Free Republic

Excerpt - WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- The Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury Department are considering a major expansion of rules that financial-services providers keep detailed records of financial transactions and confirm customer identities. The Fed and Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, known as FinCEN, gave advance notice Friday that they are considering lowering - or eliminating altogether - the current $3,000 threshold below which banks and other financial- services providers don't have to keep special records on transactions. In a public notice, the federal agencies said this change could help with " combating terrorism, money laundering and other illicit activity."...

EFF Files Evidence in Motion to Stop AT&T's Dragnet Surveillance Internal AT&T Documents Had Been Temporarily Held Back Due To Government's Concerns San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) on Wednesday filed the legal briefs and evidence supporting its motion for a preliminary injunction in its class-action lawsuit against AT&T. After asking EFF to hold back the documents so that it could review them, the Department of Justice consented to EFF's filing them under seal -- a well-established procedure that prohibits public access and permits only the judge and the litigants to see the evidence. While not a party...

Do you remember Clinton’s “Know your Customer” program? It’s been about four years now, so I would suppose most Americans have completely forgotten. Here’s your refresher. Clinton’s Treasury department came up with this idea that would require all banks, savings and loan offices, credit unions and other financial institutions to develop a profile on all of their customers. The profile would include details on deposits, withdrawals, where money is spent, how money is spent, where the deposits come from, how much is spent or withdrawn in a typical week or month --- etc. Then the financial institution would watch your...