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Western Union Blocking Money Transfers to Arabs
lowrydr310 writes "Western Union is blocking money transfers to people with Arab names. They have delayed or blocked thousands of cash deliveries on suspicion of terrorist connections simply because senders or recipients have names like Mohammed or Ahmed. 'In one example, an Indian driver here said Western Union prevented him from sending $120 to a friend at home last month because the recipient's name was Mohammed.' Western union claims they are merely following U.S. Treasury Department guidelines that scrutinize cash flows for terrorist links. I agree that Western Union shouldn't allow anyone supporting terrorism to use their service, however I'm fairly certain there are millions of people named Mohammed or Ahmed who aren't terrorists. I wonder if any other financial companies such as banks are doing the same thing."
Remember, folks, racism is A-OK if it's trying to prevent terrorism or 419 scams.
</sarcasm>
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
"Western Union prevented him from sending $120 to a friend at home last month because the recipient's name was Mohammed"
Not true. They prevented him from sending the cash because his name was Sahir Mohammed. A bit of a difference.
Perhaps a Sahir Mohammed has some links to 'bad guys'?
Well, it happens here in the US too. There are plenty of stories regading people being put on the 'do not fly' list due to circumstances like this as well.
It could be worse, it could be Monday.
with the name of, "Muhammed Ali," you might have a problem here,... Never mind the fact that you've got a major building in the U.S. dedicated to the cause of peace,...
Cryptome had a related article...
http://cryptome.org/western-union.htm
You're using her as bait, Master!
The statistics may have changed, but I remember one of those trick/trivia questions from when I was younger (in the 1980s): What's the most common name in the world?
It turned out it was, if you include all the variations, Mohammed. Throw in Mahmet, Makhmoud, Mahmoud, and various other spellings and transliterations.
Somehow, I doubt a large enough percentage of them are liekly to be terrorists for the name to be worth checking.
Welcome to American during WWII.
:(
Hooray for typecasting.
Thats another case of ridiculous procedures, One of the most ridicule stuff I found on WU was that when using the persons description when making a MO the form omits (to be politicaly correct im sure) the persons skin color. Cmon one of the MOST obvious diferences on fisionomy is skin color, please quit the politicly correctnesses.
From here:
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
This sort of heavy-handed behavior in the name of "the War on Terror" just reinforces the idea that this is not just a war on terrorism, but a war between cultures, a holy crusade. This is the sort of rhetoric that these terrorist organizations use to recruit new members, it hardly does us any good to give them evidence to support their case that the West is conducting an all-out war on Islam.
The more we marginalize Arabs (and sometimes people that just look sort of Arab) and Muslims, the more likely they are to align themselves with terrorist organizations out of desperation or righteous indignation. We need to fight terrorist cells based on real intelligence, not knee-jerk reactions.
Local goverments are receiving countless requests from those of Arab descent for name changes to Smith, Jones, Jackson, Bush, etc.
I know of a charity that works with (mostly christian) organisations in the west bank. Their usual way of getting money to their partners is to fly into Israel with a big bundle of money. Otherwise it tends to get massively delayed by US banks.
In soviet russia stale jokes recycle you!
They'll be glad to send money for you to someone with a nice Anglo name, such as Timothy McVeigh.
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
From the summary:
I agree that Western Union shouldn't allow anyone supporting terrorism to use their service, . . .
But aggressive war waged on civilians is the worst form of terrorism, and anyone who votes for pro-war Republicans or pro-war Democrats is actively supporting this terrorism. That includes the great majority of those who vote in the U.S.
Therefore, for Western Union to stop supporting terrorism, it would effectively have to stop doing business in the U.S.
Nonaggression works!
What does the US administration have anything to do with on this? Apparantly this is Western Union Policy right?? Western Union might be using a list provided by the government, but I don't think that the US has a law against this. Also, with ID theft being mor eprevelent plus the fact that there CAN be many people with the same NAME! There was a Mohammed Atta who was a Terrorist and I BET there's another Mohammed Atta somewhere elsse on the planet. Also restricting a transfer because of a name won't stop the terrorists. They'll just use Paypal.
Gorkman
I wonder if they'll block transfers from arab sounding names to George Bush (not senior). Hate to stop all that Saudi cash headed to republican pockets.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
I work for a division of a large financial firm, and we are required to download a list of Specially Designated Nationals from the Treasury Department and compare names from it against new accounts and transfers. The list includes lists of suspected terrorists, and they're not all Arabic (think Irish Republican Army).
This is the U.S. government's fault. The U.S. government and the U.S. Treasury department create a whole bunch of "anti-terrorism" rules with some pretty extreme penalties for non-compliance. Western Union is simply complying with a bunch of bad regulations.
The real problem is that people don't understand that there will be lots of unintended consequences to any legislation or regulations. ALL regulation or legislation hurts innocent people to some extent. People love to scream for laws and regulation to solve all the worlds problems, without ever dreaming that the laws or regulations can cause more harm than good. People have absolute faith in laws to do what they are intended and only what they are intended.
That, and people think it is the government's job to protect them from every single possible thing that can harm them (from terrorists, or iTunes DRM, or corn sweeteners, or whatever people are making hysterical calls for legislation on). In this case, the cost of having a free society where people aren't profiled by race or religion, is that it might be easier for a terrorist to attack the U.S. If you are one of those people screaming for the government to do more to stop terrorism, you are responsible for this. If you are one of the people crying "Bush didn't do enough to stop 9/11 and terrorism", then you especially guilty of supporting racial profiling (even if you claim not to support it), because how the hell else is anyone supposed to stop a crime BEFORE IT HAPPENS unless they are profiling potential criminals?
Western Union is just the innocent victim of the laws and policies that you most likely support!
I don't know if banks are using the same lists. I suspect that they are. I do know that banks put an extended freeze on transactions over $10,000, to allow for "Homeland Security" review. This applies even to activity totally within the United States, regardless of your name.
From TFA: [i]In Washington, U.S. Treasury spokeswoman Molly Millerwise said foreign banks have used the department's list of terrorist names to freeze $150 million in assets since Sept. 11. Millerwise didn't know the value of money transfers blocked using the list, but said frustrations endured were regrettable but necessary. "We have an obligation to do all we can to keep money out of the hands of terrorists," Millerwise said. The list of names, available on the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control Web site, contains hundreds of Mohammeds. [/i] So this is not, as the summary and a few sentences in the article implied, simply a question of racists indiscriminately blocking all people with Arab-sounding first names. If that were the case, I doubt Western Union would be able to afford to do it, since, as others have mentioned, there are an awful lot of Mohammeds out there in the US. What the article says, however, is that the sum total of transactions affected in this way is in the 1000's-- most only delayed by a few hours-- with far fewer actual blocks made on transactions. That suggests that the ostensible explanation-- that for a customer who happens to have the exact same first and last name as a terrorist, Western Union takes a little time to make sure they're dealing with somebody else-- is actually the correct one. And is it really such a bad policy? Back in the Unabomer days, if my name was Ted Kaczynski and I asked someone to wire me money, I'd sure as hell expect the company to take some time to check out my identity, and I wouldn't follow up by alleging racism against people of Polish descent.
Terror is fear caused by the perception of danger.
The solution is, of course, the perception of security.
The crippling effect of terror is that people are afraid to do things they normally would if they did not perceive a danger.
Actual protection from the hazard (if there was an actual hazard) would not necessarily remove the perception of danger.
Citizen 1: I'm stayin' home. There's terrorists out there.
Citizen 2: Have you seen one?
Citizen 1: Nope, but nobody's doing anything about it. I'm not leaving the house till this is over!
To combat the terror, we present the appearance of security measures. Going overboard and causing outrage is just part of the salesmanship.
Citizen 1: A real terrorist would never get through--they're bustin' guys just for lookin' like terrorists!
Citizen 2: Woohoo--we whupped them terists good. Let's go down to the Winn-Dixie. We're out of beer!
C1 & C2 hop in the car and immediately put it in the ditch because they're hammered. But they were wearing seatbelts, so they're OK!
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
The 7/7 attacks in the UK cost less than £3000 to plan and execute. Do you really think that it's possible to track that little money effectively? Someone could take it from a cash register at the end of a day. The group that organised it could, between them, have withdrawn the money from cash machines in one day without raising any alarms.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
How do find a German spy? Check to see if their last name begins with 'Von'! ("General Hospital")
This is a bit OT but I find it interesting that Mohammed is most common first name in the world, and Wong is most common last name in the world. And yet, there are no Mohammed Wong's. At least none that have graced the cover of Tiger Beat magazine (I have a subscription).
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
But whatever you do, don't criticize the government in your blog, say anything that someone else might find "hateful," question the historical details of the Holocaust, or commit any other anti-Canadian thought crimes. Then you'll wind up in prison.
Yes, anecdotes from people who work at Western Union. I guess one person's "rabble rouser" is another person's "investigative journalist". Oh I did that quick search. Wtf were you talking about? Taking pictures of gorillas is rabble rousing?
His article is completely anecdotal and short on facts.
It's a news article, of course it's anecdotal, that's what news is - stuff that happens, not necessarily repeatable experimental observations that support a hypothesis.
Having said that, the article is full of facts. Facts that can be checked. Like quotes from sources, most of which are identified clearly.
Of course, it's easier to just disparage the writer (and with him, the Associated Press, not a source well known for being unreliable) than to check those facts. Or to entertain the possibility that they might be true.
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
No Mohamed Sahirs on the SDN listd n/sdnlist.txt
http://www.ustreas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/s
Lots of Sahirs and Mohameds but i dont see that combination.
And the next thing you know, /. will block Arab usernames.
I never had that problem!
In case of fire, do not use elevator. Use water!
Just another "we do something against the terror" bubble. Nothing else. As if that would change anything.
So you're not allowing WU to transfer to Mohammeds? Great. Next thing you know we'll get some sons of terrorists named Billy-Bob and the transfer is made to them instead. With the dad, as their custodian, cashing in. "Problem" solved.
Window dressing for the naked emperor, I'd call it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
As a 4th generation Japanese-American I am familiar with the internment of my grandparents' generation during WWII. My grandfather fought in the 442d Combat Batallion for the US while his sister was interned in Tulelake, CA. It seems like the selective internment of a group of people was a harsh response to the threat... my grandfather was dodging bullets in Italy trying to protect the country that temporarily imprisoned his sister, but you'll be hard pressed to find a Japanese-American who complains about this event.
I guess my point is this... it wasn't all Japanese-Americans that were relocated, just those living on the West Coast after Pearl Harbor. And my grandfather's generation of Nissei (2nd Generation Japanese-Americans) were never bitter about their treatment... they understood, as so few do today, that war can bring out the best in people, as well as the worst.
BTW... there was never a formal internment of German-Americans because 2nd or 3rd generation Germans looked just like a typical white American. Japanese-Americans were much easier to identify. I suspect that if Al Queda was a primarily European organization, we wouldn't have companies like Western Union selectively rooting out potential terrorists.
And finally, I think it is hilarious that people (and by that I mean white, middle-class liberals) get up in arms about the treatment of my family during WWII, when I have never heard them get angry or even complain about it. The past is the past, and our future in this great country exists because of the sacrifice of people like my grandfather.
# man tar
1. al-Qaeda receives more than 90 percent - even today - of its funding directly or indirectly from Saudi Arabian citizens.
2. Most people using Western Union with Arab names are not from Saudi Arabia.
3. Requiring a Passport of someone wiring money with an Arab name, and just checking to see if they're citizens of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, or Egypt would work much more effectively.
4. Fake passports and name changes are easy to buy, usually costing less than $25 on downtown streets of any major port city (or even Detroit, Michigan).
5. Fake patriotism, like concern for non-existent flag-burning rampages, is very easy to do, and highly ineffective.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Most likely they're blocking money transfers as part of their compliance with OFAC
The rules are supposed to be you check relevant information (including but not limited to name) against the watch list, and then hold any monies which are associated with a positive hit on the watch list until it is resolved whether the recipient is a false positive or truly on the watch list. Most financial companies which I have worked with try to resolve within 24 hours, but my experience is limited to a small small number of companies.
It does sound that Western Union is having an issue properly identifying and resolving OFAC positives.
OFAC is a legal compliance requirement. Much like another of our favorites, SOX.
Remember after the Oklahoma City bombing how hard it was for a white person to rent a Ryder truck or any type of moving truck? I had to go rent moving trucks for my white friends because they were getting spit on and turned away.
Can I bum a sig?
If profiling has to be done, then the rules should be established upfront so that no single race or religion can get a free pass--that is, if safety is really a priority.
I seriously doubt Western Union has, or will deny money transfers to recipients who fit this profile of a famous terrorist:
American citizen, White, short-haired, male, Irish-American, Catholic, who had been Republican or Libertarian, had been also been a member of the NRA, and is a veteran who saw combat.
The above was taken from a description of Timothy McVeigh--you remember what he did, and the following outrage against white people who might be terrorists, right?
On a serious note, I wonder how many Americans fit the above profile compared to Americans with Arab-sounding names. I'm guessing the above profile, matching Timothy McVeigh, would be able to filter out all but a tiny fraction of Americans. And who knows if it might prevent another similar incident?
If you currently favor biased profiling that favors the predominant race or religion, would you feel the same way if America becomes predominantly non-White?
I personally think profiling *might* prevent harmful incidents, but refusing to profile one race (white) or the political party in power (Republican) is not the way to go about preventing terrorism. There should be no free rides if profiling is going to be implemented. Do it right, do it for best results, or don't do it at all.
From what I can gather from the article this policy is actually harming security.
They say Treasury guidelines are sending more people to informal money transfer networks called "hundis" or "hawalas" that have been used by gangsters and terrorists because they circumvent such scrutiny.
"Sending money by hawala is cheaper and it does not get checked by banks, so it is quicker," said a Pakistani taxi driver who called himself Munir Ahmed. "They say it is not legal, but it is a reliable alternative to Western Union."
If law abiding people are avoiding official institutions what makes them think that terrorists are stupid enough to use them?!?
More than that by driving additional people to the hawalas it circumvents existing security measures. For starters it means that more money (even the legit stuff) is moving around and they have no idea where it went, also the additional people using the hawalas will mean they are more developed for the terrorists use them. Additionally when you uncover a hawala network it will be that much harder to pick out the terrorists since you've added all these false positives, and finally for the terrorists who would have used official institutions in the past since it was easy and the hawalas weren't developed, now you no longer have a money trail you can inspect later on.
All this security measure does is inconvenience and alientate a whole bunch of people while making the world a little less safe.
I stole this Sig
The rednecks *I* know (I live in Georgia) ARE ignorant, and they DID vote for Dubya, because he "hates them damn queers" and panders to their bigotry. Yes, Bush is pure evil, and yes, he understands exactly what he's doing. Ignorance is still the REASON he's in office in the first place.
Bush doesn't represent the folks who voted for him - he represents the folks who financed his corrupt ass. That doesn't take away from the fact that his pretending to be a redneck is why he's in power. He's a faux-redneck figurehead for a redneck nation.
And, since you're so keen on calling ME a dumbass, I guess I should call you a dumbass for being too fucking stupid to realize I was making a simple generalization to express my disgust with the way our president got elected, and not trying to go into a deep political discussion.
Oh the irony, to have you whining that I'm PC, and another jackass whining that I'm a big bad racist for using the word redneck.
Oh and one more thing... NO FUCKING TRIALS? Holy shit, idiocy like that is EXACTLY why this government has the power it does to take away our rights. Hey, you criticized El Presidente, they can line you up and shoot you, and say "this guy was carrying explosives". Of course, since they don't actually have to PROVE that you were doing so, no one would be the wiser.
Ignorance like yours is exactly why this country is in the shithole mess it's in right now.
Did YOU RTFA?
First paragraph:
Oh yeah, you're named "Mohammed", you therefore may be related to terrorism! Does that make sense to you? It's a stunningly common name! And that's from a company official, not some cashier.
Sounds to me like the Western Union employee didn't understand what actually happens
Sounds to me like you didn't understand what actually happened.
You can't take the sky from me...
My dad is pretty conservative, grew up in a red state, all that kind of thing. He is, however, also smart and insightful.
He asked the simple, and obvious in hindsight, question: "What's the government got to do with marriage anyway?".
Prior to Social Security, about the only legitimate answer would have been inheritance laws.
Everyone believed the cold war is over and the USA won it.
Wrong
Actually Rusia is free, but it looks the people in America find themselfs suddenly on the wrong site of the iron curtain. The USA is slowly shifting to a police state worse then the USSR ever has been. Just fearing terorists.
Not allowing money transfers, just because someones name is Mohammed is one of the stupid things I ever ever heard. Who the fuck is actualy in charge in the USA? Pipo the clown? Kafka?
More likely denying people to use the service will turn them into terorists.
Besides the story was talking about transfers out of the USA. I would suspect a terorist should being interest in transfering money INTO the US.
In the short run, this aproach might annoye the real terorist, but not stop them.
In the long run, you'll have more of them.
And they still wonder where terorists come from?
Terorists aren't born, they are created by other (forgive me the word) humans.
I do hope the parent story is fud or a hoax.
If you want marriage to be defined by what your religion says, then detach it from all the benefits previously enumerated. Make it so that people get married in church if they want, and then if they want legal recognition they also get a civil partership, or whatever you want to call it.
Until then, you can't expect people not to want marriage.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
won't be long before you have to show your internal passports at the road checkpoints. the no work list is coming soon brought to you by the same ppl who gave you the no fly and no transfer money list. but you upstanding citizens will have your universal id card to prove who you are.
but don't start protesting too much, or your name goes on the list. then you can say bye bye to that house car and life. isn't facism cool? tony the tyrant says 'It's GRRRRRRRREAT!
t
-.no
I believe Michael Badnarik had the best idea. Namely, seperating the state instiution of marriage from the religious instiution of marriage.
1) If you would like to get married, go to your church, temple, mosque, etc. Since we have freedom of religion and a seperation of church and state, your church can marry you and whomever (or whatever) you'd like to marry.
2) If you would like the benefits that the state provides to a couple that is more or less a family, then you can go down to the courthouse and get a civil union certificate, which doesn't depend on any such religious ceremony you went through. The state should recognise the joining of any two people because of the 14th amendment.
Perhaps its just me, but I don't understand why some people are for homosexual civil unions, but not homosexual marriage, even when they are functionally the same. To me, marriage implies a religious ceremony, and no one has seriously advocated that church X has to marry a homosexual couple.
Well, it happens here in the US too. There are plenty of stories regading people being put on the 'do not fly' list due to circumstances like this as well.
I'd say with a fairly high degree of certainty that any system capable of producing so many false positives, is pretty much worthless. But then, this is the US government, and I'm sure they know exactly what they're doing.
Care to explain who, in your opinion, has the right to define exactly what "marriage" means?
If you want to take the religious angle, then perhaps G-D had the right, but He never bothered to actually define it, man took that liberty. Just remember that the words in your bible (and in mine) were customarily said to be written by Moses, who proved himself to be as imperfect as any other human (re: the water-from-the-rock incident).
Otherwise, here's what I found just from one quick search of a more or less authoritative non-religious source... According to the American Heritage Dictionary (via dictionary.com; leaving out the parts that don't apply to this discussion):
Merriam-Webster agrees with only the first part of the first definition, and says very little about other possible definitions as they apply here. In other words, even the freakin' dictionaries can't settle on what it really means. Furthermore, who really gives a shit what you think about it?
I suggest you practice what you preach, since you are clearly and in no uncertain way trying to pigeonhole all nonstandard marriages into the same narrow religious definition (which sounds awefully Christian-based to me).
Ok then, so what specifically DO you care about?
I'll give you a personal example of why I care (and why I bothered to reply). I'm pre-operative transsexual, and married to a man. Technically, that makes us a same-sex couple until I get the surgery.
Do he and I being married somehow damage your marriage? How? Did I call the court and demand they revoke your license? Did I come over to your house and demand you end your marriage? Am I trying to redefine what your marriage means to you and your spouse? Let's see...no, no effect, no, no, and no.
In your opinion maybe. Excluding religious reasons, marriage has always been man-and-woman for just one reason: How else do you expect the ruling majority of the society to behave but to specifically marry man to woman? Just because it's been some certain way for centuries doesn't mean it's being done entirely right. I mean, hell, we have a 70% divorce rate in the USA alone, and you're worried about supposedly redefining marriage?
Who gives a shit what the ancient Greeks considered to be "normal"? Last time I looked, most of us here lived in 21st century CE America (which in and of itself isn't much to speak of these days), not 10th century BCE Greece.
A thousand years ago, we thought the earth was flat and that the sun revolved around it... of course we know better now.
A hundred years ago, we had no concept of transmitting moving pictures and sounds by wireless. Nowadays, the television is as commonplace as a pair of socks.
Around ten years ago, we thought homosexuality and transsexualism were psychological/mental problems, now we're starting to realize that it's biological/physical and determined some time before birth.
One year ago, we thought it impossible fuse a prostethic device to the bone a
Oh and one more thing... NO FUCKING TRIALS? Holy shit, idiocy like that is EXACTLY why this government has the power it does to take away our rights. Hey, you criticized El Presidente, they can line you up and shoot you, and say "this guy was carrying explosives". Of course, since they don't actually have to PROVE that you were doing so, no one would be the wiser.
Here! Here! I totally agree! Why are people so insistent on letting their government tell them how to live? If you're caught carrying explosives or suspected of terrorist plots and there is evidence, a trial will only determine your guilt. Being held in Cuba for an undetermined amount of fucking time is not a fair trial and those that agree with the Bush administration's policy on that do not consider what could happen to them.
I had one idiot at work tell me, you only go to Gitmo if you've held unsavory connections to terrorist groups or suspected terrorists. In the eyes of Bush administration (as stated by them in justification of their spying on fellow Americans) anyone could be a terrorist. My point to him and question was, if suddeny Homeland Security came busting down his door and hauled his ass off to Gitmo, would he have a problem with that? Of course his first reaction was, "That is insane, why would they come after me?!?! That isn't realistic." My response was, "Sure it is realistic, people make mistakes, you're mistakenly taken away to Gitmo for no reason, would you be okay with that? Being held without legal representation, being held against your will, no contact with Family or Friends." After much prodding, he admitted he would not like that. Gosh? Really?
What is my point? Treat others how you want to be treated! Everyone always says, "Hey! I am no terrorist! They won't come after me!" I retort, "Prove it! Prove to me right now you're not a terrorist!" - They can't! No one can! That IS the point of terrorism, that IS the problem with preventing terrorism. You do not need to be Arab to be a terrorist, the idea of terrorism is about terror! And guess what? Groups that have committed terrorist acts prey upon the terror and fear they have caused, just as much as our politicians prey on the same.
Question everything! Especially question those that claim they are acting in your interests!
Tes
The unspoken point is much more disturbing. They aren't just holding the transaction for a few hours and letting it sit there. They're holding the transaction, calling or notifying a government agency, and saying "Mohammed Everyman is sending $500 to some guy names Jimmy James, is it ok?" and then waiting for the government to check it out and get back to them.
Helloooooo, data mining.
Seriously, what an absolute load of shit. How can you people stand for this? Because it's foreigners??
I say the EU passes a new law, requiring banks and transfer institutions to hold and check all activities by guys named "Bob" and "Mike". But it's ok, it's for security purposes.
You know what? I could rant all day, but there's a much better way to express myself:
*boggle*
*bangs head on desk*
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.