I am proud to announce that 10 banks, in 3 adjoining counties, where I live and bank, have run a full page ad in the local papers stating:

NOTICE TO ALL CUSTOMERS Federal Regulators are proposing new regulations on banks which require us to "snoop" into your bank accounts. They call it "Know Your Customer".

"In other words, the government wants us to monitor your transactions to see where your money is coming from, to whom you are writing checks and then report any "suspicious activity" to the Federal Crimes Enforcement Network.

We need all of our customers' help in combating, what we think would be, an invasion of your privacy. Please stop by any of our banks' Customer Service areas to get more information on how you can help us stop this terrible proposal."

I'm impressed and I hope other banks are doing this too. This is what I call looking out for your customers. Has anyone heard of other banks doing this, or something similar?

-- gilda jessie (jess@listbot.com), February 13, 1999

Answers

It's great that they're doing this...but the part of the reason banks don't want it is because of the added expense of compliance with the proposed regulation and potential liabilities if they make reporting mistakes. Bankers don't do much from the goodness of their hearts.

Your privacy really doesn't matter to a bank, but in this case, the customers' desire for privacy will slow down this proposed regulation faster than bankers telling their regulators that they oppose it. Basically, these banks are softly manipulating you to oppose regulations that will cost them money.

This proposesd regulation may be tabled for a while, but it will eventually be implemented. Regulators regulate and this will resurface after the public scrutiny dies down. The public and press only get excited the first time laws and regulations such as this are proposed. The second time, under different names, the laws or regulations are usually passed because the public doesn't have the desire to fight it again and the press coverage is substantially reduced because it's "old news." Editors decide what news is fit to print or broadcast. The fastest way for an editor to get fired is to rehash old news that reduces the number of readers or viewers, which reduces advertising rates, which reduces revenue. Maybe I'm getting too jaded in my old age...

-- PNG (png@gol.com), February 13, 1999.

I happened to walk into a friend's bank the other day; while waiting for him, I had the opportunity to look around: on the walls, there were huge posters advertising a "gold" card. They said: "go for the gold!" and had a large photo of the card sitting on top of a stack of gold coins. Message: our plastic = gold.

E.

-- E. Coli (nunayo@beeswax.com), February 13, 1999.

PNG is absolutely right about the rebound. Not to bore you with a too long story illustrating the point, but here in North Carolina we had an environmental law situation where Shell Island Resort in Wrightsville Beach wanted a variance from the coastal commission. Huge news coverage and public uproar forced commission to deny the variance. A few months later, with absolutely no advance publicity, it (the variance)was matter of factly reported as a done deal.

Something similar will happen with know your customer. It'll be changed slightly and renamed something with the words "laundering" and "racketeering" somewhere in the title. However, I think they will wait until y2k "blows over" before they try again.

-- Puddintame (dit@dot.com), February 13, 1999.

I was at my bank on Friday inquiring about how do I go about cashing in my 20 year old savings bonds. The teller started to tell me about the "Know your customer" thing the federal reserve wanted to pass in March. She had papers for "for" or "against" this that the bank wanted there customers to sign if interested. They would send it to them so they could tell them how there customers felt about this. Ofcource I signed I was against this, cause its my money and its no ones darn business on what I want with it.

Before I left, she said bring them in and I could see what there worth and then make my decision. I already know what that decision is. I don't need bird cage lining for next year.

-- maji (abc@prepared.com), February 13, 1999.

I personally think because the banks came out with this statement, that this would only alert people to take their money out of banks. Who wants to be scrutinized or wants big brother to know what you are doing with YOUR money? Maybe the government wants a bank run and what better way to cause one but to tell people Big Brother is watching you and your money! The money belongs to you, not them!

-- bardou (bardou@baloney.com), February 13, 1999.

Doesn't matter what their real motives are behind warning customers and fighting this "know your customer" law, wether it's added expense or genuine concern, it still serves to warn the public at large. And that's good news.

-- Chris (catsy@pond.com), February 13, 1999.

PNG - I need to preface by saying this is a hypothetical/philosophical question, and not intended to put you on the spot personally..just stimulate discussion:

at what point does a programmer who is a citizen of a free society have a moral responsibility to sabotage efforts by authority figures to inhibit freedom?

just wonderin' Arlin

-- Arlin H. Adams (ahadams@ix.netcom.com), February 14, 1999.

Chris: I agree (and said so) that it's good news. Throwing open the blinds and doors will always send cockroaches scurrying for cover. Not that bankers, lawyers and bureaucrats are like cockroaches...

Arlin: Why you asked me, Idon't know. I think I'd pay money to hear the eloquence and clarity of thought of Hardliner on that thorny question. Maybe we can put out a call to him in New Questions?

-------Optional and boring reading for Arlin only-------

Arlin, my opinion is based on my experiences, the people I've met and the influences they've had. I come from a family of conventional and unconventional warriors. My father was disowned by his Jehovah's Witness parents because he went off to fly for the RAF as a foreign pilot before the U.S. joined the war in Europe. My mother's father was a "freedom fighter" and guerrilla warrior in Yugoslavia during the war. They fought the communists (Tito) and the Nazis. My grandfather had to live a covert life after the war to hide from Tito's hit squads that fanned out across the world in search of him (he was a guerrilla leader) and others who continued the fight from abroad with money, arms and supplies after the war. Also a few USNA ringknockers and two flags in the family.

My experiences in the world of Naval Aviation are modest compared to some of the people I've been lucky enough to know and learn from. At Patuxent River (Test Pilot School), I met a man named George. George is "Top Hook"- More carrier landings than anyone in the world. George has over 1,000 traps in A-7's alone. No one will ever exceed him because his unusual collection of tours of duty could never be repeated under the personnel regs of today, in addition to the length of the Vietnam experience.

George could/can out-fly me, out-drink me and out-think me on every topic. My only saving grace is that I can beat his brains out on any golf course (and we've played in more than a few places in the world- I played the Tour for two years-no trophies, but cashed some checks).

George is a "platinum card" Mensa who never made flag and stayed in trouble with most flag officers because he never backed off from pursuit of anything. Pursuit.

-------End of optional reading--------

I believe that freedom requires the never-ending pusuit of freedom.

Guerrilla warriors are patriots to their cause and patriots become guerrilla warriors for their cause. The patriots of the American Revolution were guerrilla warriors. A rag-tag group of old and young who hit when they could, then retreated to plan their next attack in the pursuit of something they could not touch. They pledged their fortunes and their lives to fulfill a dream for their families, their future generations and the fellow patriots who shared their dream. A dream and an ideal that provided the furtile soil that became America because the guerrilla warriors created two documents that were filled with such common sense: The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution of The United States.

Any action, open or covert, by anyone that threatens the ideals of those two documents is a threat to the dream that is The United States of America. True patriots pledged their lives and fortunes to make the dream a reality. Would not a true patriot do it again, if the dream was threatened?

If all the men, women and children who died in horrible ways to create and defend the dream were to come back, how could you look into their eyes, if you had not done everything in your power to defend the dream from anything or anyone that threatened it?

-- PNG (png@gol.com), February 14, 1999.

PNG,

I think Arlin asked you because he thought that you knew the answer.

You do.

-- Hardliner (searcher@internet.com), February 14, 1999.

Thanks Chris, that's what I thought. Even if the banks' motive is less than pure, I've always felt that anything which receives the light of day, and is brought to public's attention, is on the right track.

I worked in banks, small and large, for many years, and we always had to keep in mind that it was the customers who kept us in business. The last thing we needed then, as now, was more paperwork.

-- gilda jessie (jess@listbot.com), February 14, 1999.