Encounter with the Patriot Act.

Called the credit card company today to check some balance figures I didn't understand. Turned out everything was okay, and we discussed changing me to a different kind of card that gives cash back for gas/drugstore/grocery purchases. All well and good. Poor girl had to read the terms of agreement which was about a 4 minute speech and then there was a Patriot Act statement which asked my full name, location, how long I've been here...etc. I asked her how many times she had to read that per day, and she chucklingly told me how she applied for a loan and had been asked the same questions that she could have recited verbatim with the loan officer.

Sigh.

Simply repetative words that mean nothing. I almost got myself into real trouble when I jokingly asked the ticket counter agent if they ever got tired asking that same stuff. It seemed to me that if someone was really trying to smugle something onboard a plane, they're simply going to lie. DAMN! I almost got arrested!

It strikes me a bit funny that you were talking to a cr card co where you already had a card. Did they expect you were magically going to be someone or somewhere else? HMMMM

They want a picture ID and a second form of ID such as a utiltiy bill or Tax Return. These are also part of the Patriot Act.

Husband, living and working in another state, tried to deposit money into my solo bank account (same bank). I gave him my account number, password, deposit tickets. He couldn't do it. One spouse can no longer DEPOSIT money into the account of the other. Patriot Act he was told. So, we had to open a joint account in the state where he is (1,000 miles from me) and I have to write checks from that joint account and deposit them into my local account.

Do you know how LONG this takes? I cannot even do this on line. I have to physically go to the bank to deposit it and show ID. Thanks to the Patriot Act.

nothing to do with terrorism and everything to do with social control. A relentless slide to the totalitarian state. And the Orwellian spin of language ("Patriot") makes it all the more obvious and frightening. They've used 1984 as the manual for enslaving America under the assumption that nobody has read it.

God its depressing

Absolutely correct.

I returned from China 2 weeks ago. Getting out of Hong Kong was a breeze. A reasonable level of security.

Chicago was a joke. They are training the American corporate flying class here to be good sheeple. Pick up your bags, go through a gauntlet when ONE Customs office takes your declaration ticket, go though another door, and rebook your bags again....then go through a corral while you get everything searched, take your shoes off, your belts, etc. Surprised they don't make everyone strip and do body cavity searches while everyone else watches. Oh, and I missed my connection, too.

Really, are we going to catch terrorists with this method? Of course not. It will have no impact at all on terror. But it is teaching Americans how powerless we are in questioning authority. That is what this is all about.