Alert - Bank of America wants fingerprints to cash checks - action Friday Manch.

[J’raxis 270145]

My own take on this:—

Any bank that's part of the Federal Reserve System (isn't that all of them nowadays?) is by no means a private entity—such a bank is, virtually if not literally, an organ of the State. Thus, going after an intrusive bank policy with laws that protect people's privacy is perfectly acceptable to me. It's a nice example of, as some people have recommended on occasion, getting the bureaucracies to all fight with each other and waste each other's time and money.

So, I see this situation as akin to fighting with the DMV over intrusive identification requirements.

On another note, BofA only has these policies as a compliance measure with the USA PATRIOT Act and similar legislation. The Feds ordered the banks to come up with customer identification techniques meeting certain minimum criteria, and this is what BofA came up with. Basically, BofA is playing cop with these policies, and as I've said before, I take a very dim view of even a private citizen trying to enforce the law against me. Responding with other laws is just a way of turning the tables on them, and will maybe teach them a lesson in the process.

If this were a genuine private company demanding that I prove my identity in order to protect themselves against fraud, I wouldn't support anything like what Jack is doing here; I'd just say take your money elsewhere. But Bank of America is a State-run entity demanding he prove his identity because the State says so. And their specific demands may be illegal according to other New Hampshire or Federal laws.

So, they deserve the same treatment that the DMV deserves, when they refuse to follow their own laws.



MaineShark, haven't you repeatedly pointed out that all corporations are, as a result of being nothing more than State-created entities, aggressors by definition?

On those grounds, it would be morally permissible to smack any corporation with the law—again, it's just one organ of the State fighting with another. But in practice I myself would reserve doing so only with the most egregious of corporations (ones in bed with the State in a deeper manner than just possessing a corporate charter), or ones engaging in the most egregiously statist actions (corporations acting as law enforcement, as BofA is doing here).



I can't really support the UCC argument or HB299, though. The UCC applies to all private businesses, across the board. I could, however, support a bill like HB299 if it was narrowly tailored to only apply to Federally-regulated banks, or if it was instead written as an explicit rejection of, and push back against, these new Federal regulations.

[jaqeboy]

Admittedly, the Uniform Commercial Code is statute law, intending to either codify or override common law, and preclude other private-choice practices, but it is the public law environment we live under. In this case, BoA is requiring something that is above and beyond "reasonable" identification in some folks' minds. The legislative counter is to restrict "reasonableness" in the statute law to exclude fingerprinting, DNA or blood samples as a requirement for completing a banking transaction. Sapareto and Kurk, the bill sponsors and Winters and other members of the Commerce Committee are favorable to this legislative remedy.

Sapareto advised me and others that have this concern to call all members of the Commerce Committee to express our concerns (see link in the reference post for committee members and contact info if you choose to be involved in that way).

Kurk advises taking the litigation path through the Human Rights Commission and the publicity approach through YouTube and conventional media. I'm making progress in getting to the right reporter (see updates in the reference post for contact info, should you choose to be involved in that way).

[J’raxis 270145]

Admittedly, the Uniform Commercial Code is statute law, intending to either codify or override common law, and preclude other private-choice practices, but it is the public law environment we live under.

Indeed—but that's something we should be trying to eliminate, not just bend to our own purposes. Like you said earlier, we don't live in a pure free market yet—and we're never going to get there if, instead of trying to kill the State, we do like everyone else does, and just lobby for the State to direct its aggression where we think it should go.

In this case, BoA is requiring something that is above and beyond "reasonable" identification in some folks' minds. The legislative counter is to restrict "reasonableness" in the statute law to exclude fingerprinting, DNA or blood samples as a requirement for completing a banking transaction.

I only agree with this because we're dealing with State-run banks in this specific case here. You're not saying you'd support using statute law (or any other kind of aggression-backed law, which common law, although admittedly better than statute law, most assuredly is) to restrict folks' right to conduct business as they wish, merely because other folks consider it "unreasonable," are you?

Sapareto and Kurk, the bill sponsors and Winters and other members of the Commerce Committee are favorable to this legislative remedy.

Sapareto advised me and others that have this concern to call all members of the Commerce Committee to express our concerns (see link in the reference post for committee members and contact info if you choose to be involved in that way).

The bill is currently rated -7 (anti-liberty) in the NHLA Bill Review system, reviewed by Donald McFarlane. If it was narrowly tailored to only apply to Federally-regulated banks, or a push-back against the Feds interfering in commerce, I'd re-review it as pro-liberty, but as it's written, it is anti-liberty due to its overreach. The NHLA will probably take no official position on the bill when it comes up for vote.

This kind of thing has come up before, on one of Joel's anti-RFID bills last year, HB686. It banned RFID in government identification documents, but it also forced businesses to label products that contained RFID chips. Here is one of the NHLA's discussions on the bill. Denis' most pertinent comment, in response to all the businesses coming out to lobby against it: "If the bill had just been about restricting government use of the technology, this wouldn't have happened." The NHLA ended up not supporting the bill because of the new business regulation it created.

[jaqeboy]

WMUR is not prepared to just go with me while I try to cash a check, but they are interested in following this story to see if anything newsworthy develops. The way they would follow it is for me (or anyone else) to email updates to storyideas@wmur.com, using the subject line: "Bank of America fingerprinting".

I have emailed a summary off to the Union Leader reporter, Nancy West, as well. She only writes for the Sunday News, I think, so she may not be on Union Leader business all the time. We'll see what her interest level is. I think I've worked with her before on something years back.

The staffer for the Commission for Human Rights takes intake information and refers that to an investigator. The investigators return calls on Tuesday and Thursday only. Neal Kurk suggested I talk to one of them to get the process I should follow straight before I try to cash the check again, but, since they appear to be pretty slow, I'll probably try to cash it again tomorrow, Saturday.

I have a couple of folks who will join me, but I'll have to check their schedules. I haven't talked to Dave Ridley yet, but I'll also try a CASPIAN-member Ridleyographer, too, to see if I can get some video shot of the encounter.

Jerry Little of the New Hampshire Bankers Association has not returned my call yet. He has said to Joel Winters that BoA has to cash the check without fingerprinting, so I wanted to confirm that with him and pass that on to the teller manager at the BoA branch.

I've updated the info on the reference post, if anyone else cares to be involved in any way.

[J’raxis 270145]

HB299 discussion started here:—
  http://www.nhliberty.org/forum/index.php?topic=1915.0

[K. Darien Freeheart]

Any bank that's part of the Federal Reserve System (isn't that all of them nowadays?) is by no means a private entity—such a bank is, virtually if not literally, an organ of the State. Thus, going after an intrusive bank policy with laws that protect people's privacy is perfectly acceptable to me. It's a nice example of, as some people have recommended on occasion, getting the bureaucracies to all fight with each other and waste each other's time and money.

I would agree with this IF I could choose to go to a different DMV that didn't require privacy invading information. You're not forced to do business with Bank of America, not even to bank! You ARE forced to do business with the DMV if you with to drive without frequent visits to the rape cage.

[jaqeboy]

OK, I got a call back from Jerry Little, President of the New Hampshire Bankers Association. Summary:

He denies that he told Rep. Joel Winters that BoA has to cash a check drawn on their bank without fingerprints.

He does say that he told Joel that the proposed bill HB299, which would make a modification to the Uniform Commercial Code would make it (UCC) non-uniform from state-to-state then. He states that the "social policy" of not allowing prints, DNA, blood samples for ID should be put somewhere else in the statutes, if that's what the legislature wants.

He says thumbprint signatures have been required for a decade. I told him this was the first time I had ever encountered them and that is from numerous banking experiences in Mass., NH and Maine over the last decade.

He says the thumbprint signature is a recommendation of the InterAgency Working Group on Bank Fraud's booklet "Check Fraud; a Guide to Avoiding Losses" (see page 19).

He says I should also read Art. 3, Part 4 of the UCC, titled Imposters and Fictitious Payees regarding the responsibility of the bank to protect their customer.

He states that "Check Fraud; a Guide..." says that a bank should apply this policy uniformly across an entire class of people, ie non-customer check cashers, rather than a select group based on suspicion, in order to avoid discrimination lawsuits.

I'll update Joel and the other reps. re this feedback.

[J’raxis 270145]

Any bank that's part of the Federal Reserve System (isn't that all of them nowadays?) is by no means a private entity—such a bank is, virtually if not literally, an organ of the State. Thus, going after an intrusive bank policy with laws that protect people's privacy is perfectly acceptable to me. It's a nice example of, as some people have recommended on occasion, getting the bureaucracies to all fight with each other and waste each other's time and money.

I would agree with this IF I could choose to go to a different DMV that didn't require privacy invading information. You're not forced to do business with Bank of America, not even to bank! You ARE forced to do business with the DMV if you with to drive without frequent visits to the rape cage.

If you don't want to do business with BofA, yeah, you're free to go choose another Federal Reserve bank. Show me a bank that isn't part of the Fed, and isn't bound by the USA PATRIOT Act and similar intrusive legislation. I think some of that stuff even applies to credit unions nowadays. They've even forced entities like PayPal to "voluntarily" comply with these rules (or else they'll declare PayPal a bank and regulate it accordingly).

And the comparison to the DMV would be more like, "If you don't want to deal with the DMV, just don't drive."

[J’raxis 270145]

He does say that he told Joel that the proposed bill HB299, which would make a modification to the Uniform Commercial Code would make it (UCC) non-uniform from state-to-state then. He states that the "social policy" of not allowing prints, DNA, blood samples for ID should be put somewhere else in the statutes, if that's what the legislature wants.

Good idea. Some anti-Fedgov language modeled on 2007's HB685 ("The general court finds that the public policy established by Congress in the Real ID Act of 2005, Public Law 109-13, is contrary and repugnant to Articles 1 through 10 of the New Hampshire constitution as well as Amendments 4 though 10 of the Constitution for the United States of America. ...") would probably go a long way toward making this more palatable, too.

We should take the legislative discussions over to the NHLA thread I started, probably.

[jaqeboy]

a Google Search on Bank of America thumbprint yields 10,200 hits. Unfortunately some of them talk about the court's upholding their right to require it.

[Peacemaker]

The fingerprinting has long bothered me and I'm glad to see you taking this on Jaqeboy as it's hardly a 100% free market in the US Banking Industry. 

Please ignore Keith's advice about doing nothing and playing along...And please continue your efforts of Doing Something about taking on this out of control banking system with all's it's cozy Government relationships.

[jaqeboy]

Form the article: "Tactics for avoiding the thumbprint-for-cash request"

Posted August 28, 2007

...My bank regulator did advise me, however, that honest citizens are not defenseless. Just as banks can set their rules, so can merchants and service providers, who can make a rule not to accept checks written on accounts from these fraud-averse banks. So, here are tactics to avoid being printed if you so choose:

    * Identify banks with thumbprint policies and do not accept checks written on accounts associated with these banks.  Accept payments in the form of cash, checks drawn on other banks, money orders, cashier's checks, debit cards, credit cards, or PayPal authorization.
    * If you happen to accept a check drawn on a print-insistent bank, determine if the account is valid and there are sufficient funds to cover the check by calling the bank's merchant check verification line (listed in the white pages), and providing the checking account number and the check amount. If yes (funds are available), deposit the check at your bank and hope that by the time your check is presented, funds will still be available. Since check clearing and settlement times may take 3-6 days, this solution is not foolproof but could be useful.
    * Contact the customer who presented a check with non-sufficient funds and request payment.

Alternatively, you could contact your congressperson and ask for a change in regulations.

[jaqeboy]

The fingerprinting has long bothered me and I'm glad to see you taking this on Jaqeboy as it's hardly a 100% free market in the US Banking Industry. 

Please ignore Keith's advice about doing nothing and playing along...And please continue your efforts of Doing Something about taking on this out of control banking system with all's it's cozy Government relationships.

Hey, can you meet us over at Panera Bread on South Willow Street in Manchester tomorrow at 10:30 AM? I'd like to go over a few things with witnesses and then proceed over to the bank at 11AM and have a few witnesses. We could post-process the event back at Panera afterwards.

[MaineShark]

If there's a bank that doesn't do this than it must not be forcibly regulated.

Indeed.  Centrix Bank, for one, has never asked me for a fingerprint, and only asked for ID twice (once when I set up the account, and another time when there was a new woman working there, who had not met me previously).  Other than that, they have never requested ID from me, and certainly have never requested a fingerprint or anything similar.

On another note, BofA only has these policies as a compliance measure with the USA PATRIOT Act and similar legislation.

A variety of banks have been fingerprinting, for years.  The first time I saw it was at least ten years ago, with a bank in Maine.  Some guy had lettered the back window of his pickup truck's cap with a request that folks boycott that bank because of their fingerprinting policy.  IIRC, they stopped doing it within a couple months.

MaineShark, haven't you repeatedly pointed out that all corporations are, as a result of being nothing more than State-created entities, aggressors by definition?

On those grounds, it would be morally permissible to smack any corporation with the law—again, it's just one organ of the State fighting with another. But in practice I myself would reserve doing so only with the most egregious of corporations (ones in bed with the State in a deeper manner than just possessing a corporate charter), or ones engaging in the most egregiously statist actions (corporations acting as law enforcement, as BofA is doing here).

It's morally-permissible to use lethal force to prevent the theft of a stick of gum.  Doesn't mean it's a good idea.

Additionally, we're not talking about response to something that the corporation is doing, as a result of being a corporation, such as avoiding full liability for some action, by using the legally-mandated limitations of liability.  We're talking about something that the same business could do, even if it had not incorporated.

Many restaurants are corporations, as well.  I don't think that makes the smoking ban legitimate, even if it only applied to them.  The action being mandated (not allowing smoking / not fingerprinting) isn't relative to the fact that the entity is incorporated.

Any bank that's part of the Federal Reserve System (isn't that all of them nowadays?) is by no means a private entity—such a bank is, virtually if not literally, an organ of the State. Thus, going after an intrusive bank policy with laws that protect people's privacy is perfectly acceptable to me. It's a nice example of, as some people have recommended on occasion, getting the bureaucracies to all fight with each other and waste each other's time and money.

I would agree with this IF I could choose to go to a different DMV that didn't require privacy invading information. You're not forced to do business with Bank of America, not even to bank! You ARE forced to do business with the DMV if you with to drive without frequent visits to the rape cage.

Exactly.  I've been banking for decades, without ever giving a fingerprint.

Joe

[J’raxis 270145]

MaineShark, haven't you repeatedly pointed out that all corporations are, as a result of being nothing more than State-created entities, aggressors by definition?

On those grounds, it would be morally permissible to smack any corporation with the law—again, it's just one organ of the State fighting with another. But in practice I myself would reserve doing so only with the most egregious of corporations (ones in bed with the State in a deeper manner than just possessing a corporate charter), or ones engaging in the most egregiously statist actions (corporations acting as law enforcement, as BofA is doing here).

It's morally-permissible to use lethal force to prevent the theft of a stick of gum.  Doesn't mean it's a good idea.

Exactly. That's why I said in the case of the vast majority of corporations, I wouldn't support or advocate using government force against them. There are only a few particularly egregious criteria—actively seeking out government largesse beyond mere incorporation, or acting as an agent of the State—that would cause me to advocate turning the tables on them and pushing back with other laws.

I sort of view incorporation akin to getting a drivers license (to use yet another DMV analogy). It's buying into and supporting the system, but it's mainly being done for one's own self-protection against other actions of the government, so I've no issue with it.

On another note, BofA only has these policies as a compliance measure with the USA PATRIOT Act and similar legislation.

A variety of banks have been fingerprinting, for years.  The first time I saw it was at least ten years ago, with a bank in Maine.  Some guy had lettered the back window of his pickup truck's cap with a request that folks boycott that bank because of their fingerprinting policy.  IIRC, they stopped doing it within a couple months.

Additionally, we're not talking about response to something that the corporation is doing, as a result of being a corporation, such as avoiding full liability for some action, by using the legally-mandated limitations of liability.  We're talking about something that the same business could do, even if it had not incorporated.

I'm reasonably confident they're doing this because of Federal regulation, though, if not specifically the PATRIOT Act. Jack showed me some of the history he'd collected on this when we talked about this yesterday. The Feds have set some sort of minimum identity-verification standards that banks must use, and then left it up to the banks to actually figure out how to implement this. That's why things like fingerprints, DNA samples, and blood tests are suddenly so en vogue with these faux private companies.

If a private company did this of their own accord, I'd agree with the "take your money elsewhere" answer.