EDITOR, The Tribune.
In reference to the ever increasing burden of compliance in the name of Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Proliferation of Terrorism on the Bahamian people.
After taking 12+ hours of my volunteer time to take care of the requirements in order to maintain the bank account of a non-profit volunteer service organisation which has been in existence since before Bahamian Independence - it occurs to me that this whole “Compliance” bullocks is clearly running against the legal concept of “innocent until proven guilty”.
With the modern world’s paperwork burden on the average man or business, it is necessary to prove your innocence to the bank you want to open or even just maintain an account with a bank. You have to prove your innocence when you want to hire an attorney or accountant. You have to prove your innocence when you want to buy real estate in the Bahamas. And you have to prove your innocence when you want to get a utility account turned on. Is this not contrary to the constitutional rights of The Bahamas?
I am not in any way stating that fighting terrorism and money laundering is a bad thing, but at what cost to our liberty? At what point will the collective consciousness of the humans of the world realise that the increased burden and cost on people and business has not had the desired effect? Case in point - we have to take our shoes off to get on a plane, but that hasn’t stopped terrorism around the world has it? At what cost to our liberty?
NAME WITHHOLD
Nassau,
August 26, 2019.
Comments
Well_mudda_take_sic 4 years, 7 months ago
It all started with The Patriot Act in the aftermath of 911. The elitist establishment and deep state in the U.S. seized on that tragic event to rob Americans of many of their most fundamental constitutional rights, i.e. right to privacy, innocent until proven guilty, etc. The mammoth social media companies became big backers of this loss of constitutional rights for all too obvious reasons. Then the elitist global politicians in other countries, backed by their special corporate interests, joined the band wagon. Sadly, President Trump is doing little if anything to restore the fundamental constitutional rights of most Americans because of the great difficulty he has in swimming against the tide of well-entrenched Wall Street investment interests and giant social media corporate interests.
Sickened 4 years, 7 months ago
I agree with Name Withheld. It's absurd the amount and size of the hoops that we need to jump through. Too boot privacy is also out the window.
Sadly this hasn't stopped or even slowed down international money laundering or terrorism (two things that certainly need to be stopped completely).
But in reality, I don't think these measures are designed to stop either or these things; I think it's really so that the big countries can better control our economies by controlling the money. I used to think it was designed purely to shut down our offshore financial centre, but that's just a bonus for them.
buddah17 4 years, 7 months ago
Agreed Totally!
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