The Deposit Tracking System (DTS) is a potential menace. If implemented, the estimated $12.5 million computer system could be used to penetrate the security of bank accounts belonging to you, me, and 388 million other bank account holders in the U.S.
Predictor: Kimery, Anthony L.
Prediction, in context:In a 1993 article for Wired magazine, Anthony Kimery, an editor at American Banker Newsletters, outlines the U.S. government’s efforts to keep a handle on private financial transactions. Kimery writes about the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network – FinCEN: ”The FDB [federal Financial Database] contains the records that financial institutions have been filing under the Bank Secrecy Act for the last 23 years – CTRs, suspicious transaction reports, International Transportation of Currency or Monetary Instruments reports, and Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts reports. In addition, Congress is expected to grant FinCEN authority to tap into the database of Forms 8300, which are reports of payments over $10,000 received in a trade or business. These documents principally contain information on deposits, withdrawals, and the movement of large sums of currency. It is FinCEN’s intent to give all state governments individual access to the FDB. Under the ‘Gateway’ proposal, results from all queries would be written into a master audit file that will constantly be compared against other requests and databases to track whether the subject of the inquiry is of interest to another agency or has popped up in a record somewhere else … But while the FDB contains only records on major money movements and thus is not as much of a threat to individual privacy, the Deposit Tracking System (DTS) is a potential menace. If implemented, the estimated $12.5 million computer system could be used to penetrate the security of bank accounts belonging to you, me, and 388 million other bank account holders in the U.S. … So far, the DTS exists only on paper. Further driving the intelligence agencies’ desire for the DTS is the much-hyped role of economic intelligence gathering, a key focus of the Clinton administration’s reform of the intelligence community. Agencies like the CIA view the system as a boon to their ability to monitor foreign financial dealings in the U.S., according to both congressional and intelligence sources.”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1993
Topic of prediction: Controversial Issues
Subtopic: Privacy/Surveillance
Name of publication: Wired
Title, headline, chapter name: Big Brother Wants to Look in Your Bank Account: The U.S. Government is Constructing a System to Track All Financial Transactions in Real-Time – Ostensibly to Catch Criminals. Does That Leave You With the Warm Fuzzies – or Scare You Out of Your Wits?
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/1.06/big.brother_pr.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney