nuns' account frozen by patriot act
A monastery said its account was frozen without explanation or notification for a week, causing checks to bounce and taking three months to straighten out.
United Press International
Nuns of Holy Name Monastery say ridiculous Patriot Act scrutiny led their bank to freeze the
"If it happened to us, it can happen to anybody," she told the
The order said its account was frozen without
explanation or notification for a week in November, causing checks to bounce and taking three months to straighten out.
Abbott said she was told the trouble began because an 80-year-old nun, a signatory on the account, did not have her Social Security number or photo identification on file.
"Clearly an international spy," Abbott wryly told the newspaper.
A Wachovia bank spokesman,
citing privacy concerns, declined comment.
The order vowed to lobby Congress to overturn the anti-terrorism law.
------------------------This is funny and all in that it points out what a joke the patriot act has become but after a couple laughs it just makes me mad. Now the government can immediately seize the property of a church, nuns no less, at will without a warrant regardless of the fact that this is unconstitutional in about 6 different ways.
Stupid Wachovia, "citing privacy concerns", no one actually believes that. Where were your so called "privacy concerns" when you took money away from 80 year old nuns? I just know that Wachovia is going to charge them a bunch of overdraft fees and returned check fees.
This whole constitution thing is too much trouble. Why follow the constitution and go to a judge and ask for a warrant when you can do whatever you feel like to whomever you want?
All you have to do is show the judge, “Habeeb calls these Al Qaeda numbers in
Security is surgical. It’s boots on the ground, it’s cloak and dagger, it’s investigation. It’s suspending freedom for one terrorist rather than 300 million freedom loving Americans. You’d think we would have learned this after September 11th; you can spend billions of dollars on fancy satellites and data mining but if you ignore human intelligence, it doesn’t matter. That’s part of the reason why I served in the military. A soldier gives up all their freedom to preserve it for other Americans and for their descendants. It's better to loose a few heros than the freedom of all. Will my brothers and sisters die in vain?
Welcome home soldier, thanks for taking an oath to defend the Constitution. Oh yeah, while you were gone, we gave up the Fourth and Fifth Amendments.
If you don’t know what IV and V are, don’t bother, they’re already gone.
posted by iconoclasm at 7:29 PM
1 Comments:
wow... I like couldn't disagree more.
First, on the wiretapping.. if the CIA identify's an Al Queda operative's phone number its all good as long as they don't call the USA. When they do call the USA we have a problem. The government needs to get a warrant on the number that picks up the call.
Say Osama calls 502-678-1234. We can't record the message because we don't have a warrant on that number. So we run off and get a warrant on that number but tomorrow Osama calls 502-678-1235. We can't record it again because we don't have a warrant on the new number. Now you will say that such a problem was fixed with the FISA law which allows us to tap a call and then get a warrant within 72(?) hours. Sure all fine and dandy until we realize that the taps are put in by civilian phone companies. So there is only 72 hours to id who the phone belongs to at the moment to get a warrant on that person's name and then install the tap on the phone as soon as possible.
Quite frankly its a whole lot easier to intercept it overseas with clandestine tech bypassing the US intercept. But there are a host of issues with such a proposal that make the 72 hours unfeasable. (what if the intercept happens on a remote sensor on the bottom of the ocean and will not be downloaded by a sub for weeks?) Suddenly the FISA law is broken and further the Commander in Chief doesn't want to tell judges and such about Top Secret CIA or Military Operations overseas.
Second this deal about the Nuns getting their money frozen... suck it up. It was frozen for a week. Better than getting killed in some terrorist attack... especially when your odds of getting killed in such attacks are significantly higher than your money getting frozen if you are an individual. Notice that this was an organization not an individual. Why don't we all whine about little inconveniences.
Finally lets deal with the foundations of the Patriot act. We already have these laws on the books for suspected mobsters and drug czars. Those ladies could have found themselves on the receiving end of those existing laws.
This is a dumb double standard. Lets give foreign terrorists rights that mobsters (read US citizen mobsters) do not get.
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