Paying down debt can be hazardous to your appearance of patriotism

My friend Charlie just sent me this story on a man and his wife having trouble paying down a lot of credit card debt. There was nothing wrong with their ability to pay; they sent in a check with no problem. The difficulty was that the Department of Homeland Security had to clear the $6,522 payment, all because it was "a certain percentage higher than that normal payment."

Thank goodness I bought my last car before the creation of the DHS. I knew what I wanted and the maximum I was willing to pay, so I got a cashier's check from my bank, then bought my new car outright. Since that involved withdrawing over $10,000 from my savings account, my bank had to notify federal authorities. Today, would that perfectly innocent transaction have subjected me to the same scrutiny as the Soehnges experienced?

"Walter Soehnge, who says he holds solid, middle-of-the-road American beliefs, worries about rights being lost." Chances are that he's becoming a libertarian. It's been said before that a conservative is a liberal who's been mugged, and a libertarian is a conservative who's been mugged by his own government.