DOJ Targets Legal Businesses for Extinction

Acknowledge the fact that the rule of law no longer exists in this country and act accordingly. If the government won't obey the law, why should we?

Follow the Dear Leader's example and do whatever you like. The law is for serfs and chumps.

Are YOU a serf and/or a chump?

 

It started in 2013 under the Obama Administration. If Bush had done the same thing, the MSM would dedicate nightly, hour-long specials to uncovering the truth.

 

I am on the left on some matters, did not/do not support Obama, and am perfectly fine with the goal of the programs. As I indicated before, it needs some tweeking, but seems likely to address the issue they are trying to deal with--financial crimes.

 

not sure what businesses they would want to choke off, but I know the right is trying to do this to planned parenthood and other medical centers

 

On the bright side, Bitcoin is providing these industries with some relief.

Apparently, the DOJ is unaware of the Tarkin Effect.

 

All Liberal leaners are unaware of their unintended consequences.

 

Why is going after legal businesses and choking off their access to the country's banking system and its financial services a good concept?

The federal government can't even make a website without messing it up, what makes you think they can effectively mitigate or prevent financial fraud? And where does the constitution authorize the federal government to do this?

 

Jeezus, we are fast becoming a fascist country.

 

Interstate Commerce Clause, and they are targeting specific businesses that have a specific pattern of activity that is connected to fraud.

 

Ah, the interstate commerce clause, the nebulous statist catch-all that grants the federal government virtually unlimited power to micromanage every aspect of our lives. I'm sure that was the original intent of the founders when they ratified it.

They are targeting businesses that are perfectly legal and have a presumption of innocence under both the natural and common laws. Summarily cutting off their access to private banking institutions without a speedy and public trial is a violation of their constitutional and natural rights. You are basically cheerleading this program because you were once the victim of fraud. That smacks of emotional bias.

And you didn't answer my question. The federal government can't even make a website without massive waste and incompetence, what makes you think they can effectively mitigate or prevent financial fraud? How has their war on drugs, poverty, and terror turned out?

 

Well then we are in agreement.

They are targeting businesses that claim to be legit. They may be fronts for the illegit. Yes I have an emotional bias against crime.

They have worked out wonderfully as will this program in time.

 

A DoJ run by Eric Holder is capable of ANYTHING...

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I suggest the Institute for Justice. www.ij.org

 

Not in the slightest. You, like so many others, misconstrue the interstate commerce clause as a nebulous catch-all that permits the federal government virtually unlimited authority to intrude into the lives of individual Americans and their businesses. The original intent of the interstate commerce clause has absolutely nothing to do with targeting commercial fraud or conducting sweeping investigations of American businesses. The word "regulate" does not mean what most contemporary Americans think it means. You misonstrue it to mean "investigate, criminalize, prohibit, impede, prosecute, etc." when it really means "keep regular". The original intent of the clause was simply to keep state governments from erecting barriers to trade and otherwise impeding interstate commerce, not to grant a virtually unlimited power to the federal government to control our personal and commercial lives. But you will probably respond with some legal sophistry about why the constitution means whatever the Supreme Court says it means, regardless of whether or not it makes sense or comports with the original intent of the founders, and that it is a "living document" that can be interpreted based on contemporary whims, etc., which is why I say it's time for a new constitution, one that makes plain the limits on federal power.

They are targeting businesses that are perfectly legal based upon some unsubstanted assertion that they are more likely to be involved in fraud. Putting aside the obvious conflict with a presumption of innocence, that is a form of profiling and discrimination, no different than if they targetted black businessmen on the basis of black crime rates. You could make the exact same argument that you're making now in order to justify it.

Worked out wonderfully? Thus far, it has been a disaster. It remains to be seen if they can salvage their effort. Virtually everything the federal government gets involved in is characterized by waste, fraud, corruption, and inefficiency, yet you believe, somehow, that they can effectively mitigate and prevent financial fraud by casting a wide investigative net over multiple industries within the economy? You went from emotional bias to straight up magical thinking.

 

I am Harry Potterish like that.

 

Taxcutter says:
Agreed 100%. And what's worse, the utterly biased MSM will let him get away with it, even if it is an outrage perpetrated against the MSM.

 

Wrong. Distortion noted! They are targeting whole legal INDUSTRIES based on specific wrongdoing by INDIVIDUAL businesses within those industries as opposed to targeting the actual wrongdoers themselves. This is grossly offensive to the 5th, 10th, 14th Amendments, and does not conform with even the broadly expanded commerce clause of today.

 

Sure they are targeting Food Lion to deny them access to banking because they sell tobacco.....that is almost as laughable as thinking those head shops are 100% above board.

 

Perhaps, but the right is as bad as the left:

"What!!!! Welfare people have been linked to using their EBT cards at tobacco shops and strip clubs. This is fraud and they should lose their benefits and the businesses should be charged with fraud."

----government goes after said shops for suspicious electronic payment histories

"What!!! This is an outrage. These are legitimate businesses!!"

 

There are by definition financial crimes that may be happening and just under the noses of the required financial forms that banks must send to the Department of the Teasury, among others.

this is within the law, namely Check 21 and U.S. Patriot Act. As such, the whole point is to limit fraud done by banks or done to banks.

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it isn't the legal industry, it is the activities within that business. Huge difference.

 

The mistake you repeat twice now and compound is that the OP has anything to do with targeting specific businesses that do wrong. It doesn't. What is upsetting is targeting whole industries as "presumably fraudulent." But I think you know that full well and are continuing to distort on purpose.

 

Apparently the mistake you make is that you assume that what is in the OP is true an unbiased representation of the program. There are other articles accessible online about this program and I have read some of them. Operation Chokepoint doesn't target "whole industries"--it targets BANKS to force them to cut ties with outside processors that allow fraudulent or illegal activities to occur via their shoddy compliance. The operation was started to specifically force banks to pay penalties to the government for continuing to allow payment processors to aid in illegal activity by acting as a strawman for these scams and schemes.

http://www.americanbanker.com/gallery/timeline-operation-choke-point-1066360-1.html

 

In certain industries, there are fraudulent activities and in those industries, they are more susceptible than others. YOu want to look at massage parlors. How about financial industries where predatory pricing, unscrupouls movement of capital without owners consent, or price shaving/price perception. And the list can go on and on.

 

Thoroughly disingenuous. If businesses can't bank, they can't operate. I have read other articles on this too, and that there exists any kind of list of industry types is all I need to see. This is the equivalent of express racial profiling only the "race" in question is "owner of a particular type of LEGAL business." There would be proper ways to implement such a program WITHOUT tarring legal businesses at the federal level. If states want to do that, it's less problematic.

What I foresee here is just like the IRS, Democrats (or even GOP in the future) using central regulatory power like this to target "politically unfriendly" businesses without any due process but merely "guilt by association."

 

The overarching FACT remains that focusing on whole industry groups instead of individual offenders is just like focusing on redheads or hindus or people who drive red cars, offensive to our way of government.

 

What I see are banks electing not to do business with the people and types of people who got them in trouble, not the federal government targeting "whole industries", just the third party payment processors. This does remind me I need to activate my new credit card and destroy my existing one as about every 6 months Bank of America has to reissue my credit card with a new number because one of these third party processor places gets linked to data compromises.