Reply #54: The article only states that the customer was told this.

[Gormy Cuss]

A bad article, slim on facts and long on hand-wringing. After looking around for what might really be going on here, I believe it's part of the Bank Secrecy (not privacy) Act of 1999 that requires financial institutions to report customer behavior that is out of the ordinary. It was intended to identify money laundering like the older rule that required banks to report single cash transactions of $10,000 or more to the Feds.

The new regulation is so vaguely written that the financial institution decides what constitutes unusual and since it's now covered under the USAPatriot Act, that means Homeland Security gets its grubby little hands on the information and can add it to its citizen spying data even though you have done nothing illegal.

The USAPatriot Act was renewed today. Aren't we glad?