The Bank Secrecy Act

Recently BankInfoSecurity e-News reported that "A U.S. District Court in North Carolina last month dismissed its case against $2 billion CommunityOne Bank after the bank agreed to pay $400,000 toward restitution to victims of a third-party ponzi scheme that operated through accounts maintained at the bank."  The bank was being prosecuted under the so-called Bank Secrecy Act.

Orwell warned us that laws would be misnamed in order to make them seem less repressive. One might be led to believe that a law called the "Bank Secrecy Act" would punish banks for violating the confidence of their customers. Not so. Instead what is does is immunize the banks from liability when, and only when, they snitch on their customers, and as in this case, punishes them severely when they fail to do so.

The regulators would have you believe that this is in the interest of resisting the funding of terrorists, or even as in this case, fraud. Again, not so. While it may occasionally do one of those things, it is really in the interest of tax collection.

Privacy is dead. Your bank is not on your side. Now you understand the popularity of a thinly traded and volatile currency like Bitcoin.