ladelfina
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
- Joined
- Oct 18, 2005
- Messages
- 2,713
Picking up justin's question here:
http://early-retirement.org/forums/index.php?topic=13997.msg259555#msg259555
I'll just respond personally to justin who said he was "paranoid about saying stuff on the Internet". My mom (78) [oops! now they'll know who she is!!] has several times warned me on the phone to "watch out" what I e-mail and say on the phone to RWsis (right-wing sis; political topics more or less the tenor of what I've posted here). It's pretty funny since she's been all hot under the collar since GHWB's "new world order".. yet she votes R every time! I tell her "well, quit voting for these people, then..!" ;-)
.. the question is more properly put: "to what extent are you NOT monitored?"
Chapter 1: Financial Transactions
Let's start in the 1970s when as an oldish sprat my parents began talking to me about "adult" financial matters. They told me that the government tracked every bank transaction of $10k or more. Certain years my mom would gift me the amount roughly up to the gift tax exemption (used to be $10k even back when; now adjusts up), but scrupulously write multiple checks with different dates, to avoid "red flags".
In 2000 I move to Italy and obviously need to transfer $ between there and here. To do so I need a special number (actually it's a code of letters) that's alternately called a SWIFT code or SWIFT number. I know what this is for. In fact, if I HADn't known what it was for, I'dve soon gotten suspicious, since it was actually a blasted hard number to come across, at least in identifying my Italian bank. The Italians professed ignorance; the US broker needed the number and would not release funds without it; neither could help. I finally found it on an obscure web page of some wierd high-level commercial banking site. I found later that a lot of expats had run into the same problem. Fortunately 7 years have passed and you now can go here to research the codes:
http://www.swift.com/biconline/index.cfm?fuseaction=display_freesearch
At www.swift.com, no less! Can't get much more secret than that!
Let's take a look, shall we? .. at the right-wing response to this --to them-- "revelation" (again, of which "average jane" me was completely aware):
The Weekly Standard (aka home of Bill Kristol -- I see a lot of you get your "general news" from FOX, so heads up here!):
http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/386syqsr.asp
Here's a funny one from Powerline inciting some kind of spontaneous public rioting, lynching, or other violence :
Again, this is just over the SWIFT thing. The Times has "blown" the program! AHAAHAHHAAAA..
The one that my suburban parents and I had assumed was common knowledge for thirty (30) years!
We know she's nuts, but you can't leave out Ms. Coulter:
Anyway, the gist of it is that the US gov. knows and cares every time I make transaction to my Italian bank. If I make a large xfer the wire agent quizzes me on the whys and wherefores.. I need to explain the purpose of the funds and I assume not for the gossipy benefit of the wire agent; he writes it down and somebody tells someone, somewhere). Added bonus: I'm not allowed to make recurring automatic transfers. I have to call up (prob. traced) and make a special request each time. I asked about this and it was explained to me that this was "for my security" (see my other post about "enhanced services").
Now the question I ask myself about these goings-on is: what do people actually remember about ANY of the actual reporting about the SWIFT program (actually run by a private Belgian firm)? If they remember anything at all they're unlikely to remember that everything that was reported was, in fact, in the public domain: nothing "classified" at all. What I'd assume they remember most is that "the NYT editors are traitors and should be hung." I know whose work that is (cough-Bill KristolandtheWhiteHouse).
Now it's not enough that banks are required to report these transactions; I have to file a form TD F 90-22.1 each year, with ALL my bank information, including account number and average balance (tier). What's interesting about this is that it gets sent to Treasury (not the IRS) and the penalties for not filing are as follows:
Now thankfully I am not aware of penalties for garden-variety income tax evasion, but I would be surprised indeed if they reached these levels. Ok.. that's the law, you say. Well get this: new provisions were added that provide for a civil penalty of $10,000 "without regard to willfullness". This I just came across and it has me fairly disturbed since last year I sent the form in about a month late (it is due in June rather than April and I just plain forgot). "Without regard for willfullness"! My regular taxes I e-file and don't mind doing so; since I live overseas I actually prefer it. This form I have to send through the Italian postal system with my SS#, DOB and all bank info including acct. #.
The Orwellian name of the statute that requires I do this is the "Bank Secrecy Act" (!)
I won't even bother getting into all the credit- and debit-card xactions that I have no doubt the gov't. either has or soon will have (see succeeding chapters as I post them).
http://early-retirement.org/forums/index.php?topic=13997.msg259555#msg259555
I'll just respond personally to justin who said he was "paranoid about saying stuff on the Internet". My mom (78) [oops! now they'll know who she is!!] has several times warned me on the phone to "watch out" what I e-mail and say on the phone to RWsis (right-wing sis; political topics more or less the tenor of what I've posted here). It's pretty funny since she's been all hot under the collar since GHWB's "new world order".. yet she votes R every time! I tell her "well, quit voting for these people, then..!" ;-)
I'd be curious to know how you know you are monitored and to what extent you are monitored.
.. the question is more properly put: "to what extent are you NOT monitored?"
Chapter 1: Financial Transactions
Let's start in the 1970s when as an oldish sprat my parents began talking to me about "adult" financial matters. They told me that the government tracked every bank transaction of $10k or more. Certain years my mom would gift me the amount roughly up to the gift tax exemption (used to be $10k even back when; now adjusts up), but scrupulously write multiple checks with different dates, to avoid "red flags".
In 2000 I move to Italy and obviously need to transfer $ between there and here. To do so I need a special number (actually it's a code of letters) that's alternately called a SWIFT code or SWIFT number. I know what this is for. In fact, if I HADn't known what it was for, I'dve soon gotten suspicious, since it was actually a blasted hard number to come across, at least in identifying my Italian bank. The Italians professed ignorance; the US broker needed the number and would not release funds without it; neither could help. I finally found it on an obscure web page of some wierd high-level commercial banking site. I found later that a lot of expats had run into the same problem. Fortunately 7 years have passed and you now can go here to research the codes:
http://www.swift.com/biconline/index.cfm?fuseaction=display_freesearch
At www.swift.com, no less! Can't get much more secret than that!
Let's take a look, shall we? .. at the right-wing response to this --to them-- "revelation" (again, of which "average jane" me was completely aware):
The Weekly Standard (aka home of Bill Kristol -- I see a lot of you get your "general news" from FOX, so heads up here!):
http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/385jqmfk.asp..the Times has published a front-page article disclosing a highly classified U.S. intelligence program that successfully penetrated the international bank transactions of al Qaeda terrorists.
BY NOW IT'S UNDENIABLE: The New York Times is a national security threat. So drunk is it on its own power and so antagonistic to the Bush administration that it will expose every classified antiterror program it finds out about, no matter how legal the program, how carefully crafted to safeguard civil liberties, or how vital to protecting American lives.
The Times's latest revelation of a national security secret appeared on last Friday's front page--where no al Qaeda operative could possibly miss it. Under the deliberately sensational headline, "Bank Data Sifted in Secret by U.S. to Block Terror," the Times blows the cover on a highly targeted program to locate terrorist financing networks. .. .The administration strongly urged the New York Times not to expose this classified program, and for good reason.
http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/386syqsr.asp
Here's a funny one from Powerline inciting some kind of spontaneous public rioting, lynching, or other violence :
http://powerlineblog.com/archives/014482.phpThe Times and its likeminded media colleagues will undoubtedly continue to undermine and betray the national security of the United States until they are taught that they are subject to the same laws that govern the conduct of ordinary citizens, or until an enraged citizenry decides, like Bill Keller, to take the law into its own hands and express its disagreement some other way.
Again, this is just over the SWIFT thing. The Times has "blown" the program! AHAAHAHHAAAA..
The one that my suburban parents and I had assumed was common knowledge for thirty (30) years!
We know she's nuts, but you can't leave out Ms. Coulter:
Didn't watch the US telly.. but apparently this "treason"/"prosecution"/"execution" meme was making the rounds on video screens near you. Nor were pundits and "fellow journalists" the only voices in the chorus:Coulter declared that the Times had done "something that could have gotten them executed, certainly did get the Rosenbergs executed." As Media Matters had earlier noted, in the July 12 edition of her nationally syndicated column, Coulter wrote that if Times executive editor Bill Keller were convicted of treason, "I prefer a firing squad, but I'm open to a debate on the method of execution."
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/06/25/king-espionage/This morning, Rep. Peter King (R-NY) argued that the NYT reporters, editors, and publishers responsible for that story should be charged under the Espionage Act, which is punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
[N]o one elected the New York Times to do anything. And the New York Times is putting its own arrogant elitest left wing agenda before the interests of the American people, and I’m calling on the Attorney General to begin a criminal investigation and prosecution of the New York Times — its reporters, the editors who worked on this, and the publisher. We’re in a time of war, Chris, and what they’ve done has violated the Espionage Act, the COMINT act.
Anyway, the gist of it is that the US gov. knows and cares every time I make transaction to my Italian bank. If I make a large xfer the wire agent quizzes me on the whys and wherefores.. I need to explain the purpose of the funds and I assume not for the gossipy benefit of the wire agent; he writes it down and somebody tells someone, somewhere). Added bonus: I'm not allowed to make recurring automatic transfers. I have to call up (prob. traced) and make a special request each time. I asked about this and it was explained to me that this was "for my security" (see my other post about "enhanced services").
Now the question I ask myself about these goings-on is: what do people actually remember about ANY of the actual reporting about the SWIFT program (actually run by a private Belgian firm)? If they remember anything at all they're unlikely to remember that everything that was reported was, in fact, in the public domain: nothing "classified" at all. What I'd assume they remember most is that "the NYT editors are traitors and should be hung." I know whose work that is (cough-Bill KristolandtheWhiteHouse).
Now it's not enough that banks are required to report these transactions; I have to file a form TD F 90-22.1 each year, with ALL my bank information, including account number and average balance (tier). What's interesting about this is that it gets sent to Treasury (not the IRS) and the penalties for not filing are as follows:
The Secretary of the Treasury may impose a civil penalty on any person who willfully violates this reporting requirement. The civil penalty is the amount of the transaction or the value of the account, up to a maximum of $100,000; the minimum amount of the penalty is $25,000.
In addition, any person who willfully violates this reporting requirement is subject to a criminal penalty. The criminal penalty is a fine of not more than $250,000 or imprisonment for not more than five years (or both); if the violation is part of a pattern of illegal activity, the maximum amount of the fine is increased to $500,000 and the maximum length of imprisonment is increased to 10 years.
Now thankfully I am not aware of penalties for garden-variety income tax evasion, but I would be surprised indeed if they reached these levels. Ok.. that's the law, you say. Well get this: new provisions were added that provide for a civil penalty of $10,000 "without regard to willfullness". This I just came across and it has me fairly disturbed since last year I sent the form in about a month late (it is due in June rather than April and I just plain forgot). "Without regard for willfullness"! My regular taxes I e-file and don't mind doing so; since I live overseas I actually prefer it. This form I have to send through the Italian postal system with my SS#, DOB and all bank info including acct. #.
The Orwellian name of the statute that requires I do this is the "Bank Secrecy Act" (!)
I won't even bother getting into all the credit- and debit-card xactions that I have no doubt the gov't. either has or soon will have (see succeeding chapters as I post them).