more on We all have to sacrifice, in the War on Terriers

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

no matter what the facts  are DHS equals terrorism in the public mind.
Also will any one explain to me how paying off a large balance is a
fraud warning? djf

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [IP] We all have to sacrifice, in the War on Terriers
Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2006 20:59:04 -0500
From: Seth Finkelstein <sethf () sethf com>
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
CC: ip () v2 listbox com, Randall <rvh40 () insightbb com>
References: <440762F2.9080508 () farber net>

> What got him so upset might seem trivial to some people who have learned
> to accept small infringements on their freedom as just part of the way
> things are in this age of terror-fed paranoia. It's that "everything
> changed after 9/11" thing.
>
> But not Walter.
>
> They were told, as they moved up the managerial ladder at the call
> center, that the amount they had sent in was much larger than their
> normal monthly payment. And if the increase hits a certain percentage
> higher than that normal payment, Homeland Security has to be notified.
> And the money doesn't move until the threat alert is lifted.

        Let's stop right here, and engage critical facilities.
We have a journalist's *paraphrase* of a *second-hand account* of an
*unsourced* legal interpretation. I think some skepticism is warranted.

        Note how the sentence structure implies to the casual reader
that Homeland Security must lift the flag, and it's terrorism-related,
without actually saying that ("the money doesn't move until the threat
alert is lifted").

        The reader isn't told that the Homeland Security Department is
in charge of credit-card fraud as a function completely apart from
terrorism, a fact that was not difficult to find:

http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/display?theme=79&content=271
Threats & Protection  Financial Crimes
Credit Card Fraud/Identity Theft
"The Secret Service is the primary federal agency tasked with
investigating access device fraud and its related activities under
Title 18, United States Code, Section 1029."

        I suggest a far more *likely* series of events is as follows:

1) Sending in payment far in excess of the normal monthly payment will
raise a fraud flag, purely as the private, free-market, choice of the
credit-card business.

2) Potential fraud is also reported the authorities, perhaps as a
matter of law. But I would be very surprised if they make the final
call on releasing the money.

        I suspect these two facts got garbled together, and then
throw in "terror-fed paranoia" (in another sense), and we're off
knee-jerking about boiling frogs and Orwelling and wolf, wolf, wolf.

        Would it be asking too much to have some facts before debating
how much the US has fallen into a Police State here?

-- 
Seth Finkelstein  Consulting Programmer  http://sethf.com
Infothought blog - http://sethf.com/infothought/blog/
Interview: http://sethf.com/essays/major/greplaw-interview.php

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