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posted by cmn32480 on Saturday August 26 2017, @10:31PM   Printer-friendly
from the brown-chicken-brown-cow dept.

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

You may recall that in 2014 we wrote about a strange occurrence having to do with Chase Bank refusing to provide its banking services to Teagan Presley, a rather well known adult film actress. When it became clear that Presley wasn't the only performer to whom this was happening, it initially looked as though banks were engaging in a form of slut-shaming of adult film actors. It turned out, however, that it was the federal government doing the slut-shaming, with the emergence of the Department of Justice's Operation Choke Point. This DOJ policy that was developed to combat financial fraud somehow bled over the stencil lines and became a sort of banking morality police, encouraging banks to cut off services to industries like adult film, fireworks retail stores, and sellers engaged in what the DOJ deemed to be "racist materials." It's worth highlighting that all of these industries and actions, whether you like them or not, are legal, yet the DOJ was essentially attempting to extra-judiciously scuttle them through secretive federal policy. That should have terrified everyone, but didn't, and so the program went on.

Until recently. The justice department recently announced that Operation Choke Point will be ended.

The move hands a big victory to Republican lawmakers who charged that the initiative — dubbed "Operation Choke Point" — was hurting legitimate businesses. In a letter to House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd referred to the program as "a misguided initiative."

"We share your view that law abiding businesses should not be targeted simply for operating in an industry that a particular administration might disfavor," says the letter, obtained by progressive activist group Allied Progress and later provided to POLITICO by Goodlatte's office. "Enforcement decisions should always be made based on facts and the applicable law. We reiterate that the Department will not discourage the provision of financial services to lawful industries, including businesses engaged in short-term lending and firearms-related activities," it adds. A nearly identical letter was sent to Sens. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and Mike Crapo (R-Idaho).

I was more annoyed by their use of it against gun stores but good riddance regardless.

Source: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170818/11113638027/doj-to-end-operation-chokepoint-porn-stars-free-to-bank-once-more.shtml

Previously:
Adult Film Stars' Bank Accounts Closed


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 27 2017, @04:54PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 27 2017, @04:54PM (#559872)

    That is why I said I can't think of any names.

    There are values I intend to keep, regardless of which party has them. If that makes it so Runaway and Jmorris and TMB are right from time to time -- I think soylent will be the better for it ;)

    I am still under the impression that each side panders to group, some more so than others, and weighing on different metrics and all that.

    Anyway, Runaway's response wasn't what I was looking for, but I wouldn't disagree with it. I wasn't literally expecting republicans to show up with money to pay the women. what I meant to say was that I don't recall them, not after title ix anyway, really ever caring about the general well-being of liberated women, or women that wanted to be liberated. There's a place for them, based on the general rhetoric of some of those guys in office, and it's not enjoying sexual and reproductive freedom. I get the feeling that the title ix stuff was just a look the other way at the great things we can do while we engage in other questionable enterprises. Which is what politics is often about.

    Both parties are guilty of that behavior, but I am focusing on the questionable change of tactics. I expect this has more to do with business lobbying than women's rights--like marijuana taxes or something. probably gonna take parts of the PATRIOT act out of play due to the tax revenues possible for legalized sales of weed, and this was one of those barriers associated with it due to being lumped together and specifically was easy to eliminate while being able to blame someone else for putting it into place to begin with.