In one of the more memorable scenes from Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine, the filmmaker walks into a rural bank in Michigan and promptly receives a free rifle for opening a new account. Moore quips, "Do you think it's a little dangerous handing out guns in a bank?"
Bank of America thinks it's more than just a little dangerous – it reportedly wants to discourage some gun manufacturers from even having accounts at the bank. Largely neglected by the mainstream press, two particular firearms manufacturer cases represent an emerging political climate in U.S. banking. I am not accusing anyone in the media of "bias by omission" concerning the stories of McMillan Firearms Manufacturing and American Spirit Arms, but these are fairly recent episodes with considerable consequence.
B of A justified freezing the deposits of 10-year customer American Spirit Arms for three weeks beginning Dec. 18 by saying that the deposits were held for "further review." Even though American Spirit Arms is a properly licensed firearms manufacturer which submits to regular audits by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Department of Homeland Security, Bank of America also said, "We believe you should not be selling guns and parts on the Internet." Happily, the Internet played a role in resolving the issue, as business owner Joseph Sirochman told anchorperson Megyn Kelly on Fox News' America Live.
Another disturbing episode involved McMillan Firearms Manufacturing in April 2012. In expanding a routine "account analysis" meeting to include the larger political issue of overall business purpose, Bank of America directly suggested that the firearms manufacturer take its business elsewhere. Bank of America replied to the allegations here and McMillan responded again here.
Beginning in a visible way with the 2011 full-scale banking and payments blockade against WikiLeaks, politically motivated acts by private financial institutions appear to be on the rise. Banks are beginning to use considerable discretion in deciding what constitutes an illegal act and sometimes even an immoral act. Freeze the funds first – ask questions later. After all, it's their bank, right?
Yes, private companies can choose who they elect to do business with. However, it has a chilling effect when the directives come in a soft way from regulators or from a financially-supportive government. Historically, banks exercise discretion and that discretion can escalate into subtle differences in treatment. Such as when to file a suspicious activities report or when a customer's deposits and withdrawals start to look excessively high.
Banks are increasingly in the role of enforcer and watchdog for the regulators. That is the basis of enforcement for many of the country's anti-money laundering laws and know-your-customer guidelines. The duty falls to the financial institutions and they are periodically reviewed as to their monitoring prowess. For the most part, banks do not have a choice in providing this quasi-enforcement role on behalf of the government, but it does set the stage for further encroachments into business and individual privacy.
Wells Fargo here I come.
The Sandy Hook Controversy - James Tracy on GRTV
http://youtu.be/JIoiYLp6R8Y
And this:
February 6, 2013
By, James H. Fetzer, Ph.D.
McKnight Professor Emeritus
Department of Philosophy
University of Minnesota Duluth
http://www.d.umn.edu/~jfetzer/
An Open Letter to FAU Faculty, Staff and Administration about Sandy Hook
Excerpts:
I argue a three-man team entered the school. One was arrested in the school, cuffed and put on the lawn. Two went out a back door; one of them was arrested and the other apparently escaped.
Those arrested currently are not in police custody; their names were never released. That is a telling sign that we are being sold a story based on fiction rather than on fact.
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The absence of any terrorist threat and the existence of more than 300 FEMA camps and special boxcars to carry dissidents to them have been deliberately withheld from the public.
Since Homeland Security has no foreign commitments, those camps and ammunition have to be for domestic consumption. Homeland Security appears to be gearing up to conduct a civil war with the American people -- but 80 million armed families stand in its way.
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Veterans Today,12/20/2012, by Niall Bradley
'Sandy Hook massacre: Official story spins out of control'
"This logically tells us that the real perpetrators are being protected with cover stories of what really happened because if the truth were known, some section of the U.S. government would be implicated."
"...and the media focusing the emotional outcry onto the hot-button topic of gun control...I'm left wondering if this was actually the work of some highly trained professional hit team?"
'Was the massacre at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, a psy-op, using what amounts to a 'death squad' and a carefully planned mission to terrorise people on behalf of the government, in combination with perception management to shape the narrative and vector the emotional fallout?"
The John Moore show said that one child had 11 bullet wounds and that #4 buckshot could do that with one shot from a shotgun. Have you heard any media reports of a shot gun at the scene?
SANDY HOOK ~ "I'm Sorry Governor, WHAT DID YOU SAY ???"
http://youtu.be/OZCos8cXiWY