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The Patriot Act and Me

rdowns

rdowns

macrumors Penryn
Original poster
Jul 11, 2003
27,397
12,521
or reason #1,547 why George Bush is an arsehole.

Life is good. Buying a new townhouse and had to send deposit check off today before I leave to open a new office in Denver. My checking account is a few thousand short so I go online to transfer $4,000 from my savings account to my checking account. Get error messages. Blame it on Microsoft and IE 7.

Fire up Firefox and same errors. OK, bank site is borked. I call on the phone and attempt the transfer but it won't go through. Finally get a person on the phone who tells me my account is frozen and I need to visit a branch. Work my way up to supervisors and get nowhere.

So I actually go to a branch (do people actually still do that?) and am told that under the Patriot Act, my account is frozen. I asked why I was never notified. I got no good answer. I have to show picture ID, my bank card, have my junk measured on the counter and then am handed forms to fillout. I am now livid and talking rather loudly and tell her to fill the effin' forms out herself....which she proceeds to do.

I know I feel safer from terroists.

[/rant]
 
WTF? And of course they'll never tell you why you're now on the Government's Watchlist :rolleyes:

Best get your orange jumpsuits drycleaned. Just in case. :eek: ;)
 
I'm not likely to have an encounter with Mel Gibson, but I imagine he's an interesting drinking buddy. Oh, wait. Did you say Patriot Actor?
Nevermind. Who's this Bush guy, anyways?
 
Jaffa Cake said:
Well, I for one will sleep more soundly in my bed tonight...

So you still have no idea why your account was actually frozen in the first place?
Click to expand...


They said because it had been inactive for more than 120 days.
 
Which account was frozen? Savings or checking? Or both?

Edit: OK, seen the post above. I'm assuming it's savings.

Doesn't the Freedom of Information Act provide some means of finding out what happened? Or am I naïve? Or is that trumped by the Patriot Act? What a stupid fecking name anyway...

Went to open a fixed-term account the other day and was requested for a barrage of ID (some of which I can't provide) even though I already hold two accounts at the same bank. They've bought in new banking laws over here as well.
 
If you shift money (over 10 grand in the UK) around in accounts which don't normally have such transactions you'll raise flags and can look forward to questions being asked.So remember kiddies when you harvest that big Xmas crop bank it in dribs and drabs.:)
 
Blue Velvet said:
Went to open a fixed-term account the other day and was requested for a barrage of ID (some of which I can't provide) even though I already hold two accounts at the same bank. They've bought in new banking laws over here as well.
Click to expand...

Yep, the royal bank of scotland has really been screwing me around, I've filled in about 12 pages of forms so far and they're telling me I need to open another account, naturally which I'd need ID which I don't yet possess, half an hour of arguing later and they've accepted what I can provide but it's going to take an age for me to get my card. :mad:.
 
Curious: did you talk to the bank ahead of time about a mortgage? If they knew you were on the market for real estate, they should have been prepared for the activity.
 
Blue Velvet said:
Which account was frozen? Savings or checking? Or both?

Edit: OK, seen the post above. I'm assuming it's savings.

Doesn't the Freedom of Information Act provide some means of finding out what happened? Or am I naïve? Or is that trumped by the Patriot Act? What a stupid fecking name anyway...

Went to open a fixed-term account the other day and was requested for a barrage of ID (some of which I can't provide) even though I already hold two accounts at the same bank. They've bought in new banking laws over here as well.
Click to expand...


You should be worried. I'm probably now on a government watch list and all those I send things to will be suspect. :p
 
Peterkro said:
If you shift money (over 10 grand in the UK) around in accounts which don't normally have such transactions you'll raise flags and can look forward to questions being asked.So remember kiddies when you harvest that big Xmas crop bank it in dribs and drabs.:)
Click to expand...
That probably explains why this week when I asked to make an urgent transfer to an account in Spain I had to answer all sorts of nonsense:- What's the third letter of your mother's maiden name? That sort of thing.

Next time I'll just turn up with a suitcase stuffed full of cash like that Mark Thatcher :D

rdowns said:
You should be worried. I'm probably now on a government watch list and all those I send things to will be suspect. :p
Click to expand...
Make the first cheque out to George W. Bush. That'll fox them ;)
 
Did you know: the USA PATRIOT Act: "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act"

Lame, eh?
 
bush_patriot_act.jpg
 
Patriot act is nothing more then a power grab by govt and removing civil libertys,watering down bill the of rights and the constitution. Harrassing rdowns while letting in millions of illegals,terrorists and anyone for 5 years yet. Police state gone awry. Its what we get for electing a bunch of republicans 6 years ago.
 
Sorry to hear about your problem rdowns, hopefully everything gets straightened out for you. :( :)


Dont Hurt Me said:
Patriot act is nothing more then a power grab by govt and removing civil libertys,watering down bill the of rights and the constitution. Harrassing rdowns while letting in millions of illegals,terrorists and anyone for 5 years yet. Police state gone awry. Its what we get for electing a bunch of republicans 6 years ago.
Click to expand...

All has been made right with the last election though! :D Democrats in control of both chambers of Congress (and the Presidency in 2008). :cool: :)
 
Yep, this (un)Patriot Act certainly leads to appalling things. I remember reading a news story earlier in the year about a relatively low-income married couple who decided to take a chunk out of their savings and pay off their credit cards in one lump sum...it was like a $5000 payment or something like that. Some time later, they got word from their credit card companies that they missed the payment (I think I'm remembering this correctly), and after much investigation and climbing up the phone-supervisor ladder and fighting to get information, they found out that their accounts had been frozen due to "suspected terrorist activity". Eventually, they got the DHS (oh that lovely lovely agency) to explain to them that because their credit card payments were normally only a couple hundred dollars, when they attempted to transfer such a large sum they were flagged as possible terrorists and the transfer was halted. They were not notified until they found out from the credit card companies.

So because they decide to do something responsible and pay off their debt, a couple of innocent schoolteachers who had no criminal record and had never gotten anything besides a parking ticket were flagged as possible terrorists, and their money was commandeered by the government (probably resulting in a hit on their credit score because the CC companies didn't get the payment on time).

More and more, stories like this and of the much scarier variety (like people getting detained and questioned for days with no explanation) reminds me more and more of communist Russia. Our government has gotten out of control. If you question them, you're unpatriotic. If you're not a God-fearing Christian, than you're immoral. The Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field has nothing, nothing on the George W. Bush Reality Distortion Field -- he actually still believes history will vindicate his entire administration. I'm fairly certain we'll look back on this in 50 years as the decade of enormous setbacks that almost destroyed our way of life -- and our children and grandchildren will wonder what could have possessed so many people to buy into this crap. Of course, we wonder how normal, good German citizens bought into Hitler's crap -- but frighteningly some of the prejudice this administration inspires in people by constantly vilifying Muslims is very similar to the Nazis.

OK rant over. Sorry, I guess that set something off.
 
Peterkro said:
If you shift money (over 10 grand in the UK) around in accounts which don't normally have such transactions you'll raise flags and can look forward to questions being asked.So remember kiddies when you harvest that big Xmas crop bank it in dribs and drabs.:)
Click to expand...
I always do.
 
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