The result, banking officials say, is that many banks, now in a defensive mode, are sending the government far more reports than ever before on “suspicious activities” by their customers – and potentially clogging the system with irrelevant data – for fear of being penalized if they fail to file the reports as required.
Some smaller community banks have sold out to larger companies for fear of increased liability, banking officials say, and banks have dropped some money-transmittal businesses that do significant business overseas because of the risk.
New York Times: Free Registration
I find stories like this to be the most complicated for me to take a position on.
First of all, if I were made King of America, the first item on my agenda would be to identify every arms dealer I could, and to break up their criminal and/or clandestine business structures.
Most of these arms dealers are also involved in drug dealing, and many of them are intricately involved in human slavery, the diamond trade and mercenary activity in Africa.
In short, they are the greatest purveyors of human misery in the world. They are allowed to operate because they come in handy from time-to-time. Every major intelligence agency in the world has the same cast of characters in their rolodexes. And lax banking regulations are used to conceal who the true clients are.
So, I love the idea of cracking down on money laundering. But I hate the idea of the government compiling reams of financial information about private citizens. I hate the fact that banks are being intimidated into providing information that has little or no relevancy to any investigation.
Kind of a Catch-22. I have come to the firm conclusion that the only proper response to the Bushies, is to oppose the passage of ALL laws, and all foreign policy initiatives. They may sound good in theory, but every law they pass makes things worse.
After all, the most famous example of an arms dealing, drug dealing, and money laundering syndicate is the Enterprise. The Enterprise was set up to deal with our covert war in Laos, extended to handle our arms deals with the Shah, and finally exploded into plain sight during the Iran-Contra affair. The Bush family is close friends with many of the Enterprise spooks, and Bush Sr. ran their operations out of the National Security Council’s office during his Vice-Presidency.
I simply don’t believe the Bushies are really interested in cracking down on money laundering.
are the 3 most profitable businesses in the world.
If it is anything, the US is business-friendly. It would be neither psychologically uplifting nor prudent to delve too deeply into who launders what for whom.
The late Senator Wellstone became quite involved in investigating the human flesh trade.
Is taking a position necessary?
It is what it is. This is what comes of most attempts to solve problems legislatively. It does what we wanted it to, kinda, with some other unwanted side-effects.
What’s the big deal about government collecting data? The corporations already have all that data, and when the government wants it, it gets it, either openly, as in the case of this sort of law, or secretly, as in the case of other situations.
If it gets to the point where they’re parsing the lists to purge dissidents, the lists will hardly be necessary, and lack of them will not forestall the occurrance.
Sure, we’re trained to feel uneasy about it from the first day of humanities class, but in reality, it’s immaterial.
The government already has detailed financial records on private citizens. They’re called tax returns.
The only thing that needs to be done here is to have the administration clarify the regulations. The only problem here is that the clerks are being overworked on both ends, reducing the efficiency of their performance.
Think about it, Boo, this story (The One from the Times, I mean, not yours) is about confusion at the point where banking industry and government regulations mesh.
Wow, that’s new. That HAS to be the result of the neocon conspiracy.
If it weren’t dripping with bias, it would hardly be worth mentioning, but as written, it’s just another drop in the bucket of malcontent.
So close to enlightenment, so close.
Just replace the word “Bushies” with “Governments”.
I see what you’re saying, and it isn’t too far off from my own thinking.
I’m not saying that the banking regulations are a neo-con conspiracy. The lack of banking regulations are a world-wide conspiracy to avoid taxation, hide nasty business deals, wage war by proxy behind a facade of front-companies, etc.
So, I am in favor of cracking down on money laundering and the lax banking regulations that make it so easy to be a criminal, or renegade govenment.
On the other hand, the problem is not with our personal tax returns, but with our ability to hide our assets (personal or corporate). And if we want to know how terrorists move their money, we can’t do that without also knowing how Bush, Clinton, Richard Perle, and everyone else, moves their money around.
So, I doubt the sincerity of the regulations. All I see in an increased invasion of privacy, with no observeable benefit.
Yeah, it’s definitely superficial regulation.
“I don’t own any timber company, Mr. Kerry.”
Is (are) there any particular nations or nationalities disproportionately involved in arms dealing, drug dealing, human slavery (particularly the sex trade), the (blood) diamond trade and mercenary activity in Africa?
A friend who was in Central America “back then” (Iran/Contra times) tells me that there was (apart from the CIA) only one “nationality” running the gun and drug trade (and the money . . .) there . . .
My shit detector goes off every time this adminstration uses “protection” and “regulation” in the same sentence. I’d really like to know how anyone could claim to know how to stop money laundering.
You’d have to believe the major criminal enterprises in the world use American banks, or actually deposit truckloads of non-sequential twenties offshore/in another country. From what little I’ve read about modern criminal financing, the currency is either gold or diamonds, and totally untraceable.
WTF. It’s a palliative for the masses. By definition criminals are not people who operate within the system – we are.
I would say the system is built for the crooks. They do operate in it, which is why Bush would have to stop being a crook in order to allow someone to catch al-Qaeda’s crookery.
To see how a typical crook operates, Check This.
Built for crooks? I don’t know. But I’ll agree crooks operate in it. I don’t believe Bush is impeding the progress of ongoing terrorist investigations. We still have major intelligence agencies that can’t, or won’t, exchange the information they have.
I think I understand how crooks work. But I don’t believe there’s a way within the existing law, including treaties, to stop them – arms dealers, or any other organized criminal enterprise, no matter who’s president.
and next you’re going to tell me that arms dealers are responsible for the death of more innocent people than Michael Schiavo.
Really. Come on. Use your head.
Seriously… I agree that this is sticky. Spy on the arms dealers, and you spy on everyone else, too. Stop arms sales, and you cut off the revolutionaries as well as the thugs. Anyway, there’s too much money involved. It’s the big nasty version of trying to stop underpaid cops from taking money under the table.
Now here’s a wild idea: destroy the market for arms dealers by establishing peace and justice everywhere. Notice, for example, that illegal arms sales in Scandanavia are… not commercially viable.
Long-term, I think that’s the only way.
Do you know how many nations in the world know how to manufacture precision artillery?
Or can make knock-off Soviet assualt rifles, mortars, stingers equivalents, etc?
Rwanda showed us that people can kill each other with machetes. But for the most part, war is made possible by just a few industrialized nations.
Almost everyone person killed in a with a weapon is killed by a weapon made in the USA, Russia, China, France or Britain. Or by their former cold war allies like Poland, Egypt, Israel, etc.
Let the revolutionaries use machetes.
Plus, we allow all these arms dealers to deal drugs to tie them over between civil wars. It’s pure evil.
The only bigger problems in the world today are AIDS and climate change.
I agree, absolutely. I’d love to see others raising this issue. I’d love it, for example, if 90% of Americans, instead of .001% or whatever it is, knew that their beloved land of the free and home of the brave was the biggest death merchant on the planet. I’d love to see prominently-displayed lists of arms-dealing nations, and the quantities they export, in every public bathroom on the planet.
I’d love to see the export of arms banned, period.
“Pure evil” is too nice for what these scum-bags do.
But I fear that the only lasting, effective solution will be peace and justice, everywhere. Which I’m in favour of, by the way.