more on Financial privacy, Bank Secrecy Act, and laws mandating snooping [priv]

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Tom Goltz <tgoltz () QuietSoftware com>
Date: October 13, 2005 9:53:24 AM EDT
To: Ethan Ackerman <eackerma () u washington edu>
Cc: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: [IP] Financial privacy, Bank Secrecy Act, and laws  
mandating snooping [priv]


At 09:03 AM 10/13/2005, Ethan Ackerman wrote:

> (*) the "patriot act effect" describes the tendency of anyone with  
> some
> element of authority to cite onerous govt. rules as a justification  
> for
> everything, from TSA groping grandma to landlords denying  
> apartments to
> Muslims - "...because its in the Patriot Act."

Your message made it's way from Politech to Dave Farber's Interesting  
People list, where I read it.

It's not just the banks using the Patriot Act to justify overly  
invasive snooping:

Recently I called Dell to order a 24-port Gigabit Ethernet switch.   
This is the same technology that you can buy at your local CompUSA  
for cash with no questions asked.  Not only did they want the normal  
billing and shipping information required for any mail-order  
transaction, but they also demanded that I tell them the location  
where the equipment was going to be used, and the name of the end-user.

I refused to answer these questions, and was informed that this  
information was "required by law" and that they wouldn't sell me the  
unit without the information.

When I asked "What law?", the reply was "Patriot Act."  However Dell  
wouldn't (or couldn't) provide a precise citation to the law that  
required them to gather this information.  My response to this  
obvious piece of nonsense was to inform Dell that I would be taking  
my business elsewhere.

I had no trouble buying a comparable unit from another vendor with no  
questions asked.



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