From this morning’s Washington Times comes this report about how the Patriot Act has had impact far beyond the war on terror.
When checks began bouncing at Holy Name Monastery of the Benedictine Sisters last year, Sister Jean Abbott knew something was fishy.
Her calls to the bank revealed that the St. Leo, Fla., account was frozen for five days because one of the account’s signatories — an 80-year-old nun — didn’t have an identification card on file.
The bank blamed the USA Patriot Act for the account freeze.
“The local bank said it was the Patriot Act,” said Sister Abbott, who declined to identify the bank. “Someone at the main office of the bank had done, according to the local bank, a spot check on the account, which they do periodically.”
Because, of course, there is no greater threat to national security than an 80 year-old nun.
The truth, though, is that it isn’t just the Benedictine Sisters who are affected by this law:
The Patriot Act strengthened the Bank Secrecy Act, which requires financial institutions, including banks, creditors and even casinos, to inform the U.S. Treasury Department of transactions they find to be out of the ordinary. But even the Patriot Act cannot close an account — only a bank can do that.
The number of suspicious transactions that financial institutions are reporting to the government has nearly tripled since the Patriot Act was passed in 2001.
(…)
Ten years ago, banks filed 62,473 SARs annually. By 2000, that figure reached 163,184, and two years later, after the Patriot Act revisions, the number of SARs nearly doubled. It reached a peak of 689,414 in 2004 and dropped to 435,167 last year.
In other words, the next time you’re standing in line at the bank, remember that Big Brother is standing behind you watching.
Technorati Tags: Privacy, Patriot Act
