![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Marijuana Seeds |
The next time you go to the Post Office to purchase a money order, you
could get secretly reported to the federal government as a potential drug
dealer, terrorist, or money-launderer, the Libertarian Party warned today.
It's part of a massive customer surveillance program called "Under
the Eagle's Eye," which has been covertly monitoring Americans --
especially minorities and the poor -- for the past four years.
"The Post Office has gone postal on your privacy," said Steve
Dasbach, national director of the Libertarian Party. "Instead of
simply delivering mail, the Post Office is teaching its employees to spy
like an eagle on its customers. And you could end up in a government
database as a potential criminal without even knowing it."
The Under the Eagle's Eye program, which has been in effect since 1997,
trains postal clerks to watch for customers who act
"suspiciously" while purchasing money orders, making wire
transfers, or buying cash cards.
According to Post Office rules, "suspicious" activity could
include counting money in line, purchasing a large money order, or
purchasing several smaller money orders. However, the Post Office refuses
to disclose the full parameters used to determine suspicious activity,
saying it is a law enforcement secret.
But a customer does not need to meet any legal definition of suspicious
activity -- such as "beyond reasonable doubt" -- to be reported
to the government, according to the Under the Eagle's Eye manual. Instead,
"if it seems suspicious to you, then it is suspicious," the
manual tells postal employees.
Clerks are instructed that it is "better to report 10 legal
transactions than to let one illegal transaction get by."
If a customer does act "suspiciously," postal employees are
required to fill out government Form 8105-B, also called a Suspicious
Activity Report. The form includes a description of the customer and his
or her car's license plate number, if possible. Form 8105-Bs are then sent
to the Treasury Department or stored in a Post Office database for at
least five years.
"It's frightening that postal clerks have the power to report you to
the FBI, the IRS, the DEA, or the Treasury Department as a suspected drug
dealer or money launderer simply because you've purchased a money
order," said Dasbach.
The program is an offshoot of Bank Secrecy Act regulations, created in
1997 by the Treasury Department. The regulations are supposedly designed
to detect illegal money laundering, to track drug-related money, and to
catch terrorists.
Although officials decline to reveal how many "suspicious"
customers have been reported to law enforcement, the Post Office sells
about $9 billion in money orders a year. This means that tens or hundreds
of thousands of Americans may have been identified as potential drug
dealers or money-launderers by postal employees.
And a disproportionate number of those suspects are poor people,
immigrants, or minorities, noted Dasbach -- since those groups have less
access to bank accounts, and are more likely to send money orders to
foreign relatives.
"The Under the Eagle's Eye program is not just reprehensible because
it spies on Americans, it's reprehensible because it spies on the poorest,
most vulnerable Americans," he said. "It's especially shameful
that immigrants -- many of whom fled to America to escape oppressive
governments -- are spied on by our own government."
The Post Office refuses to disclose how many criminals it has apprehended
because of the Under the Eagle's Eye program. However, a similar program
which requires banks to monitor suspicious financial activity generates
99,999 reports on innocent customers for every one report on a
law-breaker, according to the National Economic Council.
If that ratio is the same for the Post Office -- and there's no reason to
believe otherwise -- then the Under the Eagle's Eye program is infringing
on innocent Americans' privacy on a massive scale, noted Dasbach.
"The idea of treating everyone who buys a money order as a criminal
suspect is outrageous," he said. "That's the reverse of the way
things are supposed to work in America, where we believe it's better to
let 10 guilty people go free than to harass one innocent person.
"If police have probable cause to think you've committed a crime,
they should go to court and get a warrant, instead of requiring postal
clerks to act as government informants."
Now that the Under the Eagle's Eye program has become public knowledge,
Americans should rise up and demand an end to Post Office spying, said
Dasbach.
"Unfortunately, the Eagle has landed
Found This On The Medical Marijuana Website http://www.onlinepot.org
Top of page |
Marijuana Seeds |
In the Imperium there exists the "principle of the individual," noble but rarely utilized, whereby a person who violates a written law in a situation of extreme peril or need can request a special session of the court of jurisdiction in order to explain and support the necessity of his actions. A number of legal procedures derive from this principle, among them the Drey Jury, the Blind Tribunal, and the Trial by Forfeiture. -- Law of the Imperium: Commentaries |