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Banks are required to snitch to the federal government on all large deposits, or anything that "looks suspicious".

Carrying large sums of cash (I.e., refusing to use banks) apparently means you have no rights, because you're presumed to be a criminal.

Result? The government has its eyes on your money.

The War on Drugs is not about keeping us safe. It doesn't keep people from using drugs. It's an excuse to concentrate power.

The War on Drugs is not about keeping us safe. It doesn't keep people from using drugs. It's an excuse to concentrate power.

+1

The cascade of government abuse related to this bogus "war" is insane.  Unfortunately, too many agencies' funding is dependent or at least enhanced by it, so getting rid of it would be an uphill battle.

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Banks are required to snitch to the federal government on all large deposits, or anything that "looks suspicious".

Carrying large sums of cash (I.e., refusing to use banks) apparently means you have no rights, because you're presumed to be a criminal.

Result? The government has its eyes on your money.

The War on Drugs is not about keeping us safe. It doesn't keep people from using drugs. It's an excuse to concentrate power.

Its not just money bro, the GOV is watching for anything these days.   Kinda like pre-WW2 Germany. Any excuse is a good excuse.

Find them
Watch them
Round them up and kill them.

Banks are required to snitch to the federal government on all large deposits, or anything that "looks suspicious".

Are you referring to the automatic flag to the IRS that gets put on transactions $10k+?

Folks, we are a looooooooong way from pre-WWII Germany. McCarthyism was much closer to that than the relatively mildly invasive climate we have today. We don't spend each waking hour terrified that someone nearby is an informer, for example. Children and young adults are not forced to attend propaganda camps and required to spend the evenings together naked to encourage pregnancy to make more fodder for the government to shape and discard as it will. Just trying to keep things in perspective.

That doesn't mean that things like this shouldn't be suspect, though. The federal government, with sinister intentions or not, has been increasing its surveillance and enforcement powers dramatically.  Only a fool would trust and assume this will never be abused.

The war on drugs was not about concentration of power, at least not all of it. The war on drugs came out of the results of drug use. People didn't like what was happening as a result of drugs so they wanted the government to combat drugs.
It is true that there were some in the government that over represented the danger of certain drugs and maybe were not entirely forthcoming about drugs but bottom line is that the war on drugs could not exist without the support of the public.

Are you referring to the automatic flag to the IRS that gets put on transactions $10k+?

I used to work at a bank, and there are a number of different triggers that require that paperwork be sent to the government. It's been a few years, so I'd have to look up the actual details, but we were trained on "suspicious" activities, like Smurfing (where people make smaller cash deposits to multiple accounts which ultimately funnel into one organization or person's hands), and multiple deposits at one or many branches over a short period of time, etc.

Basically, banking regulation more or less deputized/conscripted bank tellers to be narcs, and large cash transactions were automatically deemed suspicious. We were encouraged to build "relationships" with customers to get to know their regular patterns (esp. small businessmen) so we could spot any irregularities.