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US Government Agency Concerned That Terrorists Might Use Kickstarter
Submitted by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,
They called it the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA). But it’s one of the most poorly named pieces of legislation in US history.
They might as well have called it the “Bank Sell-Your-Customers-Out Act”, because that’s ultimately what it amounts to.
The BSA is a cornerstone regulation that requires banks in the Land of the Free to be unpaid spies of the government.
One of its many commandments is for banks to file ‘suspicious activity reports’ (SARs) when customer transactions might possibly indicate tax evasion, money laundering, or some nefarious criminal activity.
One of the most common types of SARs includes “Transactions With No Apparent Economic, Business or Lawful Purpose.”
It’s amazing that spending your own money without a clear purpose is considered suspicious now in the Land of the Free.
This is in effect financial pre-crime.
One key threshold is that banks must file a report for any deposit, withdrawal, exchange, etc. that involves $10,000 or more.
Back in 1970 when Richard Nixon signed this into law, that was a massive amount of money.
$10,000 would have bought you two brand new Chevy Corvettes with plenty left over. Median household income at the time was only $12,000.
Not that there’s any inflation, but $10,000 just doesn’t go as far as it used to 45 years ago.
Yet the currency threshold hasn’t changed a bit.
Perhaps that’s why banks today submit nearly 55,000 Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) every single day.
And the BSA requirements extend not just to banks, but to nearly every industry that deals in cash, including: casinos, payday lenders, gold dealers, money changers, check cashers, etc.
Now they’re expanding further into “rewards-based crowdfunding platforms”, sites like Kickstarter which help entrepreneurs find money to start a business.
There’s even an entire agency devoted to making sure that all these companies are filing an appropriate number of SARs.
It’s called the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).
And their big concern right now is that a “statistically significant” number of credit unions in the US haven’t filed a single SAR in nearly two years.
I find it quite convenient that the US government considers it suspicious when banks don’t rat out their customers.
It gives you a pretty clear snapshot of what the government thinks about its own citizens– that an entire agency is up in arms because Men in Caves might get funding on Kickstarter. It’s surreal.
The financial system has become completely Orwellian.
Just like law enforcement agencies who have sadly deviated from their original purpose of serving and protecting, banks simply no longer exist to be responsible custodians of other people’s money.
- They make horrible bets with your hard-earned savings and maintain precariously illiquid balance sheets.
- They’re supported by an undercapitalized deposit insurance fund and an insolvent government.
- They’re constantly being fined for price fixing and market manipulation.
- They treat you like a criminal if you try to withdraw too much of your own money.
- They’ll freeze you out of your own funds in a heartbeat. They routinely report you to government agencies.
- And your reward for all this trouble is a whopping 0.1% interest.
Stepping back and looking at the big picture, it’s pretty nuts to keep 100% of your life’s savings tied up in a system that is clearly rigged against you.
Fortunately there are alternatives.
The technology now exists for nearly every possible financial transaction—savings, borrowing, foreign exchange, money transfers, etc. to be conducted better, faster, and more secure without using banks.
And even if you find new financial technology to be a bit esoteric or complicated, at a minimum, consider at least holding 1-2 months’ worth of living expenses in physical cash.
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Everything is glorious today.
"But it’s one of the most poorly named pieces of legislation in US history."
There's a lot of stiff competition for that title...
Here in CanaDUH Interac was blocking email addresses associated with Bitcoin users. From what we hear the banks are getting haX0red left and right and are bleeding red.
Woah, woah, woah, this is news; this means the .gov is finally, possibly acknowledging that anything #BlackLivesMatter or Al Sharpton starts there might be related to domestic terrorism.
Of course this ignores the fact that some Fed member banks are actual conduits for actual terrorist groups like ISIS.
The .gov had best hope the Ruskies don't publish all of that juicy material.
WTF? The terrorists already have the ability to tax Americans on a federal, state and local level. Why do they need Kickstarter?
In adjacent news, the Swiss Federal Council just shelved treasonous Widmer Schlumpf's proposal to abolish banking secrecy for Swiss nationals (as it has for foreigners). They feared a referendum that would have certainly defeated it. Hurray for the small victory! Now everyone in the country should focus on the upcoming popular initiative to enshrine domestic banking secrecy in the constitution.
It's the greatest threat global security has ever faced! ISIS COMING BACK FOR REVENGE!
http://motivationdose.com/electromagnetic-pulse-attack-emp-blackout-usa-...
Because competition is terrorism.
Edit: PCR is on fire...
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2015/11/05/the-war-on-terror-is-the-hoax...
+Ignatius. Holy shit... Always felt a piece was missing. I got it now. Not only there's never been a war on terror, but there is not one now. There is damage control of a necessary evil, and the plan is that it stays that way.
Everywhere is terrorist creeping out of the woodworks.
Fear is US patriotic!
What about financial terrorists using free money from the Fed?
Or politicians using free campaign contributions?
Huh, bub?
Simon, I think you're a little optimistic holding Just 1-2 months’ worth of living expenses in physical cash.
B'cuz, like....'Turrism man. 'Murca. For the kids.
lol
This comes back to the Jon Corzine effect.
If you lose a few billion $'s it's not your problem. If you lose a few thousand $'s FINRA/finCEN will be up your ass with a periscope and SWAT team ASAP.
But the US government is not concerned about giving anti-aircraft weaponry to terrorists.
If you think this is bad, just wait till the new regulators start enforcement.
Financial Unlimited Knowledge Unit or FUK-U.
Everything this government does is totally for the children. Right?
Concerned that they'll use it, or that they will surpass their funding goals?
I passed the Drive Your Car Through The Front Window Of The Bank Act in 2008. I am soon going to pass the Drive Your Car Over The Banksters Act so that we all have full coverage in case of disaster.
Raise your pitchforks & hang em' high!
I guess its better to just drop the fuckers crates of Arms and Ammo and know that they guys that get it aren't Terrorists...Till they are.
Oh ya budy we goin to barter town.
Those credit unions are evil!
The Fed cannot pull their license for bullsh*t reasons and force deposits to be placed with Chase or BofA.
Credit Unions are obviously financial terrorists hell bent against the patriotic extremely heroic J.P. Morgan Chase Bank of American Apple Pie-ness.
The Banks have been crowdfunding terrorist networks for ever; Ask ISIS, AlsquidA, JPM A'front, etc etc etc. Yep from the profits WE used to receive as interests on Deposits. Iz an Injusteez i tell you!
It's heeeeerrrre..... Right about now there should probably be a kickstarter for "help US citizens flee to Antarctica fund"
Don't forget the World War III project kickstarter campaign:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-sdO6pwVHQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuDuu662jlI
Wait... What?
I thought the USA government were giving surface to air missiles to terrorists now. Why would they need money?
Poor old Dennis Hastert was just hammered with a negotiated guilty plea for using his own legally acquired funds.
Reminds me of the phrase, "The banality of evil". It's funny how such piecemeal encroachments into personal and economic freedom through legislations can happen over years without a peep from the populace, like the cliched boiling of frogs.
While the press focus on cartoon caricatures of impotent faux "enemies" of freedom, often invented by Langley or falsely accuse foreign nations, the US government of the banksters continue to be the biggest threat to humanity's freedom. Apparently we're all terrorists if we deviate one iota from the arbitrary sets of rules they set to control our money and even the most meek, careful customer will find himself on the SAR when every banker has to fill quotas to find "terrorists" on his books. It's insane. Billions are siphoned off by military contractors, drug barons, politicians, POMO banks, to name but a few and they want to criminalize Mr & Mrs Smith who spend their cash on a whim.
Financial Crimes Enforcement Network is a pretty apt name: They enforce and help execute financial crimes against the world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under_Secretary_of_the_Treasury_for_Terror...
David Cohen left to become deputy director of the CIA, huh? Who can doubt that he will put America first, second and third each work day, right? Well, that guy, who just happened to be Jewish [like the head of treasury, and the deputy, and the other two undersecs at the time] is replaced by - you guessed it - yet another tribe member...
http://www.treasury.gov/about/organizational-structure/Pages/szubin-a.as...
I'm sure he and Dan Glaser will get right to work.
http://www.treasury.gov/about/organizational-structure/Pages/officials.a...
Terrorism and Financial Intelligence ?- Acting Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence
? Adam Szubin- Assistant Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis
? S. Leslie Ireland- Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing
? Daniel L. GlaserAnd Leslie Ireland? A purported expert on Iran who is likely as expert as the experts in the erstwhile Office of Special Plans - a club for right wing Israel Firster Zionists to help lie the US into a war to benefit Israel.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/spy-talk/2010/04/cia_iran_specialist_to...
And I'll bet, not Irish at all.
Who wants to bet they'll get right on top of who's been funding ISIS?
If you wanted to dismantle a bureaucracy, how would you start?
Did it and got the t-shirt. First, you reverse engineer to find the weakest link in the banking architecture. Second, dismantle the architecture that feeds the conduit fraud. Third, sit back and wait a number of years for the entire architecture to implode. No need for rinse & repeat if you are thorough on the engineering.
http://www.nber.org/papers/w15718.pdf
[Risk & Global Economic Architecture-Stiglitz]
Yes there are alternatives. The banks see them as competition and want them out of business. That's all this is really about.
Terrorists use banks every day. Raising the money to pay thugs to murder people for their wealth or simply for defying their betters is why banks exist at all. For banks, financing Uncle Sugar's wars and the jihad campaigns of his friends in Riyadh---with your money---is an amazingly profitable business.
Real terrorists don't need Kickstarter. As long as they remain useful, they get pallets of Franklins delivered by helicopter hot from the printing press. Courtesy of the American taxpayer and motorist.
The term Orwellian is not overused!
Its amazing
this is the Nazi business model...small banks and credit unions are on the radar also as having unfair advantage
So, has anyone submitted Crowdfunding Proposals for MANPADS from ISIL yet?
They can pull this off in Bitcoin, Gold, (Various GCC /MENA) Dinar, Yuan, and TRY (TRKish Lira).
USD by Cash Only - ROTFL!!!
Every American with $10,000 in any account should simply transfer this cash back and forth between their own accounts repeatedly, triggering a deluge of Stasi-style SARs and overwhelming the system.
Of course, there aren't enough people to care enough to get together for an organized act of peaceful rebellion like this--at least not yet. Prisoners' dilemma, writ large.
Let's face it: We'll all be safer if the US government can just pretend there's an economy. That way everybody can just stay home, and nobody will ever have to borrow money or start a business again. Much better that way.