and enjoy them as movies. I can even laugh at the funny ones. But deep inside, I always wonder whether they aren't really helping the true enemies of freedom, because of our tendancy to then relegate such concepts to movie-land.
I have no idea whether it's a political conspiracy in the traditional sense, or just a mixture of well-intentioned but foolish do-gooders and power-mad dictators. In the end, it won't really matter. We'll all just smile and moo and baaa and pretend to be happy, because the alternative is death.
As important as I think the second amendment is to freedom in the USA, I have serious doubts it will be relevant much longer. At which point you can bet your bippy the same will be true of the others.
I don't know. "They" say that the rule of thumb for an engagement ring is "three months' salary." Maybe $15,000 isn't unreasonable for someone who makes $60k a year.
I certainly didn't make that kind of scratch back when I proposed to my then-girlfriend, but I did spend what I had been saving for a lift kit for my truck, on her engagement ring. She has never forgotten that fact, and actually tells her friends that I wanted her more than I wanted a 6-inch lift for my truck. This is a good thing.
I suppose it really depends on how much money you make and whether your fiancee would value a humongous ring. Fortunately, mine was happy with one a college student could afford.
"Too late than by a long shot. There is no way an organized armed revolt would even come close to success. The second amendment doesn't allow me to own a fully loaded stealth bomber. Even then it wouldn't be nearly enough. The second amendment out lived it's intended usefulness a long time ago."
This is assuming that only you or a small group want to revolt. That would not be a particularly democratic movement; you could not claim to speak for the people.
In a true revolution, you'd have popular support, with a chance of access to plenty of stealth bombers, if part of the army were on your side.
And on the related regulation which has been occuring for the last 30 years. THis isn't anything new.
However, they have suggested (and I agree) that such aggressive reporting is bad for our security. I guess the Banking Secrecy Act (BSA) created similar requirments 30 years ago and the Supreme Court has ruled that there is no right to privacy in financial transactions. In his prescient dissent, William O'Douglass suggested that this mentality would lead to reporting of hardware, pharmaceutical, and book purchases. Book purchases came under surveilance under the USAPATRIOT act, and sudafed purchases look to be regulated as a schedule II narcotic under the renewed revision of the USAPATRIOT act for the simple reason that it is a precursor to meth.
But the Treasury Dept. has 2 years of backlogs in entering this data. So if anyone things you can stop attacks by having intel that is two years out of date, I want to have what they are smoking (alas, what they are smoking is probably classified). It also makes one wonder if it could take 2 years for a large payment to post on a credit card in the future if this problem is not remedied.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Didn't Churchill have nightmares for years for knowing about the impending bombing of Coventry and having to sacrifice those lives in the hopes of changing the tide of war?
Not saying that you're right, but sometimes the costs can be massive for the greater good.
Wearing pants should always be optional.
You're also more likely to die in a car crash than you are to be murdered. What's the solution? Ban all cars and let murderers walk free?
We do everything we can to prevent accidents, yet they still occur, and always will. Likewise we must do everything possible to deter individuals from intentionaly targeting us. If tomorrow morning we took all the warning labels off of everything sold across North America, you'd see the death rate muliply tenfold overnight. Likewise, if we ignore violent actions taken against us, we will encourage further attacks by those who see us as weak and unwilling to fight back.
The Rosenbergs weren't fried because they were Communists. They were fried because they helped pass the atom bomb designs to the Soviets.
Incidentally, after the collapse of the USSR, historians gained access to KGB documents, and yes, they were both guilty as hell of doing it.
Logical conclusions, irrelevant critiques and so on...
damaged by dogma
Just imagine the massive imbalance of power. Although I greatly prefer privacy, I could possibly deal with something like Brin's "Transparent Society", as it remains equitable. But a surveilance state in which the government, no matter how well-meaning or benign, knows everything about everyone, but does not give its subjects that same omniscient access to all information within and about the government, is practically the definition of absolute oppression: you can take no action without the government's approval or else you will face its wrath. Even if the government is absolutely perfect in its laws and practices and it approves of anything and everything you might ever want to do (well, aside from evading its view), the fact of being totally subject to its will remains offensive.
Surveillance is an expression of power and I choose not to grant anyone the unchecked power of pervasive surveillance over me.
(And that's without going into questions of whether centralized power is actually preferable to individual power, whether power does indeed corrupt, whether the tax savings you claim from the reduction in police forces would actually be enough to cover the costs of pervasive surveillance programs, how government officials and agencies will behave when allowed to aquire unchecked power, the lack of an inherent connection between law and justice, whether you can conduct civil disobedience as an act of protest when crime is effectively impossible, the near-certain harassment of innocent people due to false matches, etc.)
"Where? A business transaction with a corporation is not "on your person", in your "house", part of your "effects" - property, or limited to your "papers" - you've allowed the corporation to have your transaction on their papers."
Letter vs spirit of the law, which one do you believe actually captures the intention of said law better?
Also, I hope that you are not arguing that paying off a debt is reasonable cause.
I am arguing that the government has the power to monitor commercial and other financial transactions, based in it's constitutionally enumerated power to collect taxes, duties, etc. Furthermore it has the constitutionally enumerated powers to define felonies and to pass laws to enact all these powers. You cannot at a whim deny these powers any more than the government can deny your true right to privacy, such as entering your home and going through your papers without a warrant. The corporation's papers and records do not enjoy the same privacy, furthermore you probably signed away many privacies when you agreed to accept the line of credit with the corporation. They share that information with 3rd parties, such as the credit rating services. Anyone who can look at your credit report can see whether or not your debt is paid off.
Good luck with that, Mr. Fascist moron. We've got your number and your days are short. It happens every generation or so, small-minded (let me guess, Christian) morons like yourself take over by playing to people's fears and working with the lowest common denominator. I know, you also feel like anything's ok as long as you win, right? Well, The People are catching on, little man. You and your brothers have finally crossed the line (like your type always does) and you'll get a nice reckoning with the next set of elections.
You've posted two responses to my original post and you have *yet* to offer any proof that the statistics I posted are bogus or not. You won't post any proof because you know they're true and you'll continue to prop up your various straw men so you can knock them down.
You sir, are a moron, a twit, and a tiny sniveling little mold upon society. Continue to suckle at the teats of your fear mongering overlords. Ignore the rich history of liberty and standing up against government oppression in this country and you'll fall away again just like your type always does. Real men aren't afraid of a few terrorists. Real men figure out what the problem is and fix it.
You're blinded by what I assume is your Christian religious beliefs and your innate desire to be "led" by any charismatic leader who presents simple examples and arguments that play to your own feelings of inadequacy and fears. I'd tell you to stand up and shake off those shackles of fear, but you're obviously too far gone and can no longer function without a hand-holding government who will "protect you" (see Katrina, see 9/11) while laughing about you behind your back. You're afraid or you wouldn't attempt the types of responses to the truth I present. You're small, you're weak, and you're nobody.
Disprove the statistics. Go ahead. Ask James Dobson what he thinks . Ask your little nitwit friends at your little pathetic goose-stepping right-wing blogs. You can't disprove the facts.
I don't want your protection if it means infringing upon our civil rights. As Larry Flynt said, I don't know why I have to fight so hard to protect your rights.
Tell me why my rights have to be infringed to protect against "another 9/11" (sigh) and not against the much bigger problem of Ibuprofen overdose. If you cannot come up with a rational argument to that, then don't bother responding, because I certainly won't.
What I'm trying to point out is that one man's "predatory lending practices" are another's "fair credit opportunities." Furthermore, I think the logical conclusion of his line of thinking -- that creditors are somehow responsible for only offering their services to people who are 'responsible enough' to use them and not get in trouble, is a draconian, rubber-room, nanny-state. The whole premise -- that there is something wrong with me offering credit to anyone I choose who wants to accept it -- is false and dangerous, and if it gained wide acceptance would take us to a very bad place. The transition from "this is wrong" to "this shouldn't be allowed" to "this is illegal" happens rather quickly; if you let people cluck their tongues and shake their heads long enough without pointing out why their thinking is fallacious, eventually some Senator will decide to win some political capital by codifying it. It happens all the time.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
how about instead of bitching about the US government, we just move the fuck out and start our own government on some tiny island, and show them how it's supposed to be done?
I'm up for it, now if only the rest of you would get up from your computer chair.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
You and your brothers have finally crossed the line (like your type always does) and you'll get a nice reckoning with the next set of elections.
Uh...yah. Damn us for constantly crossing the line. How dare we liberate Europe from the Nazis. How DARE we protect South Korea. And what were we thinking when we helped millions of Jews avoid a second holocaust. It's just one thing after another with us isn't it? Horrible. Just horrible.
You've posted two responses to my original post and you have *yet* to offer any proof that the statistics I posted are bogus or not
I don't know, nor do I care, if your statistics are right or wrong. They are irrelevant . Do you enjoy making me repeat myself?
Real men aren't afraid of a few terrorists.
That's why the best that your "real men" can accomplish is sitting at home, bitching and complaining, right?
You're blinded by what I assume is your Christian religious beliefs
Yet another display of your ignorance. Bravo. Carry on!
but you're obviously too far gone and can no longer function without a hand-holding government who will "protect you"
Wow. You've finally fallen off your rocker. Bud, I AM the government. I DO the protecting. You seem to be confused about our roles here. Calling someone a coward tends to ring a little hollow when you're speaking about someone who risks his life daily. And coming from someone like you, it's not just hollow, it's rather pathetic.
Disprove the statistics. Go ahead. Ask James Dobson what he thinks . Ask your little nitwit friends at your little pathetic goose-stepping right-wing blogs. You can't disprove the facts.
Once again, the statistics you present are irrelevant . How the hell does presenting useless figures help your case any? It looks something like this:
You: 4 out of 5 doctors reccomend Crest brand toothpaste.
Me: Yeah.....
You: Therefore the war in Iraq was wrong.
Me: But....
You: BUSH IS A NAZI!
Me: I don't see...
You: YOU CAN'T DISPROVE THE FACTS! GO AHEAD AND TRY! TRY TO DISPROVE IT!
After which I shake my head in disgust, and go out for a smoke and a coffee. Which is what I shall do now.
Think about it. Credit card company tick you off? Send in that $300 payment as 30,000 checks. Yes you may have to buy a MICR printer to print your own, but hey its got to cost them more than a penny a piece to process them.
Of course you may want to make sure your bank doesn't charge you for excessive checkwriting.
And what a big mistake that would have been. If I would have blown 15k on her engagement ring, we couldn't have made the down payment on our house, which has since doubled in value.
Thank god I found a woman who "gets it".
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
You asked someone to correct you, I did. Did you really also want me to give you the google search I used? Anyway the wikipedia page on homeland security lays it all out in plain english.
l and+security+fbi" at least would have made it look like you were backing it up, and not just speaking out your ass.
Yes, I unfortunately expect corrections to be constructive. Thus "take my word for it" is pretty useless in this sort of a case. So after you made the comment, I had to go and google it myself and find the wikipedia article (actually the German version, since I use German Windows) which spells it out clearly.
This doesn't solve the whole matter though that when I asked for a correction, the only thing you gave me was "you're wrong." Putting it so bluntly and accusatively essentially gives me a psychological drive to try and prove *you* wrong, even if you're right. So, I have to go around looking to either confirm or deny your facts. Placing some more construction information such as, "No, the FBI isn't part of the DHS, but when they were starting to form the DHS, there was a lot of talk surrounding whether the FBI and CIA should be a part of the DHS, but in the end neither was made to be."
See, you decided to save all that time giving me even a google link, to just say "You've been corrected", and now you have to spend all this time defending your position. Hell, just saying "No, actually the FBI isn't part of the DHS http://www.google.com/search?q=department+of+home
I am unamerican, and proud of it!
If you can pay off one of these as an individual (for personal use) in one shot, then I'd bet you might as well prepare a greeting for them. The evil bit is on by default - these set off red flags just by their own existence in an individuals's possession in the very least (varying on income and quantity purchased).
Nevermind the Mac Mini (of both types), it's harmless to pay off in one shot. When you buy something made with little regard to quality, why should they bother investigating?
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Why was this flagged flamebait? I agree with it. He makes a perfectly valid point. WAKE UP MODS!
Charles Wyble System Engineer
Funny at the time was when I was shopping for rings. I asked the question of the sales lady whether that guideline was pretax salary or posttax. She didn't answer, but she started showing me rings that were about 2 weeks' salary.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
It's one way to see the Caribbean. I dunno about the lodging and activities though.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
"SOE - Socially Dangerous Element."
WoW!!!
That's such a hilarious coincidence.
If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.
9/11 gave the government all the excuses they need to take away every right or freedom you currently enjoy.
This is only one small example of what big brother is up to.
Most people have NO CLUE what all is going on that they DO NOT hear about.
Whether it is fingerprints or retina scans or mandatory ID cards at the airports -- or neo-nazi bank employees sniffing around your transactions -- America is becoming a pretty hostile place to live.
Rights? Freedom? After 9/11 you gave that up to big brother.
Of course... If you aren't doing anything wrong, you don't need privacy -- right?
You cannot at a whim deny these powers any more than the government can deny your true right to privacy, such as entering your home and going through your papers without a warrant. The corporation's papers and records do not enjoy the same privacy, furthermore you probably signed away many privacies when you agreed to accept the line of credit with the corporation. They share that information with 3rd parties, such as the credit rating services. Anyone who can look at your credit report can see whether or not your debt is paid off.
That is all nice and well, and I roughly agree with you.
But now think about this:
People can see you have a debt, or payed it off, but can't see how you did that. The fact that people can see if you have a debt serves a real purpose, and is in part supposed to protect you from getting into inresponsible debt (can argue about how well that works of course)
In order to collect taxes, the government has to know about your income. They have no need to know about you moving money from your account into your debt account or anything of that sort, that is effec tively transfering money they already know about.
Implementing laws for the purpose of collecting taxes etc is nice, but is no excuse to monitor EVERY financial transaction, it is only an excuse to monitor those transactions that are actually relevant for this.
The constitution is quite clear that anything not explicitly mentioned in it as a power the feds have, is NOT a power the feds have. Explaining things broader then they are mentioned in the constitution in the 'advantage' of the feds is against the spirit as well as the letter of said constitution. Hence I don't see how the part you quote can be an excuse to monitor every financial transaction.
Well since I was right, and you were wrong it was you was speaking out of your ass. You could have done the research in five seconds using google, it's not my job to do that for you. It behooves you to do a google search before you post in a public forum dont you think?
evil is as evil does
After paying a few thousand to a lawyer then it's "Oh sorry, we were wrong about our interpretation of the law but there really should be a law against reducing our projected PROFITS."
I'd have modded it the same way if I bothered blowing mod points on taking people down. Slinging insults at the people you are having a discussion with is not the way to have reasonable discourse.
Politicians are like diapers - they should be changed frequently and for the same reasons.
Last I checked in Michigan the limit for being reported is $6000.00 at which point the state also get a certain percentage of the transaction.
In order to collect taxes, the government has to know about your income. They have no need to know about you moving money from your account into your debt account or anything of that sort, that is effec tively transfering money they already know about.
Implementing laws for the purpose of collecting taxes etc is nice, but is no excuse to monitor EVERY financial transaction, it is only an excuse to monitor those transactions that are actually relevant for this.
Your flaw is that you are looking at things only from one perspective. Money moving from your account to someone else's account is *their* income and therefore still fair game.
I am looking at the purpose of the transfer as well as the purpose of the law.
Interest payed is income for the creditcard company and as such is indeed fair game.
Payment of debt however is not income for them.
Well since I was right, and you were wrong it was you was speaking out of your ass. You could have done the research in five seconds using google, it's not my job to do that for you. It behooves you to do a google search before you post in a public forum dont you think?
Since the purpose of a public forum is not to post fact, but rather opinion, I certainly don't feel inclined to check my persumed facts. Especially, if I mark said suspicious facts properly.
Why did I persume that the FBI were a part of the DHS? Wow, maybe it's because other people thought the same thing at some point, like specifically the people that were setting up the department. Why didn't I know for certain? Honestly, I don't care that much about the inner workings of my government.
Doesn't change the fact that there are more assertive and less confrontational ways to correct people than "Consider yourself corrected." Considering that if you were more assertive, I'd have believed you, and if you were less confrontational, I'd have been coaxed into believing you. But rather, I doubted you, and got in a big ol' argument on a public forum because you failed to present yourself in any way that lends towards persuassion.
I mean, shit, there are three huge areas of persuassion that work: Ethos, Pathos, and Logos. Ethos: "I'm a polisci major, and you're wrong." Pathos: "Actually, you're incorrect. They considered it, but it didn't go up." and Logos: "You're wrong, here's the google link that it took me 15 seconds to search for."
Somehow you managed to miss all three of these enormous persuassive points, and then you wonder why I didn't believe you, and then you try and pawn it off on me that I should have checked my facts? I clearly indicated that I was working off personal recollection. If you had any more input than that, you should use one of the three above persuassive techniques to back that shit up.
I am unamerican, and proud of it!
I am looking at the purpose of the transfer as well as the purpose of the law. Interest payed is income for the creditcard company and as such is indeed fair game. Payment of debt however is not income for them.
Financial transactions covering balance, interest, or both are indestinguishable from each other. Also to be technical a balance payment could affect income if the institution had written it off or otherwise considered the customer's account "impaired" - this may or may not involve cooking the books to inflate earnings or shift earning from one period to another. I guess we need to introduce a different three letter agency that has the power to snoop, the SEC.
Also, since you've snipped and failed to comment on it twice, I assume you accept that the transaction is fair game given the enumerated powers to define felonies, say laundering money.
Financial transactions covering balance, interest, or both are indestinguishable from each other.
Hmm, yes.. they can be if you want them to be. Regardless, those covering balance are not income for anyone, and are not taxable, neither do they involve trade, so they are outside the scope of the law you refered to.
Also to be technical a balance payment could affect income if the institution had written it off or otherwise considered the customer's account "impaired" - this may or may not involve cooking the books to inflate earnings or shift earning from one period to another. I guess we need to introduce a different three letter agency that has the power to snoop, the SEC.
Seeing how it is those same financial institutes that have the requirement to report big transactions, I fail to see how this prevents cooking the books.
Also, since you've snipped and failed to comment on it twice, I assume you accept that the transaction is fair game given the enumerated powers to define felonies, say laundering money.
No, for that it is still enough to look at the income side of things.
Don't get me wrong btw. I do understand the need to monitor financial transactions, but I also do see a need to limit that to where it is strictly required. And there is no need whatsoever to freeze transactions or a complete account over this.
"Financial transactions covering balance, interest, or both are indestinguishable from each other."
Hmm, yes.. they can be if you want them to be. Regardless, those covering balance are not income for anyone, and are not taxable, neither do they involve trade, so they are outside the scope of the law you refered to.
You can't dismiss the "indestinguishable" problem, the IRS as a third party does not know. More importantly whether or not there is taxable income is something the IRS can determine on it's own, the constitution does not require the IRS to take the recipients word. The constitution specifically grants the government the power to pass laws to enact it's other powers. So with the power to tax comes the power to investigate anything that could *potentially* be taxable.
You can't dismiss the "indestinguishable" problem, the IRS as a third party does not know. More importantly whether or not there is taxable income is something the IRS can determine on it's own, the constitution does not require the IRS to take the recipients word. The constitution specifically grants the government the power to pass laws to enact it's other powers. So with the power to tax comes the power to investigate anything that could *potentially* be taxable.
I do understand the problems of things being difficult to differentiate, but that is really no excuse to investigate everything.
The problem with that reasoning is very simple.
The government also has the power to make laws that declare something a crime, and the power to investigate.
Since in many cases it isn't obvious that someone is commiting a crim, followign your reasoning, they can investigate everything and everyone at any gfiven time.
Its the same kind of reasoning that makes people give up many of their rights nowadays so they are supposedly more secure. The government has a duty to protecxt us, also against terrorists. SInce they can't tell a terrorist from a non terrorist, they should have the power to tap everyone no?
Sorry but unless you want to have a totalitarian government, you should be extremely carefull with blindly extending the rights granted to the government. The default is ALWAYS that they do NOT have the right, UNLESS it is specifically and explicitly mentioned in the constitution. Explicit means that 'implied' is simply NOT enough.
If there is a practical problem with this implementiation, they should rathe look for a way to solve the practical problem instead of extending their rights.
Yeah, I'm sure you've never raised any "red flags" anywhere.
Mind the Gap
Since in many cases it isn't obvious that someone is commiting a crim, followign your reasoning, they can investigate everything and everyone at any gfiven time.
Not at all. They cannot invade your privacy without a warrant. The critical point here is that your financial transactions with a corporate entity are not "private" in the Bill of Rights sense. Hell, they are not even private in a commercial sense since getting a line of credit in the first place requires your granting permission to the corporation to share your transactions and behaviors with other individuals and corporations.
Or to get back to the main point, the privacy of a corporate transaction is not an essential liberty so Franklin does not apply here.
Following that reasoning, opening a bank account is not private. I understand what you are trying to say, but I disagree with the reasoning.
I DO understand why debt registration is not entirely private and protected as such, there are reasons that concern both you and society as a whole for this. Following from that, I also see how it isn't entirely private that you solve that debt. However, if you do that with one single transfer, 1000 small ones, or whatever is entirely your business and noone elses.
I am sorry, but all your explanations have not convinced me or imho even given a somewhat reasonable argument as to why this should not be considered completely private for as long as it is clear how you obtained the money for it. As said already, checing the income side of things is enough for that.
It is not about the fact that you have debt or not, it is about how you solve that debt with money you already have and that has already been checked.
Also, your explanations fail to make any argument as to why this should result in funds being blocked.
After reading your comment I did some research on ING Direct and have decided to open an account there. I wanted to see if you actually had an account there and, if so, you'd like referr me (selfishly, as I understand they have referral bonus for both the referrer and the reffered). My email (with spamfilter) should be on my account, otherwise reply to this and we'll see if we can figure something out.
-Trillian
PS - If you don't actually have an account there, I'd be curious to hear why you mention them anyway. It looks like, when paired with a checking account, it's a great system for earning some extra intrest. Thanks!
I've had an account with ING Direct in Canada for about 5 years. Never had a problem, their service has been fine on the rare occasion where I've had to call them.
... at 7.2% it will beat any credit card you have. The only fees you'll pay with the debit card are the network fees the other banks charge, ING doesnt add a charge here.
I do exactly what you suggest, I use my credit union's checking account to move money in and out.
I don't leave any money in the credit union that I expect to need in the next 5 days or so, leaving very little capital for the credit union to make their profits with. You leave all your cash with them to play with, which is a big source of profit for them, and they pay you back by giving you basically zero interest and stealing 20-30 bucks a month from you in fees. To hell with that.
Get the ING Direct debit card, you can link it either to your savings account or to a line of credit to get at your money fast, get the line of credit
While your at it, get your Mortgage through ING Direct. Their 5-year fixed rate is 5.1% right now, compared to 6.45% through the big banks, could make $200 a month difference on the payments.
I dont care about the referral.
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"