Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 21:25:30 -0400 (EDT)
Message-Id: <200008250125.VAA01111@mattababy.mit.edu>
From: belmonte@mit.edu (Matthew Belmonte)
To: CapuanoHR8@aol.com
Subject: stop HR 3886

Dear Representative Capuano

I write as your constituent to express my deep misgivings regarding HR 3886,
the `International Counter-Money Laundering and Foreign Anticorruption Act of
2000' which you voted to refer out of the Committee on Banking and Financial
Services.  As you know, HR 3886 contains provisions rather similar to those of
the `Know Your Customer' guidelines proposed by the Federal Deposit Insurance
Corporation last year.  In particular, section 201 of the proposed legislation
encourages bank personnel to snoop on customers' transactions and report any
`suspicious' activities to the federal government, without the customers'
knowledge.  This practice would put ordinary Americans in the position of being
investigated for criminal activity when no cause for suspicion exists other
than an out-of-the-ordinary financial transaction.  `Know Your Customer' was
dropped like a hot potato after Americans flooded the FDIC with more than
300,000 pieces of mail opposing these new rules.  Congress needs to listen to
the expressed will of the people, rather than trying to couch domestic
violations of privacy in a so-called `foreign' anti-corruption act.  I hope
that you may work to defeat HR 3886 when it comes to the House floor in
September, or at least to introduce language that would safeguard the privacy
of financial transactions.