On 2015-05-30, Tim Wescott wrote:
On Sat, 30 May 2015 15:15:03 -0500, Ignoramus4936 wrote:

Great article here.

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2...astert-highly-
unsympathetic-face-americas-criminalization-pathology/

Pretty much anyone who does not solely have a 9-5 job, can be prosecuted
for all kinds of odd "crimes" that a big fraction of people are
inadvertently committing.

And, as the article points out, he's getting indited, in part, for laws
that he got paid a lot of money to support. So it's not like he can
bitch about it too loudly.


Here's how I understand this.

I have never structured transactions. I know what structuring is
(anyone in business should know this) and I never get even close to
structuring anything and generally do not deal with cash much.

However, a long time ago I tried withdrawing over 10,000 and I got all
kinds of hassle with that, stupid questions from the bankers, warnings
about how my money could be stolen (like it could not be stolen from
the bank) etc. It was a very unpleasant experience being hassled for
what was not their business.

So, if I had a regular need to withdraw money, like to pass it to my
heirs under the table, I would be sorely tempted to deal in quantities
less than 10,000 and have the bank file SARs (suspicious activity
reports) on me on every transaction, just to avoid the inane hassles.

It is common knowledge, and I am sure Hastert knew this too, that
banks are under the government's boot and that they file SARs on
activities starting from far below the CTR limit of $10,000.

So Hastert, definitely, knew that SARs were being filed on him. If so,
then how can we call that "structuring" in "attempt to avoid CTRs
being filed" when he was surely aware that the bank filed SARs and the
govt was informed what he was doing, he just did not care. This
"structuring" has become a completely retarded concept when applied to
people who know that SARs are filed. A very stretchy law that can be
applied to a lot of situations.

i