Taking $200 Out Of An ATM Should Not Trigger Federal Financial Surveillance – Reason

 Taking $200 Out Of An ATM Should Not Trigger Federal Financial Surveillance — Reason

No, not even if you do it in a county that borders Mexico.

One of President Donald Trump’s Day 1 executive orders designated “certain international cartels” as “foreign terrorist organizations,” a classification that according to the State Department “play[s] a critical role in our fight against terrorism and [is] an effective means of curtailing support for terrorist activities and pressuring groups to get out of the terrorism business.”

To that end, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) announced a new rule cracking down on cash transactions this week, but only in certain geographical regions. No matter the administration’s intent to target cartels, the rule will expand government surveillance of its citizens.

FinCEN “issued a Geographic Targeting Order (GTO) to further combat the illicit activities and money laundering of Mexico-based cartels and other criminal actors along the southwest border of the United States,” according to the announcement . “The GTO requires all money services businesses (MSBs) located in 30 ZIP codes across California and Texas near the southwest border to file Currency Transaction Reports (CTRs) with FinCEN at a $200 threshold, in connection with cash transactions.”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the change “underscores our deep concern with the significant risk to the U.S. financial system of the cartels, drug traffickers, and other criminal actors along the Southwest border.”

The order lists all 30 ZIP codes in counties that each abut the U.S.–Mexico border…. California’s are the state’s only two border counties, but the five in Texas encompass only a small portion of the state’s total southern border. It’s not clear why these seven counties were chosen out of the 44 total border counties, including any in Arizona or New Mexico.

… in those seven border counties, FinCEN has dropped the reporting threshold from $10,000 to $200….meaning a $200 cash withdrawal in one of seven counties could soon make one subject to a federal financial report.

“More than one million Americans are about to face a new level of financial surveillance,” writes Nicholas Anthony, a policy analyst at the Cato Institute. “Financial surveillance in the United States has long needed reform, but this move is in the wrong direction.”

Anthony says rather than lowering the threshold, the $10,000 baseline is overdue to be raised….

The Trump administration’s push to crack down on penny-ante cash transactions is reminiscent of actions the Biden administration attempted.

In a 2021 bill ostensibly passed to provide relief from the COVID-19 pandemic, the Biden administration included a provision that would require gig economy companies like Uber, eBay, and Etsy to report anyone to the IRS who earned at least $600 per year on their platform—a dramatic cut from the previous minimum of $20,000 per year or 200 transactions.

..Clearly, the Trump administration is adamant that drug cartels south of the border should be brought to heel—hence the repeated calls by Republicans over the past few years for the U.S. to invade or bomb Mexico. But just as those methods would be an aggressive overreach of U.S. foreign policy, subjecting innumerable law-abiding citizens to additional financial surveillance is an aggressive overreach of fiscal policy.

🔗SOURCE ➡️ Reason

Related: 3/15 — The US Treasury announced that the threshold for currency transaction reports has been lowered from $10,000 to $200 for Americans living in 30 zip codes in CA and TX.

11/16/24 — 🚨Pentagon Fails 7th Audit in a Row but Says Progress Made [Meme]

11/16/23 — The Government: We will know if you don’t report venmo transactions over $600

Also The Government: We failed our 6th pentagon audit, we don’t know where that $3.8 Trillion went

11/16/23 — Pentagon Fails 6th Audit in a Row

Follow ➡️ @PsyopDaily

READ FULL ARTICLE: This article originally appeared on Reason

Share on Telegram