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Dennis Hastert is about the least sympathetic figure one can imagine. The former House Speaker got filthy rich as a lobbyist trading on contacts he gained in office, his leadership coincided with Congress's abject failure to exercise oversight or protect civil liberties after the September 11 terrorist attacks, and now Hastert stands accused of improper sexual contact with a boy he knew years ago while teaching high school and trying to hide that sordid history by paying the young man to keep quiet. If federal prosecutors could meet the legal thresholds for charging and convicting Hastert of a sex crime, they would be fully justified in aggressively pursuing the matter.
Yet, as Conor Friedersdorf writes in The Atlantic, the Hastert indictment doesn’t charge him for, or even accuse him of, sexual misconduct. Rather, as Glenn Greenwald notes, “Hastert was indicted for two alleged felonies: 1) withdrawing cash from his bank accounts in amounts and patterns designed to hide the payments; and 2) lying to the FBI about the purpose of those withdrawals once they detected them and then inquired with him.” It isn’t illegal to withdraw money from the bank, nor to compensate someone in recognition of past harms, nor to be the victim of a blackmail scheme. So why should it be a crime to hide those actions from the U.S. government? The current charges could be motivated by a desire to prosecute Hastert for sex crimes. But that dodges the issue. “In order to punish him for that crime, the government should charge him with it, then prosecute him with due process and convict him in front of a jury of his peers,” says Greenwald. “What over-criminalization does is allow the government to turn anyone it wants into a felon, and thus punish them without having to overcome those vital burdens. Regardless of one’s views of Hastert or his alleged misconduct here, it should take little effort to see why nobody should want that.”
Original Submission
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ikanreed on Wednesday June 03 2015, @07:10PM
Oh Christ.
Repeatedly withdrawing medium quantities of cash to hide the (larger) financial actions you're actually taking is not a hard concept to follow. I don't mind they're you don't get why they'd stop this. That's okay: Large transactions need to be properly documented for tax and anti-fraud reasons. Buy a car with cash, it's totally legal. The bank just needs to make a note for future auditing that explains that so large chunks of money can't go to organized crime or terrorist financing or violation of state department enforced sanctions.
So you get the money out. You say why. Dependeding on the circumstances the FBI or IRS may investigate to make sure that's what's actually happening. No legal problems.
But being a smug dick about your ignorance is just shitty. It's like raising a flag and saying "I don't know X and you shouldn't either!"
(Score: 4, Insightful) by frojack on Wednesday June 03 2015, @07:26PM
These large cash transactions are another feature of the war on drugs, and made stricter by the war on terrorism.
It used to be you paid taxes on what you put IN the bank, and nobody cared what you did with the money after that.
We are one step away from having to ask permission to use our own funds!!
If the limit is 10,000 dollars, then nobody has any business asking about 9,999.99. If the limit is squishy, and it really amounts to whatever the party in power wants to go after, then state the law that way.
If this kind of attention was paid to ex-democrat officials, the entire Clinton, Kennedy, clans would be in Jail.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 4, Informative) by ikanreed on Wednesday June 03 2015, @07:29PM
It used to be you paid taxes on what you put IN the bank, and nobody cared what you did with the money after that.
This is just flagrantly untrue. There's no ifs ands or buts about it. It's not true within anyone who could possibly be posts here's lifetime.
(Score: 3, Informative) by frojack on Wednesday June 03 2015, @07:44PM
Go educate yourself: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency_transaction_report [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_Crimes_Enforcement_Network [wikipedia.org]
Prior to 1986 none of this was ever tracked tracked.
If you are going to make such grandiose pronouncements, maybe it would behoove you to wait till you are at least out of highschool and have spent some time in the actual world.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2015, @08:23PM
> Prior to 1986 none of this was ever tracked
You win with facts.
> it would behoove you to wait till you are at least out of highschool and have spent some time in the actual world.
You lose with pointless insults.
(Score: 5, Informative) by ikanreed on Wednesday June 03 2015, @08:41PM
"Go educate yourself"
By flagrantly ignoring the:
Bank secrecy act of 1970 [wikipedia.org]
Or the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956
Monitoring transactions has just gotten more complicated, and if you cherry pick the electronic oriented acts, you're going to be stuck with ones from the information age.
Whoop. De. Fucking. Do.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Dunbal on Wednesday June 03 2015, @09:06PM
It was true until recently in many, many countries outside the US which had specific laws prohibiting their governments obtaining banking information. Then the US comes on the scene and bribes (yes bribes - I mean, you do want those extra million dollars to "fight the war on drugs" don't you?) governments to change the laws, and coerces banks to change their policies (or we'll do to you what we did to HSBC and friends), and now guess who can have a nice long look into any bank account in the world? And now - get this - they want to go after tax avoidance. Not evasion - they catch those right away. Avoidance. Which is not even illegal. But they have the media engine working overtime to convince Johnny Q Public that he deserves his "fair share" of that money (which he'll never see).
Honestly the banking sector as a whole has morphed into something else. Banks no longer have privacy. Banks no longer pay interest. Banks now only offer marginal security (ask the people of Cyprus how happy they are with their banks and their "haircut"). Banks have their very own sales tax - a percentage of every single transaction and every single card swipe, which can be as much as a not insignificant 2%. And on top of that they nickel and dime you to death with fees.
It's understandable that people want to come up with currency alternatives like Bitcoin, etc. Ahh but those present their very own special problems, not the least of which being (lack of) trust. I guess when you can trust banks less than random people on the internet, virtual currencies will be a huge hit.
(Score: 2) by pnkwarhall on Wednesday June 03 2015, @10:59PM
Honestly the banking sector as a whole has morphed into something else.
This was a curiosity-piquing statement. Care to explain more?
Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
(Score: 4, Insightful) by deimtee on Thursday June 04 2015, @12:21AM
Banks used to be a safe place to keep your money for later use. One of the meanings of the word "bank" is exactly that - to put away for future use.
They have changed into transaction facilitators who collect fees on each transaction.
Keeping a large amount of money in a bank is now suspicious behaviour, exactly the opposite of what it used to be.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Dunbal on Thursday June 04 2015, @12:56AM
Couldn't have put it better myself. Banks used to collect capital and keep it safe, or at least safer than under your mattress. They paid you interest for the privilege of holding your capital, and they invested part of it judiciously in loans and other investments, keeping the profit after paying out your interest for themselves. It was a win win. Win for you because you got an interest "reward" for lending them your money, and a win for them if they were smart enough to make even more money with your money. Now it's a win lose, where the bank makes money regardless, be it a service fee, or a transaction charge, or an account use fee, or a fee for not using your account, or a fee for not having enough money, or a fee for having too much money, or a fee for making too many transactions, etc. Once they've collected their fees from you (which always exceed any interest you might hope to get in a given year because let's be honest, if you have any real amount of money the last place you will put it is in a bank), it's a clear "fuck off" from the bank because oops they lost your money on bad bets on the derivatives markets so let's make the government force you to pay for them on top of that.
(Score: 2) by pnkwarhall on Monday June 15 2015, @10:02PM
thank you both for your insight.
Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Thursday June 04 2015, @04:03AM
It's understandable that people want to come up with currency alternatives like Bitcoin, etc. Ahh but those present their very own special problems, not the least of which being (lack of) trust. I guess when you can trust banks less than random people on the internet, virtual currencies will be a huge hit.
A lack of trust is Bitcoin's strong point. It doesn't require trust (it does have other problems).
(Score: 1) by DutchUncle on Friday June 05 2015, @03:26AM
Just a second here - the banks skimming a percentage off transactions has ALWAYS happened; card swipes just makes it more obvious. Banks advertised themselves as making money from the clever use of pooled customer money to invest at a profit; basically they are lending out the money that was "lent" to them (though the customers were told that it was "deposited" for safekeeping) . (Remember the scene in 1946's "It's a Wonderful Life" in which our hero has to explain that people's money isn't just sitting in the vault, it's been lent out again - nobody paid attention then or since.) But their BIG advantage was always charging for "safekeeping" transactions, like checks and money orders and bank drafts, and then electronic transfers. You can't move money without a bank, and you can't use a bank without incurring fees and lending them your money for no interest.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2015, @08:55PM
How much is a "medium quantity"? How often is "repeatedly"? Exactly what amount is suspicious and what amount is legitimate? And be aware that the moment you set a suspicious amount - does the amount you just said minus 1 dollar now become a new "suspicious" amount?
Buy a car with cash, it's totally legal.
Not in Europe. In many countries in Europe cash transactions larger than 3000 or even 1000 Euros (depending on the country) are now ILLEGAL. Can't buy a car. Hell, you have trouble buying decent furniture. Cos, you know, it must be drug money. Gotta use that traceable plastic.
Well if we shall resort to insults I'd say you're the one lacking a bit of clarity of thought. You are on the slippery slope and you don't even realize how far you've fallen. The only possible excuse is you're the typical debt infested american peon so actually having money in the bank completely escapes you.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Wednesday June 03 2015, @09:28PM
I have 0 debt, FYI. But, congrats on projecting your assumptions! Makes me feel good when you're wrong about multiple things at a time.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2015, @09:53PM
That's okay: Large transactions need to be properly documented for tax and anti-fraud reasons.
I'd much rather have privacy than safety from these sorts of things. I guess that concept is lost on you. I really don't think we should be sacrificing our rights or privacy just to make it easier for law enforcement to do their jobs.