[Mishmash] Patriot Act

[Ingrid & Eric Holzman]

Hi Fred,

I did a quick search and this is what I found at www.consumeraffairs.com. 
Essentially, the reason why banks are allowed to ask for your street address 
versus a P.O. is to prevent the possibility of money laundering and other 
fraudulent acts.  The two acts that are cited are Section 326 and 314.  I've 
included bits from both but you can read more at the website.

Section 326 is titled "Verification of Identification." It involves 
collecting and maintaining identity data on any customer opening a new 
financial account at participating institutions, "including name, address, 
and other identifying information". Since everything the government touches 
must have an acronym, this is called the "Customer Identification Program", 
or "CIP."

This provision has brought forth a host of companies and banks offering 
software and database solutions that supposedly ensure the accurate 
collection of customer data needed to comply with this section of the act.

The IntegraSys corporation's ID Verification software, for example, 
cross-checks and references 23 billion data records, including everything 
from credit report headers to "warm address lists" that target "known sites 
of fraudulent activity", such as hotel mailboxes, prisons, P.O. boxes, etc.

Further complicating matters, although the PATRIOT Act became law on October 
26, 2001, the Treasury Department did not issue guidelines on how Section 
326 should be implemented until July of 2002. A final ruling on the 
guidelines was not issued until September of 2003, with a mandatory 
compliance date of October 1, 2003. Even given the necessity of extensive 
inquiries from banks to understand how the rules were to be implemented, the 
gap of two years between the passage of the law and the final ruling means 
banks were -- and are -- essentially free to use whatever means necessary to 
"verify customer identities."

Moreover, a more dangerous aspect of the Act allows that information to be 
shared with governmental agencies and other financial institutions, often 
resulting in customers being shut out of banking privileges altogether.

Section 314 states:
The actual requirements for information gathering under Sections 314 and 326 
are actually not terribly daunting. Banks are required to ask for a full 
name, address (P.O. Boxes won't do), Social Security number, and date of 
birth from any customer wishing to open a new account as "minimum 
procedure." "Non-documentary verification" -- that is, proving a customer's 
identity apart from the papers they present -- can involve anything from 
using Section 314 to communicate with other banks regarding their financial 
history, to consulting with the major consumer reporting agencies (CRA's) to 
determine their credit activity.



Hope this helps to clarify things for you, Fred.

Ingrid

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Fred Atkinson" <fatkinson at mishmash.com>
To: "Mishmash" <mishmash at mishmash.net>
Sent: Wednesday, November 08, 2006 10:22 AM
Subject: [Mishmash] Patriot Act


>     Does anyone know anything about the Patriot Act (I don't mean what 
> you've heard, but what you know for sure)?
>
>     I have a bank that is demanding my street address before they will 
> process my paperwork.  I do not take mail at the street box (I almost 
> never check it, in fact) but at my P. O. Box.
>
>     Every time I've told them not to send it to my street address (and I 
> don't mean just them, I mean just about everyone that has ever asked for 
> my street address), they send it there anyway.  And it always turns into 
> some kind of disaster because it gets misdelivered or because I was 
> sharing a place with other adults and didn't want them handling my 
> financial or other private mail.  In this case, it's because I don't use 
> the street box at all.
>
>     They say they can't do business with me without my giving up my street 
> address due to the Patriot Act.
>
>     Once, American Express demanded it (also citing the Patriot Act) and I 
> refused to give it to them for entirely legitimate reasons.  They said 
> they couldn't process my application without it.  I said 'fine then, don't 
> process it'.  Within a few days, the new card they were processing me for 
> showed up in the mail.
>
>     I'm getting a bit annoyed by all these banks demanding information 
> from you because of the 'Patriot Act'.
>
>     Regards,
>
>
>
>                                            Fred Atkinson
>
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