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Financial Responsibility == Terrorism?

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Mon Mar 06, 2006 08:32 PM
from the utterly-speechless dept.
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.'"
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[+] Why Terror Financing is So Tough to Track Down 578 comments
An anonymous reader writes "After a recent Slashdot story detailing the errant investigation into a credit card holder's dept payment, comes this article from the Christian Science Monitor discussing the commoditization of terrorism, its relationship to crime, and the difficulties encountered when trying to track "bad" money."
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  • My experience (Score:5, Informative)

    by MyLongNickName (822545) on Monday March 06 2006, @08:33PM (#14863417) Journal
    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...
    • Re:My experience (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 06 2006, @08:39PM (#14863451)
      I am a consultant for a large national bank and just took this Money Laundering course. Wow, was it creepy. Yes, if you are a stupid crook you will get caught. If you are a normal human being you can get really nailed.

      The weird bit about this class was the continual referece to getting to know you customer. Which is of course imposible. So they set out all these questions and senerios to help you "GUESS" if there was a problem.

    • Re:My experience (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ejdmoo (193585) on Monday March 06 2006, @08:53PM (#14863564)
      Perhaps the threshold is a percentile for the company...

      In this case, I think a $6,000 payment to JC Penny (a department store) is quite unusual.

      Now, to figure out who's laundering money through JC Penny...
    • Re:My experience (Score:5, Interesting)

      by BewireNomali (618969) on Monday March 06 2006, @10:16PM (#14864033)
      dude, i've been through this a couple of times with my bank.

      I freelance as a consultant for film. I fell into the gig by accident: I'd written a film for a producer (I was writing movies on the side at the time - doing pharma research during the day) and he needed me to do the financials for the film as well. He thought the financials were thorough enough to recommend me to his (rich) friends who were also looking to invest in film. They'd hire me to evaluate projects both as a line producer as well as market analysis in terms of prospects, etc.

      My first check from this endeavor was more money than I'd ever had at any single time. I was on set, so I had the money wired into the account.

      While on set (out of the country) I tried using my atm card. No dice. I couldn't log into my online banking. When I got home and went to the bank, I got the suspicious "wait right here" while the CS person went and got a manager. I told them what it was from and that it was legit. They did a background check. My account was frozen for 30 days while they checked it out. I got a business account after that - but occasionally, credits to the account are routinely frozen, especially if I'm dealing with a new client who hasn't wired in anything before. Apparently, entertainment shell companies are a favored vehicle of money launderers.

      Good times.
      • 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."
      • Re:My experience (Score:5, Informative)

        by MyLongNickName (822545) on Monday March 06 2006, @08:55PM (#14863580) Journal
        It is called "structuring [visualanalytics.com]"
        • Re:My experience (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 06 2006, @09:26PM (#14863786)
          Talk about complete bullshit. It's garbage like this that makes people distrust their government.

          Let's see.. If I make a transaction over $10k, there's paperwork to be done and now the government has the Eye of Sauron on me. Hmm, I think I'll just avoid that headache and make two transactions on two different days instead. Alarm! Alarm! You are now being taken to Castle Wolfenstein!

          All this does is persuade criminals to NOT use banks at all and fucks over the legit folks. Typical end result of Big Brothering.
        • Re:My experience (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Clod9 (665325) on Monday March 06 2006, @09:41PM (#14863875) Journal
          Wow, that's pretty heady stuff. So it's not just a crime to be laundering money, it's a crime to LOOK like you're laundering money?

          In effect, if you don't want the government to observe you, and you act accordingly, that in itself will get you reported and can lead to you being charged with a crime. Thoughtcrime, indeed.

        • Re:My experience (Score:5, Interesting)

          by nuggz (69912) on Monday March 06 2006, @09:51PM (#14863913) Homepage
          Nice article, and it goes into just enough detail to explain how the system works.

          I think the summary is.
          The person was informed that cash movement of over $10k has to be reported.

          They then stop their normal legitimate pattern to avoid this reporting. In this case they were clearly trying to avoid the reporting system. They not only dropped most of their transactions below $10k, but also made deposits through an intermediary to avoid detection.

          It would be similarly suspicious if someone went out of their way to use the store exit that didn't have the RFID tag sensors, but ONLY after being told that exit didn't have them.
        • by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 06 2006, @10:02PM (#14863961)
          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.
        • Re:My experience (Score:5, Informative)

          by StikyPad (445176) on Monday March 06 2006, @10:27PM (#14864084) Homepage
          The Filing Compliance [visualanalytics.com] and Terrorism Financing [visualanalytics.com] articles were interesting as well.
      • Re:My experience (Score:5, Interesting)

        by cagle_.25 (715952) on Monday March 06 2006, @10:36PM (#14864123) Journal
        I don't want my government looking into my financial affairs either. But you have to understand the letter and spirit of the law against structuring. You are *not* flagged simply for depositing $9999.99. You are flagged if

        (a) You show up at the bank with $15k,
        (b) The teller asks you to fill out the CTR form,
        (c) and you try to restructure your deposit to avoid the CTR requirement.

        You *know* that some law like this had to be on the books to try to minimally enforce filing requirements.

        If you don't like it, don't try to deposit all at once. Problem solved.

      • Re:My experience (Score:5, Insightful)

        by ceejayoz (567949) <cj@ceejayoz.com> on Monday March 06 2006, @08:56PM (#14863588) Homepage Journal
        "If you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about."

        Which is an idiotic argument, because what's currently okay won't always be okay.

        Ask someone who signed up for the trendy, fashionable Communist Party in the 1920s how that act later went over in the 1950s, for example.
        • Re:My experience (Score:5, Informative)

          by drgonzo59 (747139) on Monday March 06 2006, @10:53PM (#14864207)
          Exactly, today the Government can detain you without evidence of a crime, they just have to think that you might commit a crime in the future. Watch the "Power Of Nightmares" movie [archive.org] -- free download, if you have some time. I just saw it yesterday , it is quite enlightening and educational. Warning: it is a 3 hour thing!
          • Re:My experience (Score:5, Interesting)

            by Gooba42 (603597) <gooba42@gmYEATSail.com minus poet> on Monday March 06 2006, @10:48PM (#14864174) Homepage
            My grandparents and parents were intensely aware of their privacy and its erosion. For their generations though a good deal of that was considered just a side-effect of social or scientific progress.

            Microphones became more sensitive? Well, of course some jackass was going to use it to record you against your will, jackasses have been around and will be around.

            The government specifically using and developing new technologies and techniques for spying on its own citizens? THAT was something to worry about... 1984, Fahrenheit 451, The Fountainhead, Anthem...

            My great grandmother was interrogated by the SS for 12 hours on a rumor that she was a sympathizer to the bank president who had been turned in on suspicion of not being a good member of "the party" which later turned out to be entirely false and propogated by the local priest who was a toady to the Nazis and coveted the man's house. His reward for the "information" was of course the house but my great grandmother lost some of her good standing in the community and the president "disappeared".

            Privacy matters to my family even if we haven't done anything illegal.
      • Re:My experience (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Eric Smith (4379) * <eric@brouha h a . com> on Monday March 06 2006, @09:05PM (#14863654) Homepage Journal
        If someone were involved in the shifting of huge amounts of funds around and planning the next WTC, Pentagon, Waco or Bali bombing, you mean you all wouldn't want to know about it?
        Yes, if "knowing about it" means that the government has the financial transactions of hundreds of millions of citizens under a microscope at all times, in order to (not) catch a few terrorists here and there, I definitely don't want it. It's a huge expense to taxpayers, and a huge intrusion into citizen's privacy, for no real benefit.

        Whenever people try to defend the latest ridiculous things that DHS is doing, they always trot out the line "but you want the government to catch terrorists, don't you?" That's a completely specious and indefensible argument; the government had more than enough information to catch the 9/11 terrorists before the act, and failed to do it because they had too much information and not enough ability (or willingness) to correlate it. Thus collecting MORE information is not the answer, especially since it encroaches that much more on the liberty of citizens.

        Terrorism should not be dealt with differently than any other crime. As in, "innocent until proven guilty", and "better to let ten guilty men go free than to wrongly convict one innocent man". The Constitution requires search warrants for investigations of other crimes (though King George the W claims otherwise); they should be required for terrorism investigations as well, including searching financial transactions.

        These "know your customer" banking regulations, the transaction reporting threshold, the instructions to report suspicious transactions even below that threshold, and the prohibition of "structuring" transactions all actually came about before 9/11, but have been stepped up significantly since then. The original rationale was the so-called "war on drugs". But that's not any better reason than the so-called "war on terrorists".

        "They that can give up essential liberty for temporary security deserve neither."
        --Benjamin Franklin
      • Re:My experience (Score:5, Insightful)

        by nadamsieee (708934) on Monday March 06 2006, @09:05PM (#14863657)
        What you need to do, Rebeka, is read John Stuart Mills' "On Liberty" (specifically Chapter IV [bartleby.com]). Then perhaps you will realise just how short sighted your thinking is. An inept bureacracy is just as bad if not worse than an actual conspiracy.
      • Re:My experience (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Hiro Antagonist (310179) on Monday March 06 2006, @09:09PM (#14863684) Journal
        So, you'd have no complaints being audited by the IRS for your 'suspicious' behavior of having a home business that earns more than the average, even though it'll cost you a nice chunk of time and money? I mean, after all, you came out of things without any harm, survived the audit, right?

        You wouldn't mind being detained in a holding cell for a day because some overzealous cop thought you 'looked suspicious'? I mean, you got released the next day, so no harm, no foul?

        How about having the police raid your home because you've bought a little too much cold medicine over the past month, and you also happened to place an order for some beakers for a halloween party? Because, you might be running a meth lab, and so the cops were able to get a nearly unrestricted warrant on that alone? I mean, it's no big deal, other than the day of work you missed, the neighbors watching the police crawl all over your property, and all those entries in the public records.

        Seems a little more scary, doesn't it?

        It has nothing to do with being a conspiracy, and everything to do with a big-ass violation of the Bill of Rights. You, as a citizen, have a right to be secure in your papers and effects, which is why we have this whole warrant system. It's supposed to be that, if the cops want to poke into your business, they have to show probable cause to a judge, and everything is public record (so you can see what they're saying about you, basically).

        Basically, it's a huge pain in the ass, so why go through it unless you really think the person is a criminal?

        Now, your entire life is practically open; law enforcement has access to all of your financial records, including taxes and bank account information, and all without needing a warrant, as long as you violate some arbitrary criteria as to what 'normal' is. Does this help them catch criminals? I doubt it; I mean, the crooks dumb enough to be cooking meth in their kitchens don't usually give a damn about pyrex or lab safety equipment, and the guys smart enough to build nuclear weapons in their basement aren't going to try and buy their supplies at Home Depot.

        Personally, I'd rather our law enforcement dollars were spent on, oh, education, especially in high-crime areas, and in prison reform, so that inmates came out of prison, well, reformed, rather than better-trained in being criminals.

        So, yeah, all of this does scare and bother me, not because I think that there is any big conspiracy, but because the government is violating my rights in exchange for some illusion of safety.
          • Re:My experience (Score:5, Insightful)

            by professorhojo (686761) * on Monday March 06 2006, @09:44PM (#14863887)
            rebekah

            ...did not involve them being incarcerated, did not involve a police raid on his home, did not involve an unrestricted warrant on his property, did not have neighbours watching a raid and did not involve him missing work.
            from the article: "Eventually, his and his wife's money was freed up."

            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?

            • Re:My experience (Score:5, Interesting)

              by 1u3hr (530656) on Monday March 06 2006, @10:05PM (#14863973)
              from the article: "Eventually, his and his wife's money was freed up."

              And the idiotic thing about this is if the retired Texan schoolteacher had actually been planning buying a truckload of fertilizer and diesel and driving it into a church/mosque/synagogue/abortion clinic; he would have been alerted that the feds were onto him and gone undergound; or accelerated his plan to get it done before he was caught. So as an anti-terrorism measure, it's counter-productive.

          • Re:My experience (Score:5, Insightful)

            by rubycodez (864176) on Monday March 06 2006, @09:45PM (#14863890) Homepage
            wrong, the PRIVACY of a citizen is being violated without warrant, because the government thinks an honest person MIGHT now be a criminal. By default, is none of the government's damn business why a citizen should choose to move or spend a large amount of money.
          • Re:My experience (Score:5, Interesting)

            by Hiro Antagonist (310179) on Monday March 06 2006, @09:53PM (#14863927) Journal
            I think you need to look up the definition of 'straw man'; I think that government access to financial records, which includes purcase records, mind you, was the topic.

            Moreover, I hardly consider asking the government to abide by the Bill of Rights as an appeal to emotion, and I'd also think that suffices as a very concrete reason for being bothered. Nice try, though.

            Of course, the person involved wasn't incarcerated, but they had to take time out of their normal daily lives to deal with overzealous law enforcement; that's potentially lost wages, a hell of a lot of stress, and a very big pile of resentment, because innocent people *really* *hate* being accused of a crime, and doubly so when the accusation is for an asinine reason.

            More importantly, this guy did something small. Reeeeeeeeeeeally small. And he then had to justify his actions to law enforcement. What if he had done something only slightly more suspicious, like maybe paid off a few credit cards before nabbing some foreign currency for his upcoming vacation?

            Now, here's the emotional part:

            I am honestly scared every time I fly back into the U.S. I, personally, have never been mistreated by customs, but I've seen the harassment that more 'suspicious-looking' individuals have undergone, nevermind that I'm just as likely, if not more so, to be a terrorist as the Indian guy in line behind me.

            I am really bothered that my countrymen see nothing wrong with ignoring the Constitution whenever convenient. That Americans like seeing all those new 'security measures' at the airport, nevermind that it means that I've got no choice but to check my bags in whenever I travel, because my nail clippers might be a 'deadly weapon of terrorism'. Of course, the wine bottle I've got on me is totally safe, and could never be used to hurt anyone...

            More importantly, I'm really bothered that we pull stunts like this at home, along with the whole problem of not being able to run an election, while at the same time claiming abroad that we are 'champions of democracy and freedom'. People in other first-world countries don't hate Americans, but they certainly don't like our attitude when it comes to the soverignty of other countries.

            I'm not saying that we're the worst, of course; the German government is very serious about making sure the Nazis never rise to power again, and I've had friends dragged in front of the police (German citizens) because they did something to tip off the Nazi-o-meter. But the Germans don't claim to be the 'Land of the Free', we do. Why don't we act like it?

            Ok, end the emotional side of my rant.
          • Re:My experience (Score:5, Insightful)

            by Qzukk (229616) on Monday March 06 2006, @10:03PM (#14863966) Journal
            which cost the supposed "victim" nothing

            You're right, it cost them "nothing" because that's MY money!

            MY money was being used to harass retired school teachers. That's MY money that could have been used to pay real cops a raise. That's MY money being used so that some DHS lackey can play Joe Friday and feel all detectivey. MY money could have gone towards having the army we wanted. MY money could have gone towards buying food for Wal-Mart employees (whoops, different rant).

            But no, MY money was spent freezing the account of some little old man because he tried to pay his bill. MY money was spent to see if JC Penney was really a terrorist front. MY money was wasted.
      • Re:My experience (Score:5, Insightful)

        by IgnoramusMaximus (692000) on Monday March 06 2006, @09:15PM (#14863713)
        Absolutely, I have been telling this to my Comrades for ages!

        Vhat you hav to realise is none of tis means anything. So KGB be notified. So they have a look at your bumagi. So they notice nothing be wrong, they go away.

        Vhat the problem? It be age old statement that defeats conspiracy theorists, they who convinced the government is going to imprison all good Soviets vhile the real reactionaries run free.

        "If you not doing anything vrong, you hav nothing to vorry about."

        Tink about it. If someone vere involved in the shifting of huge amount of funds around and planning the next Trotskyte terror campaign, subversive sabotage or bombing, you mean all would not want to know about it? Phew! You be joker.

        ============

        Absolutely, I haf been telling zis to my Komraden for all zis time!

        What you haf to realize is none of zis means anyzing. So ze Gestapo is notified. So zey haf a look at your recorden. So zey eventually notice nozing is vrong, and zey go away.

        What iz ze problem? Again it comez down to ze age old statement zat defeats ze conspiracy zeorists who are convinced ze government is going to imprizon all good Germans while ze real Communisten und Juden run free.

        "Iv you are not doing anyzing vrong, you haf nozing to worry about."

        Zink about it. If someone vere involved in ze shifting of huge amounts of funds around und planning ze next Burning of the Reichstag or bombing of ze train tracks carrying our heroic troops in Polen, you mean you all vouldn't vant to know about it? Jaaa. Right.

      • Re:My experience (Score:5, Insightful)

        by NoData (9132) <_NoData_ @ y a h o o.com> on Monday March 06 2006, @10:02PM (#14863965)
        "If you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about."

        This is the most naive, despicably un-American sentiment of all the tripe that's thrown around in this charade that is post-9/11 paranoia.

        I'm sorry for being ad hominem, but please, try to use your imagination here.

        This sheep-like "nothing bad happens to good people" mentality is the type of smug, head-in-the-sand mentality that destroys free society. My folks emigrated from behind the "Iron Curtain" in the late 60s exactly to escape the sort of propoganda and easy government-sanctioned persecution that I see creeping up all around us. Let me tell you stories about family and friends fired, harrassed, jailed, and yeah, even tortured because their actions were "misinterpreted", Sometimes they were released without apology a few months later, sometimes not. Sometimes the reason for the police action was political. Sometimes they were framed by competitors. Sometimes they were "snitched" on by neighbors with vendettas. Sometimes they just had the wrong guy. When paranoia rules and every out-of-step behavior is potentially subversive (or "terroristic") it's pretty easy to wreak havoc with people's lives, either intentionally or not.

        But that doesn't happen here, right? You wouldn't get labeled terrorist and jailed indefinitely for something as silly as trolling unsavory websites right? [64.233.179.104] Or be charged with a crime and have your property destroyed because you had a stupid bumper sticker, right? [columbusdispatch.com] And we'd never get so paranoid about air travel as to make a mother drink her own breast milk [usatoday.com] to prove its safe before boarding a plane, or maybe create a secret no-fly list that is impossible to audit or even acknowledge but sometimes bars toddlers from flying because they might be terrorists [usatoday.com] (along with hundreds of others, including members of Congress), right? I mean, these are good people who didn't do anything wrong. I can't imagine that there'd be a slew of kafkaesque civil rights abuses that an internal Justice Dept. [cbsnews.com] investigation might uncover [cnn.com], right? (I won't even touch domestic wiretapping) I mean, those who have nothing to fear have nothing to hide, right? Right.

        These are just small examples, and maybe not even very good one. And maybe you'll never inconvenienced like the couple in this story. But who knows. Maybe you'll be the victim of identity theft, or even framed.. Maybe you'll have to engage in some bizzare but innocent behavior. Maybe you'll want to voice an unpopular opinion, or go read/hear someone else's horrible and unpopular opinion. Or maybe it'll just be some bureaucratic "oops". But, if it does happen, and YOU find yourself interrogated by the FBI, or forced to explain some blotch on your record for the rest of your life, or maybe even jailed without charge for a few months, then you come tell me how, sure, maybe you lost three months of your life in a cell being molested by thugs, but hey, at the end, everyone figured out it was just a big mistake. So really, it was OK. We're all safer for it. God bless America.
        • by badasscat (563442) <basscadet75@yah o o . c om> on Monday March 06 2006, @09:28PM (#14863799) Homepage
          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 /.
      • by kcbrown (7426) <slashdot@sysexperts.com> on Monday March 06 2006, @09:38PM (#14863858)
        The government has access to everyones personal records and they will continue to watch to make sure everyone toes the line.

        What? They're not doing any such thing. Want proof? Watch me say something anti-government:

        This government is the worst on the planet. Thanks to it, I'm surprised anyone wants to live here!

        See? Nothing happened to me. There's nothing to worry about. You can say and do anything you##$:(!*NO CARRIER

        • by WhiteBandit (185659) on Monday March 06 2006, @10:46PM (#14864165) Homepage
          I find it quite amusing that people have the time to type "NO CARRIER" as the fuzz come busting through their door.

          Personally, I'd rather just type "OH SHIT!" and use the extra time it takes to type those 2 extra characters and try to run away. ;)
  • Catcher in The Rye (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Krach42 (227798) on Monday March 06 2006, @08:35PM (#14863430) Homepage Journal
    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.
  • by webweave (94683) on Monday March 06 2006, @08:36PM (#14863437)
    And Bin Laden is still free.

    Isin't that funny you can be freer in Afghanistan than in the US.
  • by slashname3 (739398) on Monday March 06 2006, @08:38PM (#14863447)
    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.
  • by jmorris42 (1458) * <jmorris.beau@org> on Monday March 06 2006, @08:48PM (#14863521) Homepage
    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.
  • Lousy Article (Score:5, Informative)

    by jjohnson (62583) on Monday March 06 2006, @09:05PM (#14863655) Homepage
    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.
  • It happened to me. (Score:5, Informative)

    by sakusha (441986) on Monday March 06 2006, @10:14PM (#14864024)
    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.
  • by tector (959062) on Monday March 06 2006, @10:19PM (#14864048)
    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).
    • they don't live under a cloud of suspicion.
      ...more than anyone else, you mean. This kind of behaviour means we're all living under an implicit cloud of suspicion -- if we weren't suspect, what valid cause would there be for interference? My personal financial matters are my own personal financial matters, and why a transaction between myself and an entity I happen to contract with to keep my money has any business being audited by a government entity charged with "homeland security" -- well, it wants something by way of explanation.
      • I twice have purchased a new car at the dealer by writing a five-figure check for the full amount before driving away. I had no problems either time.

        You wired the money... Two cars ago I paid for a nice car with cash. I had the money at hand, depositing checks from multiple accounts, only to have some clown try to charge me for a cashiers check and hassle me about when funds were ready (moving from accounts within the same bank) because they had to certify things. I was certified or at least fit to be tied - so I said fine - I'm not paying for a check, give it to me in cash. (for the record, my bride said it was a bad idea) I expected hassles from the bank, who delayed, had me fill out forms, and do a thumbprint.

        The car dealership were the once that surprised me. Seems spending a healthy amount of cash for a car set off flags there as well. They asked if I could deposit the money and write a check! Several forms later, and a 'I told you so...' I had the car. Pre-war on Eurasia, so I suspect things are worse today.
        • Re:No problem here (Score:5, Interesting)

          by thc69 (98798) on Monday March 06 2006, @09:21PM (#14863750) Homepage Journal
          The construction company where I work has never been asked to report five figure checks, and we get them all the time.

          Bob Kerr's column is full of stories like this. Some are more believable than others. This one lacks substantiating evidence, and is pretty tough to believe without it. Since 9/11, I've made transactions like that, and I'm not even old and retired; I'm young and can barely make the payments on my raised ranch...I've never had this sort of problem.

          Why would the company not post the transaction while they investigate? Wouldn't it make more sense to NOT alert "terrorists" that they're suspects?

          I'd like to see some proof, so I'll know to be properly scared when I pay off credit cards.
    • No. That is wrong. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by khasim (1285) <brandioch.conner@gmail.com> on Monday March 06 2006, @08:52PM (#14863555)
      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.
      The REAL problem is when people accept this kind of monitoring as "necessary".

      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.
      If you've got a better solution, I'd love to hear it.
      Yeah, it's called "Freedom".

      Sometimes it means that the criminals get away, but that's part of the price of Freedom.
        • by loqi (754476) on Monday March 06 2006, @09:28PM (#14863801)
          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.