Slashdot Mirror
Bank Accounts of 5,000 UK Terror Suspects Tracked
Juha-Matti Laurio writes to mention an article over at the Guardian, reporting on the surveillance of over 5,000 bank accounts in the interests of terrorist tracking. Accounts at such reputable British banks as HSBC, Barclay, and Lloyds TSB are having their activity tracked for 'suspicious activity'. Financial details from these banks, it turns out, was part of the trail of evidence used to apprehend terrorism suspects in a plot to bomb airplanes last month. From the article: "However, the extent of the banks' involvement in neutering the terrorist threat has sparked a fierce backlash from some British Muslims amid claims of mistaken identities and the persecution of innocent account-holders. Ahmed Salama was stunned when his HSBC account was frozen nine days ago. He received a letter informing him that HSBC wished to end their relationship after 11 years. The decision left Salama unable to pay 12 bills and his mortgage. Despite repeatedly asking for an explanation, HSBC has only told him it detected 'suspicious' payments in his account."
Quite why you would make a cross border payment of 20GBP is another matter.
He heard about an ad for the charity in question and decided to contribute, perhaps?
and there are plenty of reputable U.K. or international based charities working in Afghanistan that would have taken his money.
Maybe he didn't consider UK or international based charities to be so reputable.
Did he do something suspicious, sure as hell he did. Is he innocent, quite possibly. However that does not change the fact that banks can and do routinely suspend accounts that have suspicious activity on them, and it does not just extend to terrorism. It happens all the time due to specious fraudulant activity, sometimes comited by random third party crimials.
And banks should be legally liable if they suspend or terminate accounts without being able to demonstrate a cause, just like they are legally required (at least in the US) to apply uniform standards in lending money and other areas.
Lets just say it was *VERY* disturbing.
No, what's *VERY* disturbing is your witch-hunt mentality. Face it: you're a totalitarian sympathizer. It's people like you who bring dictators to power and destroy democracies.
Ever thought that maybe the muslims think like that too. Actually christians and muslims are a very closely related set of religions. They are very prone to forcing their religion on others, because spreading their religion is considered an act of faith. That is what the history has been. If you have doubts then look for forced conversions that have happened in the past in India, Africa, and Americas. In the Americas Christians committed whole scale genocide. But nowadays majority of the christians are not orthodox, partly due to scientific education, partly due to awareness. The USA is going a bit backwards these days, but hopefully it will improve in time. Islamic countries are still poor and illiterate. So they are still very orthodox and still prone to kill people for small things.
Before you hate muslims, it will be instructive to look at your own history and understand that the muslim world needs more scientific education, rather than counter terrorism. With attacks like Iraq and Afghanistan you are going to make more terrorists not less. It is only a matter of time. If Christians could become moderates, Muslims could become too.