Suspicious activity at the Post Office today!

[rambone]

I mailed some packages at the U.S. Post Office today. At the counter, I overheard the cashiers discussing a customer who wanted some money orders printed in an amount totaling greater than $3,000. They were going to file a "Suspicious Transaction Report" on the man. He wanted $1000x10.

To think, had I come a few minutes earlier and I might have been standing in line next to a terrorist!

 

[CarmelHP]

I mailed some packages at the U.S. Post Office today. At the counter, I overheard the cashiers discussing a customer who wanted some money orders printed in an amount totaling greater than $3,000. They were going to file a "Suspicious Transaction Report" on the man. He wanted $1000x10.

To think, had I come a few minutes earlier and I might have been standing in line next to a terrorist!

So, if you need to send anyone $10,000, you're suspicious?

 

[Fletch]

Call Romney and let him know, he'll fix it! He fixes everything!

 

[rambone]

Ron Paul spoke about this in 2001.

Ron Paul | Postal Service has its Eye on You

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take this opportunity to draw my colleagues' attention to the attached article ``Postal Service Has Its Eye On You'' by John Berlau of Insight magazine, which outlines the latest example of government spying on innocent citizens. Mr. Berlau deals with the Post Office's ``Under the Eagle's Eye'' program which the Post Office implemented to fulfill the requirements of the Nixon-era Bank Secrecy Act. Under this program, postal employees must report purchases of money orders of over $3,000 to federal law enforcement officials. The program also requires postal clerks to report any ``suspicious behavior'' by someone purchasing a money order. Mr. Speaker, the guidelines for reporting ``suspicious behavior'' are so broad that anyone whose actions appear to a postal employee to be the slightest bit out of the ordinary could become the subject of a ``suspicious activity report,'' and a federal investigation!

As postal officials admitted to Mr. Berlau, the Post Office is training its employees to assume those purchasing large money orders are criminals. In fact, the training manual for this program explicitly states that ``it is better to report many legitimate transactions that seem suspicious than let one illegal one slip through.'' This policy turns the presumption of innocence, which has been recognized as one of the bulwarks of liberty since medieval times, on its head. Allowing any federal employee to assume the possibility of a crime based on nothing more than a subjective judgment of ``suspicious behavior'' represents a serious erosion of our constitutional rights to liberty, privacy, and due process.

I am sure I do not need to remind my colleagues of the public's fierce opposition to the ``Know Your Customer'' proposal, or the continuing public outrage over the Post Office's proposal to increase monitoring of Americans who choose to receive their mail at a Commercial Mail Receiving Agency (CMRA). I have little doubt that Americans will react with the same anger when they discover that the Post Office is filing reports on them simply because they appeared ``suspicious'' to a postal clerk.

This is why I will soon be introducing legislation to curb the Post Office's regulatory authority over individual Americans and small business (including those who compete with the Post Office) as well as legislation to repeal the statutory authority to implement these ``Know Your Customer'' type policies. I urge my colleagues to read Mr. Berlau's article and join me in protecting the privacy and liberty of Americans by ensuring law-abiding Americans may live their lives free from the prying ``Eagle Eye'' of the Federal Government.

 

[Fletch]

So, if you need to send anyone $10,000, you're suspicious?

Wasn't that part of the PATRIOT Act or something?

 

[rambone]

Here are some links I gleaned from the USPS website.

Suspicious Transaction Forms

Fiscal Year 2012 Bank Secrecy Act/Anti-Money Laundering Training

 

[Fletch]

Ron Paul spoke about this in 2001.

Ron Paul | Postal Service has its Eye on You

WTF does he know, the man's a kook.

 

[snorko]

So, if you need to send anyone $10,000, you're suspicious?

And most people don't realize that breaking it down into multiple transactions over time is also suspicious. Called structuring, making multiple cash deposits over a period of time, multiple wire transfers, basically any activity outside the norm can generate a SAR (suspicious activity report).

 

[CarmelHP]

And most people don't realize that breaking it down into multiple transactions over time is also suspicious. Called structuring, making multiple cash deposits over a period of time, multiple wire transfers, basically any activity outside the norm can generate a SAR (suspicious activity report).

This, as described, wasn't structuring.

 

[Fletch]

And most people don't realize that breaking it down into multiple transactions over time is also suspicious. Called structuring, making multiple cash deposits over a period of time, multiple wire transfers, basically any activity outside the norm can generate a SAR (suspicious activity report).

Well I for one am glad we live in the good ol' U. S. of A., where we don't have to worry about government surveilling our personal business, because the Republicans have held the line against any and all encroachments on our freedoms.

 

[Westside]

Well I for one am glad we live in the good ol' U. S. of A., where we don't have to worry about government surveilling our personal business, because the Republicans have held the line against any and all encroachments on our freedoms.

did you forget the purple?

 

[Stschil]

Maybe he was purchasing a NFA item from a tin hatter who wouldnt accept a cashiers check because he doesn't trust banks.

 

[rambone]

Wasn't that part of the PATRIOT Act or something?

Yes.


Text of the USA PATRIOT Act

`Sec. 5331. Reports relating to coins and currency received in nonfinancial trade or business `(a) COIN AND CURRENCY RECEIPTS OF MORE THAN $10,000- Any person--

`(1) who is engaged in a trade or business; and​

`(2) who, in the course of such trade or business, receives more than $10,000 in coins or currency in 1 transaction (or 2 or more related transactions),​

shall file a report described in subsection (b) with respect to such transaction (or related transactions) with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network at such time and in such manner as the Secretary may, by regulation, prescribe.

 

[CarmelHP]

Yes.


Text of the USA PATRIOT Act

Did they say whether it was $10,000 in cash?

 

[rambone]

Did they say whether it was $10,000 in cash?

They did not say.

It sounds like there is more than one Federal law regarding "large" transactions. The Bank Secrecy Act that Ron Paul was speaking about only required totals greater than $3,000.

 

[Fletch]

did you forget the purple?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yO0xspHN0Vw

 

[cosermann]

I wonder if money orders from Wal-Mart are subject to the same silliness.

 

[JimmyJames]

Big brother needs to take the proverbial long walk off of a short pier.

 

[hornadylnl]

WTF does he know, the man's a kook.

Yes, he's a nutjob that only talks the talk and never tries to move the liberty ball forward.

I wonder how many repubs back his legislation he spoke about.

 

[thebishopp]

"it is better to report many legitimate transactions that seem suspicious than let one illegal one slip through.''

Don't you know that it is better to arrest, convict, incarcerate or execute many innocent citizens rather than let one guilty one get away?