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---by Robert D. $utton There has been a public outcry over the latest proposal of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). The FDIC sought to impose "Know Your Customer" (KYC) rules on banks, which would have required banks to "verify customers� identities, know where their money comes from, and determine their normal pattern of transactions. The current requirements for banks to report any �suspicious� transactions to law enforcement authorities would be expanded." The FDIC claims that it simply wants to stop "money-laundering techniques used by drug traffickers and other criminals to hide illegal profits." Sure�but why stop with bank accounts? Why not search every citizen�s house, too? After all, drug traffickers could easily be working out of their own residences. Why not require ALL businesses to report "suspicious" transactions and know everything about their customers? Why limit the demand for omniscience to banks? Why pretend any longer that people are "innocent until proven guilty," or that privacy isn�t just an illusion? Not surprisingly, the FDIC is backing down in the face of over 14,000 angry e-mail messages fired by people in protest. Bank officials also responded, but with a wimpier tone, expressing their "concern" at how this policy might affect the public�s confidence in banks and government. They gave government the "sanction of the victim": they essentially told government that it had the right to regulate them. What they should have said (in a French accent) is: Laissez-Faire!. Hands off! They should have taken the same moral tone as the 14,000 people who cried out, "None of your business!" But they can�t�America�s private banks are private only in name. They are decorated pawns in the government�s fascist fiscal policies. If nothing else, however, the public outcry has demonstrated that Americans are not quite ready for "Big Brother." After more than six decades of the gradual erosion of their rights, they are still able to grasp the concept of "privacy" (albeit selectively). They still have a vague sense of the line that separates the individual from the collective. The line will always be there, but in the long-run, much more than a "vague sense" is required to defend it.
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