Did you know that it is a federal crime to withdraw your own money from your own bank account in such a way as to avoid federal reporting requirements? And (according to federal law) the “crime” has absolutely nothing to do with what you plan to do with the money. The mere withdrawal is the crime!
No, seriously:
Prosecutions for structuring without any charge of an underlying offense with the money are not unusual, said Peter Djinis, a lawyer focusing on laws against money laundering, who until 2002 was executive assistant director for regulatory policy at the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, the arm of the Treasury Department that enforces these rules.
“In many cases, the most attractive route to take when you can’t prove the underlying crime is to go with the activity that’s in front of you,” Mr. Djinis said.
Of course, that’s exactly the sort of prosecutorial approach Mr. Friedersdorf is worried about, since it assumes the existence of an underlying crime. As he notes, a person who engages in structuring because of “a simple aversion to being monitored,” despite having no intention of using the money for an illegal purpose, is committing a crime.And over time, the size of the transaction you can make without the government watching has fallen in real terms. The reporting threshold has not been raised since the Bank Secrecy Act was passed in 1970, and $10,000 today is equivalent to just $1,640 in 1970 dollars. Actions by Congress have also tightened the rules around moving cash: Congress banned structuring in 1986, started requiring banks to report smaller-but-still-suspicious transactions in 1992, and added further reporting requirements in the Patriot Act, under Mr. Hastert’s watch.
Forget about Hastert for the moment. Forget even about the cosmic irony of him reaping the benefits of the legislation he sowed. (He’s merely one of innumerable players in the history of taking away freedom.)
What this means is that if I withdraw MY OWN MONEY in such a way as to avoid reporting my withdrawal to the federal snoops, I have committed a federal felony.
Please tell me how whatever I have is still my money.
I’m all ears.
Comments
8 responses to “Your money is whose?”
There’s no rule of law anymore. If they want to prosecute you there’s always something.
This will help catch drug dealers and only soft on drug dealer democrats will oppose it and republicans can run against them for being soft on crime. When you sow the wind you reap the whirlwind! Remember in the words of faux news a vote against the iraq war is a vote for al quida, and good riddance to traitors like phil donahue for questioning dick cheney saying sadaam has nuclear weapons.
It’s not your money, it’s the govt’s and they just allow you to keep some of it.
When they were cutting taxes in the Bush years I read about pols saying that it was taking money from the gov’t to cut taxes.
This law was passed as part of the ‘war on drugs’. The idea was to make it easier for the government to locate drug dealers and buyers.
I can recall when Congress got rid of $500 and $1,000 bills, both of which used to be in circulation when I was a kid. That too was done to make it harder for drug dealers to escape government detection. I can recall when people used to pay for expensive things, like fancy cars, with $1,000 bills.
WOD = Tyranny. That is all.
It’s far too late to talk about this as a “war on drugs” policy. Legalizing drugs won’t fix anything.
This is now a war on economic freedom–as our president says, if you earn any money “you didn’t build that” and should consider yourself lucky you are allowed to keep some of it.
It’s always been a war on freedom, they just used drugs as the excuse.
Veeshir,
Yes, but now they’ve stopped pretending.