Ashcroft calls for more restrictions on use, transport of cash

[Greg Broiles]

According to the Wall Street Journal online -

>Mr. Ashcroft said Congress should:
>7       Make bulk cash smuggling a crime. Mr. Ashcroft said the only law 
>currently on the books to combat smuggling is a requirement that shipments 
>of more than $10,000 be accompanied by a report from the U.S. Customs 
>Service. The Supreme Court has ruled that failing to file reports isn't a 
>serious enough offense to warrant confiscating the cash, so at worst 
>couriers for organized crime serve a short jail sentences -- "a virtually 
>meaningless penalty for a drug-trafficking organization," Mr. Ashcroft said.
>7       Make it a federal offense for people to transport more than 
>$10,000 in cash proceeds from a criminal offense over highways or on 
>airplanes. Mr. Ashcroft said a court threw out a case in which $10,000 in 
>cash was seized from the trunk of a car driven by men who had prior drug 
>convictions because it isn't a crime to transport drug money down the highway.
>7       Expand money-laundering laws to include crimes other than drugs, 
>terrorism and bank fraud. Mr. Ashcroft said federal prosecutors often must 
>turn down money-laundering cases involving corrupt foreign public 
>officials and organized-crime groups because their crimes aren't covered 
>under U.S. money-laundering laws.
>Mr. Ashcroft said the Justice Department also may ask Congress to outlaw 
>wire transfers of tainted money and the laundering of proceeds from 
>terrorism and to deny U.S. visas to suspected foreign money launderers and 
>their families.

.. ugh. Guess who's likely to end up with the burden of proof following the 
seizure of cash pursuant to his proposals .. and guess how hard it's going 
to be if your evidence consists of oral testimony to the effect that the 
cash was saved $10 or $20 at a time over a number of years.

Everybody knows that people with drug convictions don't save money, and 
they especially don't save it at home because they have trouble getting a 
bank account to save it the ordinary way.

I guess the bright side of this is that the harder the feds clamp down on 
legitimate or almost-legitimate uses of existing infrastructure, the faster 
less-controllable less-trackable infrastructure will be constructed within 
and by the black market.


--
Greg Broiles
gbroiles at well.com
"We have found and closed the thing you watch us with." -- New Delhi street kids