Department of Homeland Security’s War On American’s Property

The Department of Homeland Security has the absolute right to seize, without any warrant whatsoever, any and all customer bank accounts, to make “periodic and unannounced” visits to any bank to open and inspect the contents of “selected safe deposit boxes.”

Further, these boxes, taken from a DHS list of people who are considered “hostile to the present government, citizens who have visited outside the United States before or after 9/11 to countries now considered to be hostile to this country...” “ :Russia, Peoples Republic of China, Mexico, Guatemala, Spain, Italy, Egypt, France, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Turkey or the Sudan...” or any citizen who has a bank account in any of those listed countries are considered to be of legitimate interest in the “ongoing investigations into foreign and domestic terrorism.”

Further, the DHS “shall, at the discretion of the agent supervising the search, remove, photograph or seize as evidence...” any of the following items...”bar gold, gold coins, firearms of any kind unless manufactured prior to 1878, documents such as passports or foreign bank account records, pornography or any material that, in the opinion of the agent, shall be deemed of to be of a contraband nature.”

DHS memos also state that banks are informed that any bank employee, on any level, that releases “improper” “classified DHS Security information” to any member of the public, to include the customers whose boxes have been clandestinely opened and inspected and “any other party, to include members of the media” and further “that the posting of any such information on the internet will be grounds for the immediate termination of the said employee or employees and their prosecution under the Patriot Act.”

Currently, the two major targets of these completely illegal and warrantless searches and seizures, are the California-based Bank of America and the Compass Bank. The former is one of the largest banks in the United States and Compass Bank ( Compass Bancshares, Inc). is a $30.1 billion Southwestern financial holding company which operates 385 full-service banking centers including 139 in Texas, 89 in Alabama, 73 in Arizona, 42 in Florida, 32 in Colorado and 10 in New Mexico.

Of extraordinary interest to the DHS are Bank of America records relating to their Bank Of America <>‘SafeSend Money to Mexico’<> program.

It should be noted that the DHS states that “in the event that the owners of these confiscated objects do not file an administrative complaint within three (3) months subsequent to said confiscation, the aforesaid items shall pass to the permanent custody of the DHS”

Isn’t that wonderful? You and your wife are visiting relatives in France, Uncle Einar’s $100,000 collection of gold coins is lifted out of your box and you don’t get back to the United States for two months and don’t check your looted box for another four months. My, some nice DHS person, or maybe two, has a nice new BMW to show off to his neighbors. Tough luck, Uncle Einar!

Oh, and you might like to know that the spate of “robberies” of bank credit card and personal data that took place in and around February of 2005, were not robberies at all. The DHS, using its muscle, simply went off with trucks full of data to mine at their leisure. The banks involved said nothing, and will say nothing. If they do, their people will be at a nice Federal country club, making shoes for the Army while the DHS bosses, to include the FEMA thieves, will be buying property on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills or Palm Desert. Or some nice marina like Marine del Ray to keep their nice new 150’ yacht.

To date, in California alone (the only report I have seen) over 1,500 banks have been “visited” and boxes rifled between January, 2005 and January, 2006.

source: Voice of the White House January 27, 2006

# # #