Interesting but a misleading subject line for this article. I did work for awhile in the financial "stored value card" industry and am familiar with the Banking Act this incident falls under. This person wasn't investigated by the Dept of Homeland Security, no-one visited their home, and no-one spied on them.
Under variaous baking acts, along with the Patriot Act, there is certain information what financial institutions must verify and keep on file, such as your SSN, full legal name, and physical address. There are also activities that must be reported, but don't nessisarily trigger an investigation. Usually the way this works is that the transaction is reported, then put on hold for a set amount of time, after which the funds were released by default unless otherwise notified by the agency reported to. It's actually been true long before 9/11 that any cash transaction larger than a certain amount have to be reported. For example, if you bought $10K of furniture in cash, the company you bought it from must report it. This isn't part of 9/11, this is to track people who are laundering money by buying shit (physical assets) with it. Often, drug money is spend on lavish lifestyle, big TVs, yachts, electronics, whatever. By tracking how's making large purchases (or paying off huge chunks of debt), the govt can more effectively find people laundering money. I'd bet a similar motivation is behind that occured in this article. This isn't really anything new, and the only reason it's going to the "Department of Homeland Security" is that now the FBI and every other agency under the sun reports to the DHS. It's really just going to one of those agencies under DHS, but screaming bloddy murder about Homeland Security sure does sell newspapers, and it sure does get everyone on this list in a tizzy too. Fun. -Cameron On 3/3/06, Kevin Graeme <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > "And all they did was pay down their debt. They didn't call a > suspected terrorist on their cell phone. They didn't try to sneak a > machine gun through customs. > > They just paid a hefty chunk of their credit card balance. And they > learned how frighteningly wide the net of suspicion has been cast." > > http://www.shns.com/shns/g_index2.cfm?action=detail&pk=RAISEALARM-02-28-06 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:5:198828 Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/5 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:5 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5 Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54
