| | |  Business News 
U.S. Wants to Track All Foreign Money Transfers
 Ellen Nakashima - Washington Post
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September 28, 2010
| | With two wars, multiple crises abroad and growing terrorism activity at home, the nation's top security officials do not sleep in peace. (Melina Mara/Washington Post) | |
Washington - The Obama administration wants to require U.S. banks to report all electronic money transfers into and out of the country, a dramatic expansion in efforts to counter terrorist financing and money laundering.
Officials say the information would help them spot the sort of transfers that helped finance the Al-Qaida hijackers who carried out the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. They say the expanded financial data would allow antiterrorist agencies to better understand normal money-flow patterns so they can spot abnormal activity.
Financial institutions are now required to report to the Treasury Department transactions in excess of $10,000 and others they deem suspicious. The new rule would require banks to disclose even the smallest transfers.
Treasury plans to post the proposed regulation on its website Monday and in the Federal Register this week. The public could comment before a final rule is published and the plan takes effect, which officials say will probably not be until 2012.
Financial institutions say that they already feel burdened by antiterrorism rules requiring them to provide data and that they object to new ones.
Each year, financial institutions file with the Treasury Department about 1.3 million suspicious-activity reports and 14 million reports on transactions greater than $10,000.
"These new banking surveillance programs are testing the boundaries of privacy," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. "Many consumers both in the United States and outside are likely to object."
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