| Suspicious Activity Reports: Terrorism
and you |
|
|
|
A concern to civil libertarians is that the proliferation
of SARs will enable the government to unnecessarily delve into the
legitimate private financial business of American citizens.
Bob Barr is an Atlanta-based attorney, former Republican
congressman and former U.S. attorney. He's now chairman of Patriots
to Restore Checks and Balances, a group that monitors the government's
use of the Patriot Act, and president and CEO of Liberty Strategies,
a consulting and public relations firm.
"The government has an insatiable appetite for getting more
information even though they may never get through it," Barr
says. "Congress ought to be asking how much money is being
spent on this, how much time and resources? What are we getting?
How many prosecutions have there been? I suspect it's minuscule
in relation to the number of reports filed.
"Something is out of whack. The government isn't interested
in stemming the flow of the information. It's a free way to get
information and the fact that they don't have the capability to
go through it all doesn't deter them. They like the control over
the financial institutions."
FinCEN's regulatory specialist disagrees.
"Our mission is to protect the integrity of the financial
structure of the United States. The Right
to Financial Privacy Act is enforced and something that we value
as a country, but we need access."
The government is trying to balance competing forces.Federal agencies were widely criticized after Sept. 11 for
not connecting the dots and averting the disasters. Now, they're
trying to connect the dots, and Americans are chafing a bit under
the increased scrutiny.
There have been isolated cases where individuals have claimed their
bank account was frozen temporarily while bank officials examined
what turned out to be legitimate transactions. These types of incidents
will almost certainly continue as more industries are required to
guard against money laundering. If the miscues happen with increasing
frequency the American public will likely begin howling, something
that Barr says isn't happening yet.
"There doesn't seem to be any traction in the courts for this.
I don't know whether individual citizens who are victims don't have
the interest or the capability to fight it."
All of this reporting doesn't come cheap. "We
think it has an impact on banks costing about $7 billion annually
in compliance, the number of hours to set up, report, and tell regulators
and auditors," Bartlett says.
The best advice if you're a law-abiding citizen about to make a
banking transaction that's a bit out of the norm for you is go ahead
and do it. Don't try to figure out some way to avoid detection.
"Conduct your business as you need to," says FinCEN's
regulatory specialist. "No one particular thing will set off
the filing of a SAR. Every institution has its own due diligence
procedures. It might involve the bank doing a follow-up phone call
asking what's going on here. And then you can say my parents gave
me a gift to pay my credit card debt."
The debate over SARs will likely continue into the
foreseeable future. FinCEN
provides reports, rulings, testimony, enforcement issues, news releases
and other information on the Bank Secrecy Act and the Patriot Act.
The American Bankers' Association Web
site is another resource for those wanting to keep up with this
issue.
| 
