Financial Responsibility == Terrorism? 1086
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.'"
My experience (Score:5, Informative)
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...
Not the original source... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:My experience (Score:5, Informative)
Re:not a perfect system, someone propose a better (Score:3, Informative)
Enough said.
Lousy Article (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Funny you mention Waco... (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re:Catcher in The Rye (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Catcher in The Rye (Score:1, Informative)
AVIATION DISASTER FAMILY ASSISTANCE ACT OF 1996 [loc.gov]
Re:Lousy Article (Score:4, Informative)
Anyway, I don't have a problem with this because it was the CC's decision, not the goverment's decision, to freeze my account. I let the market forces go to work... and stopped doing business with that credit card company (as soon as I got my money back).
Re:My experience (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Catcher in The Rye (Score:4, Informative)
I can understand such things as these places, and I'm certain that there are states with more crazy control laws than the US. Truth be told I've only been to EU states, where customs consists of two doors, one green, the other red. If you walk through the green one, and you don't look suspicious, and you're not randomly selected, there's absolutely no questions. Just grab your stuff, and walk through.
The US meanwhile dictates that you declare everything that you're bringing into the country and puts you in long lines where the customs people ask generally more prying questions about where you're going, and what you were up to than in Europe. This last time, my whole interaction with the entrance process in Germany was:
Passkontrol: What is your final destination?
Me: Düsseldorf
Passkontrol: *looks odd for a sec, shrugs unnoticably and stamps passport*
No customs interaction.
It happened to me. (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:My experience (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Lousy Article (Score:3, Informative)
This scheme (called Kiting) should be on the decline now that the Check21 [federalreserve.gov]initiative has been in effect since late last year.
For most, it means that the little images of checks that come back on your bank statements are just as good as the cancelled checks that used to be returned to you, but now clears the way for electronic presentation of funds. What used to take several days for clearing is now as fast as an EFT (electronic funds transfer), so they'll know right away if the funds are available in the account.
Re:My experience (Score:5, Informative)
The Secret Service has always done this (Score:1, Informative)
Ever since the Secret Service [wikipedia.org] 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
Time to reread your history textbooks (Score:5, Informative)
Read about the Smith Act [wikipedia.org] 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.
Re:My experience (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Been going on decades before Homeland Security (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.zmag.org/ZMag/articles/mar01bender.htm [zmag.org]
Re:My experience (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode31/u
Yes, it is a crime. Punishable by fFine and up to 5 years in jail.
Re:Capitol Hill Yellow (Score:3, Informative)
k.
I call Bullshit (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:My experience (Score:2, Informative)
In those days (ok - we are only talking about 15 years or so), modems would report "NO CARRIER" when the connection was lost. Actually they still do but the user never sees what goes on between the computer and modem anymore.
Ahh, nostalgia... I remember wasting time playing multiplayer "Global Thermonuclear War"
Good times....
Re:Been going on decades before Homeland Security (Score:3, Informative)
The original $10,000 threshold for reporting cash transactions is from 1970. A few tweaks have been made over the yers, but no big changes until 2001 and the anti-patriot act.
Re:My experience (Score:3, Informative)
It is called a SAR (Score:3, Informative)
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.
$5,000 is the trigger (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.epic.org/privacy/rfpa/ [epic.org]
http://www.fincen.gov/sars/sars_by_numb_issue5.pd
Re:Shoot someone if your VP and its ok. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:My experience (Score:3, Informative)