I just copied and pasted the all-caps title above. Sorry, other poster.

When you are moving that kind of money in small increments you are bound to attract the gaze of the authorities.

I work at a financial institution, and there's yearly mandatory training on when to file a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR). They very explicitly look for multiple withdrawals that all come in under $10K.

Structured money movement needs to be monitored so that money laundering schemes can be identified and stopped. This is absolutely government business we need.

I work in banking. And while I personally disagree with some rules and regulations, this is one I whole heartedly agree with. Without these rules and regulations money laundering and criminal activity would run rampant.

Why are you defending Hasert?

since you are in "banking" you love the abuse.

While in 2005 there were 114 asset seizures, by 2012 there were 639. Only 1 in 5 have been charged with criminal structuring.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/26/us/law-lets-irs-seize-accounts-on-suspicion-no-crime-required.html

http://reason.com/blog/2013/09/25/feds-steal-35k-from-small-grocers-bank-a

There are many more if you actually are wanting to be informed!

You crack me up!

You clearly have no idea how all this works and I have better things to do than get in a flame war with you. Do whatever you have to do - place me on ignore - choose not to respond - or keep calling me out to no avail.

Asset seizure is a completely unrelated topic.

There are many things Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren support in regards to banking that I personally disagree with, but this is not one of those areas.

... out of the criminal banking system? You guys don't even pay me interest, why should I loan you my money? Fuck that shit.

The difference is that the cash withdrawal, being harder to trace, could more readily be used to facilitate crime. Therefore, the bank will report it to the government (if it's over $10,000).

This whole Hastert thing seems to have given many people the idea that you're not allowed to withdraw your own money from the bank. That isn't true. If you need $4k, withdraw $4k. If you need $50k, withdraw $50k (knowing that a form will be filed).

The only thing you're not allowed to do is deliberately structure your withdrawals so as to get the $50k without a form being filed.

just because he's not an 'innocence' victim, doesn't mean he's not a victim.



However I feel no sympathy for him.

so this stuff about the Patriot Act bringing him down is bullshit. Between the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970 (passed some 45 years ago) and a second person having made criminal allegations to the government about DH, the FBI would have investigated this always. And lying to the FBI during an inquiry was also always a crime.

You don't seem to agree, but it's all good. My purpose was to stop some of the misinformation that was being spread so that people like you and me could decide how we feel about it by looking directly at the source material. thanks.

These are money laundering laws. They are there to capture criminal activity. There is no law against withdrawing your own money only that the banks report large withdrawals. That doesn't by any means mean you can't or that you will get in trouble if you do.

According to greenwald and the tea party sounding types defending this garbage article you should be able to launder money at will and the government should make no attempts to stop it.

Complete nonsense.

is tea party type bullshit.

I still do. BSA has been around for a long time, true, but what snagged Hastert were the additional bank reporting requirements introduced in the PA that he pimped. Again, when it was passed, everyone here hated both the PATRIOT Act AND Denny Hastert. And yes, I still hate both of them. What are some of your favorite provisions in the Act?

...snagged Hastert. I take it, then, that you support this latest renewal of the Act?

... related to laundering? Putting money IN I can see, taking money out, really?

Also hard to make the argument when it involves actual crime. I don't have a problem with banks reporting suspicious financial activity or with laws regarding such things, laws which have been around since before the patriot act. There are crimes involving money that can devastate lives, and when those criminals are prosecuted there are always those who will squawk about decriminalization. Don't fall for it. It's a cleverly disguised argument to cover for greed and exploitation.

have involved lots of heavy lobbying, including for foreign governments and taking current members of Congress on trips out of the country. An ex Speaker is entitled to a sizable yearly allowance for a few years to maintain an office, many people felt Hastert's office, paid for by the people, was used for lobbying. It is also a fact that his office budget entitlement and the payroll that went with it ended in 2012, his banking frenzy began in 2013.
So it's a very large leap to present him as some guy who was just suddenly asked by the FBI why he was taking his own money out of the bank. A very, very large leap. He was third in line for a long time. He's trading on that fact, profitably. Presenting him as a private citizen going about a regular life when suddenly accosted by the FBI is a stretch.

But as the poster below says (paraphrased), they didn't get him for some of the vile, illegal things he's done, they got him on a provision of the PATRIOT Act, a provision that increased bank transaction reporting requirements. I agree with you that Hastert was one of the most important people in government at the time, so I also don't think he was just some guy off the street. But along the same lines as ACLU supporting Nazi's rights to march in Skokie, I think a case could be made that if we don't protect this scumbag, it might be a good and decent politician next time around. I would love to see Hastert go away for a long time for some real crimes. And I won't lose any sleep feeling sorry for him if he goes away on these charges. But I have questions about whether those charges should exist. I've always hated the PATRIOT Act, and I'm loathe to let any little provision in the Act get on my good side. But I still have some thinking to do about this.

office rather suddenly, proceed to raise questions about the use of his continued government supported office budget (40K a month for 5 years) while carrying on major lobbying efforts for foreign governments involving current members of Congress being escorted by the former Speaker on trips to these countries, all while shuffling around hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash without being questioned at all?

' Sure former Senator Bozo left office, took a job working for China, still pays his staff out of a Congressional budget, takes current Congress people on field trips to meet his employers abroad in possible breach of regulations but when he moves hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash around in a furtive manner no one should question him because of freedoms!!!!'

Greenwald is wrong on this. It's not an example of over-criminalization, it's an example of the law working to catch a criminal.

the Feds.

FYI, there are innocent people caught up in this law, as well.

Woohoo.

There was a time when we all hated the PATRIOT Act. What are your favorite parts of it, other than the piece you've just supported?

The government mandates that a bank must report all withdrawals over $10,000.00 so I don't have a problem if they investigate somebody who made 171 $9,999.00 withdrawals.

I work in a financial institution, and although I work in technical IT capacity, we all must take BSA training each year. So I'm fairly familiar with it, but only as it exists today. So after seeing your post, I did some reading on BSA, and another money laundering law that was tacked onto BSA in the 80's, and then on the PATRIOT Act. The reporting requirements were strengthened with the PA. Greenwald's piece, along with a couple more I just came across, say that Hastert was busted on these strengthened requirements. Long and short of it, I can't find a document that tells me which of these laws introduced the notion that a bunch of $9000 withdrawals day after day was still a good enough reason to file a suspicious activity report that goes to the OCC. I don't know if the original BSA envisioned this, or the money laundering law that was tacked onto it later, or the PATRIOT Act itself. Here's what I do know. If withdrawing more than $10K on a given day is suspicious, then withdrawing $9900 a day is even more suspicious. I'm not sure if it should be illegal, but yeah, it's suspect. Someone's up to something when they do that day after day. Another thing I know: I fucking hate the PATRIOT Act with a white hot passion. I want to stab it in the throat and burn it with fire. IF there are any good provisions in the PATRIOT Act, I'm of the belief that they could be re-introduced individually after the PA was killed. Obviously, I'm not going to get what I want, but that's beside the point. That's the best honest answer I can give you, warts, uncertainty, and undecidedness all wrapped into one. But yes, we could be getting into the weeds.

There are a lot of questions that haven't been answered, and for Greenwald to automatically assume an over play is not good enough, especially since the full facts are not known yet

It's destroying the fabric of rich white corrupt child-molesting America.

How many middle class folks are going to get caught up by the over $10,000 cash withdrawal issue catching the attention of banks and the Feds? How many legitimate reasons are there to do that in a world of electronic wire transfers and credit cards?

How many middle class folks are trying to game the system with scores of withdrawals of cash just under $10,000?

Weigh that against the interests we all have that organized crime and various other nefarious organizations attempts to move and launder money is curtailed.

That's an easy one. This is a wonky Libertarian position obsessed with the idea that government shouldn't exercise oversight over anything.

And they've done nothing wrong. See my linked NYT article about the taco lady who lost everything.

ARNOLDS PARK, Iowa — For almost 40 years, Carole Hinders has dished out Mexican specialties at her modest cash-only restaurant. For just as long, she deposited the earnings at a small bank branch a block away — until last year, when two tax agents knocked on her door and informed her that they had seized her checking account, almost $33,000.

The Internal Revenue Service agents did not accuse Ms. Hinders of money laundering or cheating on her taxes — in fact, she has not been charged with any crime. Instead, the money was seized solely because she had deposited less than $10,000 at a time, which they viewed as an attempt to avoid triggering a required government report.

“How can this happen?” Ms. Hinders said in a recent interview. “Who takes your money before they prove that you’ve done anything wrong with it?”

Using a law designed to catch drug traffickers, racketeers and terrorists by tracking their cash, the government has gone after run-of-the-mill business owners and wage earners without so much as an allegation that they have committed serious crimes. The government can take the money without ever filing a criminal complaint, and the owners are left to prove they are innocent. Many give up.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/26/us/law-lets-irs-seize-accounts-on-suspicion-no-crime-required.html?_r=0