Another Anti-Terror List Impacting Businesses, Customers

HangingChad writes "MSNBC is running a story about yet another government database designed to thwart terrorists and drug dealers that is having impact on people with similar names. Like a no-fly list for businesses, the Office of Foreign Asset Control's list of 'specially designated nationals' has been used in the past by banks and other financial institutions to block financial transactions of drug dealers and other criminals. Use of the list was expanded after 9-11 and now includes almost any financial transaction. Moreover, there is no minimum amount of money attached to penalties for selling to someone on the list: selling a sandwich to a 'specially designated national' can have a fine for up to '$10 million and 10 to 30 years in prison.' The article goes on: 'Businesses have used it to screen applicants for home and car loans, apartments and even exercise equipment, according to interviews and a report by the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay area to be issued today.'"

Comments

Re:Constitution?

[Harmonious Botch]

Parent just got added to the list.

Re:Yankee doodle dandy

[SpaghettiCoder]

By far the list comprises mostly the names of Muslims. I don't even have a TV. Do YOU have any idea how bad groups like Jamaah Islamiya are? Their supporters deserve to be shot on sight, not sold a sandwich by people who think the terrorist threat is just some kind of mass entertainment. It is bloody hard to combat this sort of enemy - they don't wear uniforms or seem out of the ordinary in any way. And yes, there are millions called "Khan", but out of them, a few are EXTREMELY dangerous. They have a history of this and so let's not grow any more of them. Yeah I know I'll get stick for this but I'm gonna stand up for the guys who do the utterly thankless job of fighting the war on terror.

Re:Hackers

[SpaghettiCoder]

How long before "hackers" (the type who break into other peoples' computers without permission) are recognised for the terrorists they are, and end up with their friends in Guantanamo Bay?

Re:Yankee doodle dandy

[Moggyboy]

Read this before getting all self-righteous about your so-called "war on terror". There's only one organization terrorizing and killing thousands of people at the moment: the Coalition of the Willing.

Seriously, there's better authors to quote

[spun]

Rand? Seriously? Shittiest self-styled philosopher and author ever to put pen to page. This passage is about as deep and insightful as "a is a," and about as well written as "My Pet Goat."

You want a good "Atlas Shrugged" quote? here's my favorite: "the band on the wrist of her naked arm gave her the most feminine of all aspects: the look of being chained." Yeah, Ayn had some serious sexual issues. Not that there's anything wrong with BDSM, heck, I like slapping around a willing playmate now and then, but Ayn is seriously messed up with all her non-consensual sex fantasies and homophobia. As writer Jenny Turner wrote in a review of one of Ayn's biographies:

"the sex in Rand's novels is extraordinarily violent and fetishistic. In The Fountainhead, the first coupling of the heroes, heralded by whips and rock drills and horseback riding and cracks in marble, is 'an act of scorn ... not as love, but as defilement' - in other words, a rape. ('The act of a master taking shameful, contemptuous possession of her was the kind of rapture she had wanted.' In Atlas Shrugged, erotic tension is cleverly increased by having one heroine bound into a plot with lots of spectacularly cruel and handsome men.)

More insight into the dark and twisted world of Ayn's sexuality here.