FrankRep
03-17-2008, 09:51 AM
Watching You Through Your Money
The John Birch Society (http://www.JBS.org/)
March 17, 2008
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS:
Eliot Spitzer was caught, in part, because his bank was monitoring his financial transactions and notified federal investigators of suspicious activity. The lesson: they are watching you, too.
Follow this link to the original source: "Credit Card or Bank Transaction: Somebody Watches (http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Story?id=4446681&page=1)"
COMMENTARY:
To pay for his prostitute, former New York governor Eliot Spitzer sent wire transfers to a shell company that was a front for the prostitution ring. His bank noticed the transactions, and gave information about them to the federal government.
That might seem reasonable in the Spitzer case. After all, we certainly don't want elected officials in high office engaging in illegal activity. But, what about the Fourth Amendment, which states in fairly clear language: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated...."
As ABC News points out, the Fourth Amendment no longer seems to apply to financial transactions. Commenting on the Spitzer scandal, ABC News business reporter Scott Mayerowitz notes: "Every time you swipe your credit card, take cash out of an ATM or transfer money into your bank account, a sophisticated network of computers is keeping track."
That has privacy advocates worried. Mayerowitz spoke with Paul Stephens of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. "People aren't really aware of the fact that transactions that they make with financial institutions are being monitored," Stephens told ABC News. "Hundreds of thousands of innocent people are having their everyday banking transactions forwarded to the federal government."
The reporting happens under an arrangement in place since 1996 which allows, and probably encourages, banks and other financial providers to report suspicious activity to the federal government. In other words, federal law has turned banking institutions that should be working for their customers into a domestic financial Gestapo that breaches the Fourth Amendment and spies on customers, the vast majority of whom are innocent, on behalf of federal authorities. According to Mayerowitz, in 2006 banks filed 1.08 million Suspicious Activity Reports with the government. That number, says Mayerowitz, was "up from 920,000 the year before and 690,000 in 2004, according to a report from the Treasury Department."
But don't think that surveillance of financial transactions is limited to only large sums. While banks vary in their policies, small, everyday transactions receive the most scrutiny, because banks and credit card companies are wary of fraud.
Of course, fraud protection is a service that most customers appreciate in a world where identity theft is an ongoing problem, but it is nevertheless disquieting to know that somewhere at your bank there is a computer watching your every financial move.
SOURCE:
http://www.jbs.org/node/7512
The John Birch Society (http://www.JBS.org/)
March 17, 2008
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS:
Eliot Spitzer was caught, in part, because his bank was monitoring his financial transactions and notified federal investigators of suspicious activity. The lesson: they are watching you, too.
Follow this link to the original source: "Credit Card or Bank Transaction: Somebody Watches (http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Story?id=4446681&page=1)"
COMMENTARY:
To pay for his prostitute, former New York governor Eliot Spitzer sent wire transfers to a shell company that was a front for the prostitution ring. His bank noticed the transactions, and gave information about them to the federal government.
That might seem reasonable in the Spitzer case. After all, we certainly don't want elected officials in high office engaging in illegal activity. But, what about the Fourth Amendment, which states in fairly clear language: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated...."
As ABC News points out, the Fourth Amendment no longer seems to apply to financial transactions. Commenting on the Spitzer scandal, ABC News business reporter Scott Mayerowitz notes: "Every time you swipe your credit card, take cash out of an ATM or transfer money into your bank account, a sophisticated network of computers is keeping track."
That has privacy advocates worried. Mayerowitz spoke with Paul Stephens of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. "People aren't really aware of the fact that transactions that they make with financial institutions are being monitored," Stephens told ABC News. "Hundreds of thousands of innocent people are having their everyday banking transactions forwarded to the federal government."
The reporting happens under an arrangement in place since 1996 which allows, and probably encourages, banks and other financial providers to report suspicious activity to the federal government. In other words, federal law has turned banking institutions that should be working for their customers into a domestic financial Gestapo that breaches the Fourth Amendment and spies on customers, the vast majority of whom are innocent, on behalf of federal authorities. According to Mayerowitz, in 2006 banks filed 1.08 million Suspicious Activity Reports with the government. That number, says Mayerowitz, was "up from 920,000 the year before and 690,000 in 2004, according to a report from the Treasury Department."
But don't think that surveillance of financial transactions is limited to only large sums. While banks vary in their policies, small, everyday transactions receive the most scrutiny, because banks and credit card companies are wary of fraud.
Of course, fraud protection is a service that most customers appreciate in a world where identity theft is an ongoing problem, but it is nevertheless disquieting to know that somewhere at your bank there is a computer watching your every financial move.
SOURCE:
http://www.jbs.org/node/7512