— by Odysseus
In the past several months, at least two major US banks, Morgan Chase (Chase Bank) and Bank of America, have implemented a new internal bank policy. This policy requires that their customers show a valid driver’s license (or an equivalent government-issued photo ID) in order to deposit cash into their own bank accounts.
Taking cash or cashing a check or other activities that could involve the theft of someone else’s funds have long required the display of identification to protect the bank and the bank’s customers. However, this new turn of events is either baffling or terrifying.
What harm can be caused to any bank or bank customer when a person deposits cash? It may make sense if the person deposits a check in order to prevent forgery, but this is normally addressed by simply not making the funds for withdrawal until after the check has been verified. If there are concerns that the cash is counterfeit, that concern has been addressed for decades by the banks’ use of specialized pens or other processes that check for counterfeit currency, as well as the Treasury Department’s ongoing efforts to manufacture counterfeit-resistant bills.
This new policy is something altogether different.
Chase Bank and Bank of America have now instituted policies so that their own, long-term customers cannot even deposit cash into their own checking accounts without showing government-issued ID cards. The computer terminals require that the teller view the ID and then enter the ID number, usually a driver’s license number, into the system with each deposit before allowing the teller to continue with the transaction.
To date, we here at The Cassandra Times are only aware of these two banks that have implemented this new policy. We also note that these are two banks with the closest working relationship with the US Government and handle the food stamp debit cards and other subsidy/benefit transactions. These are also the same two banks implicated in the Justice Department’s increasingly noted “Operation Choke Point”. We at The Cassandra Times doubt that this is mere coincidence.
There has been no public acknowledgement of how this ID policy originated, where the impetus came from or a logical explanation as to its utility. However, this is not difficult to figure out. We believe this was a mandate — or a strongly-worded suggestion — from the US government to the banks that are dependent on the government’s good graces for a significant portion of their business.
This puzzle piece falls into place perfectly with accounts of Attorney General Eric Holder’s Justice Department implementing “Operation Choke Point”, where banks have started to refuse to do business or handle the accounts of businesses which the government disapproves. For example, FOX news reports that Chase Bank sent letters to porn stars, informing them that their accounts would be closed in May. There were other incidents this year.
The Justice Department admits that it has targeted up to 30 separate industries, presumably in an attempt to make it impossible for them to access banking services. Frank Keating, CEO of the American Bankers Association, has written in the Wall Street Journal that, “Justice is telling bankers to behave like policemen and judges.”
Apparently, the highly secretive operation began in early 2013, and, according to Keating, if a bank does not comply, then the US Justice Department slaps the bank with a penalty. The two banks that are presently known to have “complied” and to have denied bank services to known porn stars are, again, Bank of America and Morgan Chase.
In the case of the porn starlets, there were letters sent out by the bank, which is a subsidiary of JP Morgan Chase. No reason was given for the closure, but an apology was given for the inconvenience. Reports say that the apology letter read as follows:
“We recently reviewed your account and determined that we will be closing it on May 11, 2014,”. It went on to say: “You may close your account before the date we’ve provided. Your account agreement says that either of us may close your account at any time, without notice and without a reason”.
FOX reported that porn star Teagan Presley said her account was closed and she was turned down when she tried to open another one. “I called them and they told me that because I am, I guess, public and am recognizable in the adult business, they’re closing my account,” she told adult industry site XBiz News.
Likewise, Bank of America has closed the accounts and refused to do business with firearms manufacturers McMillan Firearms and American Spirit Arms due to “the nature of their business” as well as other firearm businesses. “This seems to be happening with greater frequency and to many more dealers,” said Joe Sirochman, owner of American Spirit Arms. “At first, it was the bigger guys — gun parts manufacturers or high-profile retailers. Now the smaller mom-and-pop shops are being choked out, and they need their cash to buy inventory. Freezing their assets will put them out of business.”
T.R. Liberti, owner and operator of Top Gun Firearms Training & Supply in Miami, also claims to have been impacted. Last month, BankUnited N.A., canceled its service of his online business. Email from the bank informed him that : “This letter in no way reflects any derogatory reasons for such action on your behalf. But rather one of industry. Unfortunately your company’s line of business is not commensurate with the industries we work with.”
According to the Washington Times report of May 18, 2014, Black Rifle Armory in Henderson, Nevada had its bank accounts frozen for a month as the bank tried to determine whether any of Black Rifle’s online transactions were “suspicious”.
Senator David Vitter of the Senate Banking Committee has noticed a concerted effort by Eric Holder’s Justice Department to cut off credit and use other tactics to force pay-day lenders out of business. Meanwhile, adult entertainment industry lawyer Michael Fattorosi notes, “what they are doing is saying someone’s lifestyle choice is unacceptable. I don’t see where account holders’ lifestyle choices have anything to do with banking policy”.
To date, the known targeted industries have been porn starlets, firearms businesses, pay-day-lenders, fireworks businesses, tobacco businesses, and anything Eric Holder’s Justice Department, in its sole discretion, deems, “racist materials”. Perhaps “racist materials” could also include eyewitness accounts of Islamist atrocities in Africa and Hirsan Ali books.
Banks, like other businesses, are in business to do business. They are there to make money. They do not turn away customers’ accounts due to non-financial reasons. Nor do they implement policies such as demanding ID to deposit cash into existing accounts, much less into one’s own account, unless there is some compelling reason that will affect their bottom line.
A compelling reason or, more likely, a compelling government.
There is no theft that the requirement of ID to deposit money can protect against. The only reason to require ID for depositing money is to assist the government in its absolute tracking of all private personal finances and funneling the data into a giant government database. Without the use of photo ID, one person could open a bank account and then provide all the access information to other people who could then utilize the account as their own. If the recipients have the account number and the cooperation of the account holder, they can have a debit card, the PIN number, checks, and so forth. It would be an active, normal account with simply one name on it, but used by more than one person. However, there is no illegality or harm to anyone involved. Husbands, wives, children, unmarried couples, and families have managed their affairs this way for centuries.
There are many reasons why multiple persons may need to use the same account. Children and minors may be given access to an account before they are old enough to have one of their own. Unmarried couples may give access to each other’s accounts in the process leading up to marriage or just for ease of managing the bills. Some married couples choose to maintain separate bank accounts for many reasons, but may, from time to time, give the other access for a particular purpose.
Since the advent of banking, each person who lawfully used an account did not have to have their name on that account, much less show photo ID to deposit money into it. It in no way damaged the bank, its customers, the payees or payers to or from the accounts.
There is only one entity that these new Bank of America or Morgan Chase restrictions serve and that entity is the United States federal government. When one considers the ID requirement alongside PRISM, the IRS scandals targeting political opponents, and the NSA targeting United States citizens for complete warrantless surveillance of all of their electronic communication. As ludicrously argued by the Attorney General, the government has the right to record everything without a warrant, but a warrant is only needed if the government later wants to listen to it.
In sum, the United States federal government’s ambitions to make itself indispensable should be obvious. It demands total informational awareness about all of us and at all times. One may ask to what purpose would the government put that information to use. What they seek to do with the information they collect should be apparent from this analysis. If the government and its minions disapprove of you or your business, they want to the power to shut you down, be you a porn star or a gun manufacturer.
The Democrats have spent the better part of the last twenty years attempting to drive women and minorities to the polling booth, claiming the Republicans sought to legislate morality. They shriek about how the Republicans, beholden to Christian conservatives, are trying to use government to impose their morality on the citizenry. If this were true, then the Republicans have been remarkably unsuccessful.
We here at The Cassandra Times are hard pressed to think of a single, true example of such an advancement of the Christian agenda in American politics, in at least the last twenty years, if not longer. By contrast, Eric Holder and his boss President Obama have directly imposed by fiat their moral judgments on American citizens, across an increasing spectrum of society, without even attempting legislation. With Obama and Holder, we lack even the voice of our representatives to resist their imposition of their version of morals upon us. Any actual liberals left in the Democratic party must now either abandon their party or admit to themselves that they have abandoned their liberal principles.
This Democratic regime controlling the White House and the Senate has demonstrated time and again its tyrannical bent, aspiration, intent, and behavior. When it cannot get legislation passed that it desires to employ to destroy individuals or businesses they dislike or when it wishes to secretly implement a policy that it does not wish to acknowledge that it desires, the administration quietly uses the power of administrative agencies to push forward both a public and a secret agenda. The administration has been willing to use every part of its bureaucracy from the Environmental Protection Agency to the Internal Revenue Service, from the Food and Drug Administration to the Bureau of Land Management, from National Aeronautic Space Administration to the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives. Its minions have targeted business, political groups, and even individuals.
The abuses of power are the very embodiment of what the Declaration of Independence decried as, “He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance”.
Does any American desire to live in a country where the government, in the hands of politicians, has such utter and absolute control of our lives, finances, businesses, or career choices? How can the Democrats so easily speak out of both sides of their mouths that a woman has a right to her own body when she chooses to have an abortion, but she does not have a right to have a bank account if she chooses to use her body for pornography? People must show a photograph identification to deposit cash into their own bank account where there is no possibility of fraud, but do not have to show proof that they are who they say they are to cast a voting ballot where there is every possibility of fraud?
The present Democratic administration, aided and abetted by the Democratic-controlled Senate, utilizing law enforcement and regulatory structures erected in previous Democratic and Republican administrations , is driving full force for absolute power and tyranny. It is not doing so for our safety. It is not doing so for our protection or security. We should make no mistake, it is for control. How, exactly, do you fight to protect liberty by putting an end to freedom?
The selfsame Declaration of Independence also states, “But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security”.
Well Ms. Democrat, where do you stand? Well, government security operator, where do you stand?
