If You Can't Prosecute 'Em Out Of Business, Make It Impossible For Them To Maintain Bank Accounts
Glenn Harland Reynolds writes about disgusting "Operation Choke Point" in USA Today:
They told me if I voted for Mitt Romney, our moralistic Department of Justice would be trying to shut down porn stars. And they were right: I voted for Romney, and sure enough, the Department of Justice is trying to shut down porn stars. Along with a lot of other, perfectly legal businesses. But I'll bet if Romney were in the White House, there'd be more coverage in the press.A while back, some adult performers noticed that banks were terminating their accounts. The reason, it turned out, was a Justice Department program called "Operation Choke Point." This program, apparently, seeks to target businesses regarded as undesirable -- like porn -- by hitting them at a financial "choke point": their bank accounts.
Though the Justice Department can't prosecute people for making porn, because the First Amendment prohibits that, and too many people would think of them as blue-nosed morality police, which is politically undesirable, it can use its power to put them out of business extra-legally, by pressuring banks to cut off their accounts. Prosecutors and regulators have a lot of discretion, and the threat to use (or abuse) that discretion in ways that make banks uncomfortable provides a lot of leverage. Sure, banks make money off of the accounts of porn performers (and other targeted businesses), but not enough to make up for the hassle of being targeted for harassment by the feds.
...So what we have under "Operation Choke Point" is the government deciding it wants to put the squeeze on certain lines of (legal) business, for no other reason than that the Department of Justice doesn't favor them. It seems almost like some sort of conspiracy to deprive people of their civil rights.
Is this the country you want to be living in? Like Glenn, I don't think regulators should be allowed to abuse their discretion to pressure banks to close accounts of legal businesses.
And I sure agree with him on this:
Congress, and the courts, and the press, need to bring the Justice Department to heel. And, in fact, I think that the officials involved should be named, shamed, and disciplined. Because what's going on here doesn't look much like justice at all.
Dunno about the strippers and loan sharks, but for guns it looks more like an anti-competitive move by Cerberus and Freedom Group (firearms manufacturers - Bushmaster, Remington, Marlin et.al.). If they can move the competition to second-tier banks it will restrict their working capital and increase their borrowing costs.
Freedom Group is in tight with the government and has the political swing to talk to the banks on a peer-to-peer basis. It's wrong, but it works.
Canvasback at May 26, 2014 11:26 PM
"Operation Choke Point" sounds like an especially bad porno all by itself.
Ltw at May 27, 2014 5:40 AM
Ltw, how true! Probably about circle-jerking.
Patrick at May 27, 2014 6:08 AM
Regulation of the financial sector is scattered through nine or ten different agencies, none of them components of the Justice Department. It is difficult to believe that this cat's paw behavior reflects the default setting of what the permanent government favors (as opposed to an Administration initiative).
If you want to rein in the Justice Department, prune the federal criminal code (removing humbug charges which are described with formulations like "crossing state lines with intent to..." and "any enterprise involved in inter-state commerce" and leaving local corruption cases to state attorneys-general), strip federal prosecutors of unqualified immunity for misconduct, require federal prosecutors to disclose plea offers at trial, set up a system for compensation of defendants for the costs of representation (pro-rated according to the share of what's on the initial bill of particulars which survives the process), move the investigatory agencies and the prison service to another department, and end the patronage programs for state-and-local law enforcement.
Art Deco at May 27, 2014 6:36 AM
I certainly agree with Reynolds on the role of Congress, the courts , and the press.
Focusing on just the press for the moment...where in the hell are they ? Where are the Watergate era investigative journalists these days ? It seems to me that whatever Obama, the DOJ, or any other executive branch agency does, the press is conspicuously absent.
Nick at May 27, 2014 9:29 AM
Off-topic to the thread but did you hear about the release of the CIA Afghanistan's chief-of-station name? I haven't seen a single thing mentioned in any major media outlet. But remember the years of investigation over the release of Valerie Plame's name?
Obama is the media's darling. So they won't report bad news unless they have to and then they try to minimize the damage.
Jim P. at May 27, 2014 3:22 PM
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