BANKS
Bank of America has now arbitrarily decided, like Citibank before it, that it will not
provide merchant services to any firearm-related business. Citibank finally rescinded that
stupid tyranny after half the people in this country raised hell and threatened to close
their accounts and the same groundswell of opinion must be brought to bear against Bank of
America.
However, there is more to it than that. We have here one of the most dangerous tyrannies
our nation has ever faced. We are, literally, right on the hairy edge of a
government-sanctioned plan where you get with the political program designed for you or
you don't eat or pay rent. There are three separate threads of tyranny coming together
here.
For some time now, Bank of America (and most other banks) have required a fingerprint of
any non-accountholder who wanted to cash a check — specifically, a payroll check.
They claim, falsely, they need to do this to stop check fraud. The claim is false because
it is very easy to stop check fraud — but they won't employ the means to do it
because if they did, they wouldn't have any grounds to force electronic money down our
throats or demand a fingerprint as a condition of cashing a paper check.
I talked to the retired FBI agent who designed this inkless fingerprint system the banks
are using to force us into their system. I pointed out that requiring a fingerprint from
me as a condition of cashing a payroll check and thereby providing me with my own property
lawfully due me — my wages, in legal tender — was a direct and egregious
violation of many of my rights.
First of all, the fingerprint is not used for identification. It is merely kept on file in
case the check turns out to be fraudulent. That is the very definition of a warrantless
and a priori restraint on my rights to privacy and due process in the absence of probable
cause of wrong-doing.
Secondly, I have a right to my property — my wages — and this is a violation of
my right to receive my property lawfully due me.
Thirdly, this is twice a violation of my right to be secure from impairment of contract
— once a violation of the contract between myself and my employer in which he agrees
to pay me for my services and once because the purpose of this is to force me to open a
bank account, thereby becoming subject to the surveillance of my financial affairs
afforded by the Bank Secrecy Act.
The retired FBI agent dismissed all that with the statement that he didn't care; all he
was doing was supplementing his government retirement by designing this program for the
banks. Then he said, "Anyway, your fingerprints are already all over this payroll
check. Why do you care if we require you to put your fingerprint on it before we cash
it?"
"If my fingerprints are all over the check, why do you need me to put my fingerprint
on it?" I asked in reply.
"Oh, uh, well ..." he hemmed and hawed, "because it has to be
voluntary," he admitted.
"Uh-huh. It has to be voluntary so that a few years from now when all of our
fingerprints are loaded into a database and we no longer have any financial privacy at
all, we can't complain about it because we volunteered now. Right?"
"Well ... I can't get into that." He terminated our conversation and walked
away.
Two years after the fingerprint program started, they tightened the noose. Suddenly you
had to give a fingerprint and show two forms of identification, both of which had to be
from an "approved list". Every form of identification on that "approved
list" was a bank card of some kind with the exception that a "department store
membership card" was acceptable as one of the two forms of identification.
A year later they tightened the noose still further. Now you need a fingerprint, two forms
of identification from an approved list and you need to pay a fee to collect your own
wages in legal tender.
Now, guess what...all the alternative methods of cashing your payroll check, such as
supermarket customer service kiosks, are now refusing cash checks at all. They have now
installed "RPM" machines where you have to punch in your government-issued
serial number (Social Security Number) so they can look at your credit history. The
machine then takes your digital picture so they can identify you in a crowd at the next
Super Bowl, you insert your check and punch in the amount and it gives you the cash —
less a 1.75% (minimum) processing fee rounded off to the next highest dollar because the
machine doesn't give you coins. The bank fee is cheaper, of course, because they
want you to open an account — but you have to give your fingerprint and be forced to
contract with other banks or department stores.
The banks can get away with all this because the banks have court rulings in their favor
all the way back to the beginnings of this country to the effect that as soon as you put
your money in a bank, it is no longer yours. If the bank goes belly up, you have no
specific right to YOUR money. You have only the same rights as any other general creditor.
Also, if the bank refuses to cash your check for any reason or no reason at all, you have
no right against the bank. You have a right against the person who gave you the check, but
that's all. If you go back to the person who wrote you the check, you find that he has no
right to his own money he put into his account to cover the check either because it has
been "co-mingled" with everyone else's money.
Government loves that word, "co-mingled". If you co-mingle your money with the
money of others, you no longer have any claim to your money. But if government robs you in
an illegal IRS or RICO confiscation and co-mingles your money with other legalized thefts,
robberies, and euphemistically-labeled confiscations, you don't have any right to their
money either.
If the bank can refuse to cash your payroll check because you claim your right to the
privacy of your fingerprint, then the bank can refuse to cash your payroll check for any
reason at all — or no reason.
If the bank can refuse to cash your payroll check because you refuse to pay their
extortionate fee to collect your own wages, then the bank can set any fee it wants and
keep your earnings if you don't want to pay the fee.
GUNS
So here is how it all ties together: If Bank of America can refuse to provide merchant
services to a gunsmith, then they can refuse to cash a check on their bank which is
presented by a gunsmith. And when the gunsmith goes back to the customer who wrote him the
check, Bank of America can refuse to return the customers' money to him on the grounds he
is consorting with a gunsmith. I believe Moscow employed a similar brand of
totalitarianism against anyone not in favor with the Communist Party.
FEUDAL LORDS
The banks can do all of this primarily because they hold a "Title of
Nobility" which is specifically prohibited by our Constitution. The purpose of a
Title of Nobility under feudal law was to elevate an individual above "the common
herd" and make him less accountable to his "subjects" on the theory that
his actions were in "the public interest." This is exactly the same purpose for
creating limited-liability corporations. If some jerk in a bank decides to use the
enormous economic power of a bank you advance his personal political agenda, he is legally
untouchable so long as government believes his actions are "in the public
interest".
Our nation if founded upon the principle of equality under the law. This is precisely why
Titles of Nobility are specifically prohibited by the U.S. Constitution, and why Thomas
Jefferson considered banks to be the greatest threat to liberty the world had ever known.
I agree with him and I have not had a bank account for 25 years. Now those who are trying
to avoid entanglements with banking systems and maintain their sovereignty as natural
individuals at law are facing the very real possibility of not being able to eat or pay
rent unless they are willing to pay a fee for the privilege of receiving their own
property lawfully due them (their wages) AND get themselves on a banking (government)
fingerprint database in the absence of any probable cause of wrong-doing.
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