U.S. Rep. Ron Paul | know your customer |
know your customer
Freedom And Privacy Restoration Act
6 January 1999 1999 Ron Paul 1:8
A more recent assault on privacy is a regulation proposed jointly by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Office of Thrift Supervision, and the Federal Reserve, known as “Know Your Customer.” If this regulation takes effect in April 2000, financial institutions will be required not only to identify their customers but also their source of funds for all transactions, establish a “profile” and determine if the transaction is “normal and expected.” If a transaction does not fit the profile, banks would have to report the transaction to government regulators as “suspicious.” The unfunded mandate on financial institutions will be passed on to customers who would have to pay higher ATM and other fees and higher interest rates on loans for the privilege of being spied on by government-inspired tellers.
know your customer
“Know Your Customer” Rules
1 July 1999 1999 Ron Paul 70:2
I believe I am a well-known civil libertarian. But I do believe this bill adequately protects privacy, except in one area. It has not eliminated the potential Know Your Customer regulations. My amendment permits this. It is the regulations such as Know Your Customer that is the motivation for banks to collect so much information.
know your customer
“Know Your Customer” Rules
1 July 1999 1999 Ron Paul 70:3
So I rise in support of the rule, but also mention that the Paul-Campbell–Barr amendment will allow us to bring to the floor an amendment that will eliminate once and for all the availability of Know Your Customer regulations by the various regulators.
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Improving Privacy
1 July 1999 1999 Ron Paul 71:3
But I am addressing the subject of Know Your Customer. At the same time we hear these declarations for protection of privacy, we hear from the same people that we cannot get rid of Know Your Customer.
know your customer
“Know Your Customer” Rules
1 July 1999 1999 Ron Paul 72:2
Madam Chairman, if my colleagues are opposed to Know Your Customer regulations they must support this amendment because this does away with Know Your Customer regulations, the profiling of every single customer in this country. This notion that it is going to ruin law enforcement is just not valid. There is estimated $100 million cost for one conviction by the reports that are sent in, and this does not prohibit the banks from sending in reports. If there is a suspicious character, they can still do this.
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“Know Your Customer” Rules
1 July 1999 1999 Ron Paul 72:5
What we must do is protect the American citizen. Law enforcement will not be hindered. If my colleagues are opposed to Know Your Customer regulation, they must vote for this amendment.
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A Republic, If You Can Keep It
31 January 2000 2000 Ron Paul 2:25
Mr. Speaker, let there be no doubt. For the true believers in big government, they see this technology as a great advantage for their cause. We are currently witnessing an ongoing effort by our government to develop a national ID card, a medical data bank, a work data bank, “Know Your Customer” regulations on banking activity, a national security agent all-pervasive telephone snooping system called Echelon, and many other programs. There are good reasons to understand the many ramifications of the many technological advancements we have seen over the century to make sure that the good technology is not used by the government to do bad things.
know your customer
Statement of Ron Paul on the Misuse of the Social Security Number
May 11, 2000 2000 Ron Paul 35:5
Since I introduced this legislation on the first day of the 106th Congress, my office has received countless calls, letter, faxes, and e-mails from Americans around the country who are tired of having to divulge their national ID number in order to get a job, open bank account, or go fishing. The strong public outrage over the federal banking regulators’ “know your customer” scheme, as well as the attempt to turn state drivers’ licenses into a national ID card, and the Clinton Administration’s so-called “medical privacy” proposals all reveal the extent to which the American people oppose the “surveillance state.” These Americans believe that since Congress created this problem, Congress must fix it.
know your customer
Statement of Ron Paul on the Freedom and Privacy Restoration Act (HR 220)
May 18, 2000 2000 Ron Paul 38:1
Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this hearing on my legislation, HR 220, the Freedom and Privacy Restoration Act. I greatly appreciate your commitment to the issue of personal privacy. Protecting privacy is of increasing importance to the American people. Since I have introduced this bill, my office has received countless calls of support from Americans all across the country who are opposed to the use of uniform identifiers. I have also worked with a bipartisan coalition of members on various efforts to protect Americans from the surveillance state, such as the banking regulators’ “know your customer” scheme, and the attempt by the Post Office to violate the privacy of all Americans who use Commercial Mail Receiving Agencies (CMRAs).
know your customer
INTERNET GAMBLING PROHIBITION ACT OF 2000
July 19, 2000 2000 Ron Paul 66:3
The bill calls for Federal law enforcement agencies, such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, to expand surveillance in order to enforce the proposed law. In order to enforce this bill (should it become law), law enforcement would have to obtain access to an individual’s computer to know if one is gambling online. Perhaps Internet Service Providers can be enlisted as law enforcement agents in the same way that bank tellers are forced to spy on their customers under the Bank Secrecy Act? It was this sort of intrusion that caused such a popular backlash against the ‘Know Your Customer’ proposal.
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IDENTITY THEFT — HON. RON PAUL
Tuesday, February 13, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 11:1
* Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I highly recommend the attached article “Know Your Customer” by Christoper Whalen, which recently appeared in Barron’s, to my colleagues. This article examines the horrors faced by victims of America’s fastest-growing crime: identity theft. As the article points out, millions of Americans have suffered deep financial losses and the destruction of their credit history because of identity theft. Victims of identity theft often discover that the process of reestablishing one’s good reputation resembles something out of a Kafka novel. identity fraud also effects numerous businesses which provide credit to unscrupulous individuals based on a stolen credit history. Just last year, American businesses and consumers lost 25 billion dollars to identity thieves!
know your customer
IDENTITY THEFT — HON. RON PAUL
Tuesday, February 13, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 11:6
[From Barrons, January 15, 2001] KNOW YOUR CUSTOMER LENDERS INCREASINGLY ARE PAYING FOR IGNORING THAT MAXIM (By Christopher Whalen)
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“Postal Service Has Its Eye On You”
27 June 2001 2001 Ron Paul 47:3
I am sure I do not need to remind my colleagues of the public’s fierce opposition to the “Know Your Customer” proposal, or the continuing public outrage over the Post Office’s proposal to increase monitoring of Americans who choose to receive their mail at a Commercial Mail Receiving Agency (CMRA). I have little doubt that Americans will react with the same anger when they discover that the Post Office is filing reports on them simply because they appeared “suspicious” to a postal clerk.
know your customer
“Postal Service Has Its Eye On You”
27 June 2001 2001 Ron Paul 47:4
This is why I will soon be introducing legislation to curb the Post Office’s regulatory authority over individual Americans and small business (including those who compete with the Post Office) as well as legislation to repeal the statutory authority to implement these “Know Your Customer” type policies. I urge my colleagues to read Mr. Berlau’s article and join me in protecting the privacy and liberty of Americans by ensuring law-abiding Americans may live their lives free from the prying “Eagle Eye” of the Federal Government. POSTAL SERVICE HAS ITS EYE ON YOU (By John Berlau)
know your customer
“Postal Service Has Its Eye On You”
27 June 2001 2001 Ron Paul 47:6
Remember “Know Your Customer”? Two years ago the federal government tried to require banks to profile every customer’s “normal and expected transactions” and report the slightest deviation to the feds as a “suspicious activity.” The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. withdrew the requirement in March 1999 after receiving 300,000 opposing comments and massive bipartisan opposition.
know your customer
“Postal Service Has Its Eye On You”
27 June 2001 2001 Ron Paul 47:8
Many privacy advocates see similarities in the post office’s customer-surveillance program, called “Under the Eagle’s Eye,” to the “Know Your Customer” rules. In fact, in a postal-service training manual also obtained by Insight, postal clerks are admonished to “know your customers.”
know your customer
“Postal Service Has Its Eye On You”
27 June 2001 2001 Ron Paul 47:10
It is statements such as these that raise the ire of leading privacy advocates on both the left and right, most of whom didn’t know about the program until asked by Insight to comment. For example, Rep. RON PAUL, RTexas, who led the charge on Capitol Hill against the “Know Your Customer” rules, expressed both surprise and concern about “Under the Eagle’s Eye.” He says the video’s instructions to report transactions as suspicious are “the reverse of what the theory used to be: We were supposed to let guilty people go by if we were doing harm to innocent people” when the methods of trying to apprehend criminals violated the rights of ordinary citizens. PAUL says he may introduce legislation to stop “Under the Eagle’s Eye.”
know your customer
“Postal Service Has Its Eye On You”
27 June 2001 2001 Ron Paul 47:11
The same sort of response came from another prominent critic of “Know Your Customer,” this time on the left, who was appalled by details of the training video. “The postal service is training its employees to invade their customers’ privacy,” Greg Nojeim, associate director of the American Civil Liberties Union Washington National Office, tells Insight. “This training will result in the reporting to the government of tens of thousands of innocent transactions that are none of the government’s business. I had thought the postal-service’s eagle stood for freedom. Now I know it stands for, ‘We’re watching you!’ ”
know your customer
“Postal Service Has Its Eye On You”
27 June 2001 2001 Ron Paul 47:17
It also was the Bank Secrecy Act that opened the door for the “Know Your Customer” rules on banks, to which congressional leaders objected as a threat to privacy. Lawrence Lindsey, now head of the Bush administration’s National Economic Council, frequently has pointed out that more than 100,000 reports are collected on innocent bank customers for every one conviction of money laundering. “That ratio of 99,999-to-1 is something we normally would not tolerate as a reasonable balance between privacy and the collection of guilty verdicts,” Lindsey wrote in a chapter of the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s book The Future of Financial Privacy, published last year.
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The War On Terrorism
November 29, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 98:56
“Know Your Customer” type banking regulations, resisted by most Americans for years, have now been put in place in an expanded fashion. Not only will the regulations affect banks, thrifts and credit unions, but also all businesses will be required to file suspicious transaction reports if cash is used with the total of the transaction reaching $10,000. Retail stores will be required to spy on all their customers and send reports to the U.S. government. Financial services consultants are convinced that this new regulation will affect literally millions of law-abiding American citizens. The odds that this additional paperwork will catch a terrorist are remote. The sad part is that the regulations have been sought after by federal law-enforcement agencies for years. The 9-11 attacks have served as an opportunity to get them by the Congress and the American people.
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Stimulating The Economy
February 7, 2002 2002 Ron Paul 5:63
9. There is a danger that personal privacy will be a thing of the past. Even before 9-11, there were attacks on the privacy of all Americans- for good reasons, or so it was argued. The attacks included plans for national ID cards, a national medical data bank, and “Know Your Customer” type banking regulations. The need for enforcement powers for the DEA and the IRS routinely prompted laws that violated the Fourth amendment. The current crisis has emboldened those who already were anxious to impose restrictions on the American people. With drug and tax laws, and now with anti-terrorist legislation sailing through Congress, true privacy enjoyed by a free people is fast becoming something that we will only read about in our textbooks. Reversing this trend will not be easy.
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Is America a Police State?
June 27, 2002 2002 Ron Paul 64:98
- The Financial Anti-Terrorism Act, which expands the government’s surveillance of the financial transactions of all American citizens through increased power to FinCen and puts back on track the plans to impose “Know Your Customer” rules on all Americans, which had been sought after for years.
know your customer
Society For Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications
29 June 2006 2006 Ron Paul 49:1
Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I am not sure that the federal government’s program examine records of international financial transactions collected by the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) is worth all the sound and fury that has surrounded the program since its existence was revealed last week. For one thing, this program appears to threaten civil liberties less than the already widely known “Know Your Customer” program or the requirement that American financial institutions file suspicious activity reports whenever a transaction’s value exceeds $10,000. However, the program’s defenders should consider the likelihood that having federal bureaucrats wade through mountains of SWIFT-generated data will prove as ineffective in protecting the American people as other government programs that rely on sifting through mountains of financial data in hopes of identifying “suspicious transactions.”
know your customer
Right to Privacy Too Often Overlooked
14 August 2000 Texas Straight Talk 14 August 2000 verse 9 ... Cached
The other major privacy victory recently was when the federal government withdrew proposed Know Your Customer regulations which would have forced banks to report practically every customer transaction to the government. I was proud to lead the effort on the Banking Committee to stop this invasion of privacy with my "Bank Secrecy Sunset Act" (HR 518), would have overturned any such regulations. Fortunately, the proposal was withdrawn before the legislation was needed, but I believe this will be an ongoing battle. Those advocating more intrusion by the government will continue their legislative efforts, and we must stand ready to face that constant threat.
Texas Straight Talk from 20 December 1996 to 23 June 2008 (573 editions) are included in this Concordance. Texas Straight Talk after 23 June 2008 is in blog form on Rep. Paul’s Congressional website and is not included in this Concordance.
Remember, not everything in the concordance is Ron Paul’s words. Some things he quoted, and he added some newspaper and magazine articles to the Congressional Record. Check the original speech to see.