T1B

How's this any different than the spying J. Edgar's FBI did on the likes of ... believe it or not .. the Green Bay Packers Max McGee.

At a meeting, Vince Lombardi stood in front of the Packer players and told them they were going to start over with fundamentals.

"Gentlemen," he said, holding a out a ball. "This is a football."

From the back, Max McGee said, "Coach, could you slow it down a bit? You're going too fast for us."

Somebody should have kicked J. Edgar Hoover right in the girdle.

Jsc wrote:The notion of privacy that you once knew is forever gone.

Yep.

I recently had reason to call my credit card company.
To 'verify my identity' they asked me a couple of questions about previous car ownership.
Asked a question about a car I purchased in .... 1993.

We're all pwned, Jsc, no doubt about it.

What a stupid fucking article. SARs have jack shit to do with the Patriot Act. I love how writers take such a journalistic leap of faith to tie it with post-9/11. As mvscal said, SARs have been around for decades.

It's a tool mainly used for white collar and drug cases, and a very effective one. Could it be used to possibly link a terrorist case? Sure, just like it would have before 9/11 and the Patriot Act. Nothing has changed. The rise in the number of SARs filed has way more to do with the fact that the financial institutions are better educated in what and how they should file. Bank fraud-type cases (mortgage fraud being the worst) have also risen dramatically, resulting in much more SAR activity.