Broadband Tech > Security > Security > FBI:paying cash cup of cofee: 147;Potential terrorist activity14

FBI:paying cash cup of cofee: 147;Potential terrorist activity14

Re: FBI:paying cash cup of cofee: Potential terrorist activity

reply to Zyrtec

Re: FBI:paying cash cup of cofee: 147;Potential terrorist activi

The real purpose of 'warnings' like this is to 'encourage' people into paying for purchases using a debit or credit card to avoid drawing attention to themselves by the authorities. (Sorry for the '', but here I think I'm using them according to normal convention.)

It's much simpler for law enforcement authorities to check your finances, should they become interested in you, if you use a card. Using cash for mundane transactions is virtually impossible to track.

If you doubt that is the real point of this, I'd like to see the FBI's Bayesian analysis that shows a person paying cash is more likely to be 'a person of interest' than a person using a credit/debit card. To justify such a warning, it would be necessary that the probability associated with the former is statistically significantly different from the latter. They can't do this of course, so regress to step two in which one becomes a person of interest, by definition, by paying cash.

A primary example of how law enforcement resources are wasted by design in chasing tips that are quite likely to be non-productive. Still, it can then be used to justify larger resources in the future.

No one gets caught, of course, but that's not the point.
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Regards,
Joseph V. Morris

Yes, traceability is certainly at the heart of this. And of course that leads to an assumption that criminals (and/or terrorists) will use cash to avoid the traceability. The next "logical" step is then an assumption that since criminals use cash, using cash is an indicator of criminal activity.

I think that the only reason that the "THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL DEBTS, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE" notation on US currency has not been removed, is to allow currency to be used as the honey in the honeypot. At the present time the elimination of (mostly, but not entirely untraceable) currency would cause a huge political uproar, but after the seed that associates criminal activity with the use of currency has had time to germinate, that action may become just another "logical" step in the ability to totally track every aspect of everyone's life.
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History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower

They had better have an amount limit, then. I've been in stores where the minimum purchase for a card was $5.00. You can still get a cup of coffee for less.

reply to Zyrtec

reply to Zyrtec
So using American government-issued cash to pay for something as bland as a cup of coffee is now an indicator of potential terrorism? LMFAO.

Whoever is making these lists of potential terrorist activities for the FBI has crossed the line into farce. The only "help" I see it giving owners of internet cafes is a good laugh ... or a complete feeling of wtf?

This is why they're called the Feebs. The FBI is scraping the bottom of the barrel.

reply to NetFixer
Next, we'll escalate to identifying those internet cafes that do an 'abnormal' amount of cash business. (Just think about how the Feds are going to do that and the resources and money that are going to be involved in that pointless exercise.) After all, we all know that terrorists, subversives, and other criminal elements tend to congregate at the same internet cafes and use cash to avoid being identified, so what would be more logical?

And then, they'll start putting up CCTV outside the entrances to such cafes, possibly asking the managers if they can install surveillance cameras inside, 'just in case', of course. (More money, more people.) Patrons will eventually notice this and wonder why all the surveillance. After all, the place doesn't like doing cash business anymore. And then, they'll start noticing large black SUVs (occupied, apparently, but who knows since you can't see in through the heavily tinted windows), parked outside with the engines running. Customers will start getting nervous and going elsewhere; the cafe will go broke, not that this is any concern to the authorities.

It all becomes a perfect storm -- and an expensive one at that.
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Regards,
Joseph V. Morris

reply to hm
hm,

Okay, let's go back and take a closer look at the flyer for internet cafes and do a bit of critical analysis. (I suspect one could do the same for any of the other 25.)

Under Activities on Computer Indicate: and Use Computers to:, just how is the average internet cafe owner/manager/employee supposed to ascertain whether a particular internet cafe patron is doing any of these things without being obviously intrusive? (Oddly, they don't seem to have much in the way of suggestions on this subject.) Now, would you (as a perfectly innocent patron) not get a bit nervous if you noticed an owner/manager/employee paying this much attention to what you're doing on your PC, tablet, or smartphone? Would you think to yourself "Oh, it's just some overzealous idiot who's read the FBI flyer" or would you not wonder if this individual might not be trying to garner some username, password, and credit card numbers by peering over your shoulder? (Possibly with a handsome payoff if he or she is successful) Under the circumstances, would you not be inclined to become "overly concerned about privacy, ..." or "Act nervous or suspicious behavior . . . "

And then, under Be part of the solution , we find "Gather information about individuals ..." and "Identify license plates ...", etc. without being rather obvious? Hell, most cops can't do this, is it fair to expect (or even to encourage) the owners/managers/employees of an internet cafe to do this without drawing attention to themselves?

Isn't it far more likely that you'd leave as soon as possible (more suspicious behavior) and vow to never use that cafe again?

My point here is that a critical analysis of the guidance in this flyer begins to show just how half-baked it really is. If these flyers had been subjected to such a critical analysis prior to their publication, they never would have been published.
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Regards,
Joseph V. Morris

reply to jvmorris

reply to Zyrtec
cash = terrorist tool
drinking coffee in public = terrorist trademark
newspaper coupons = terrorist currency

How would we ever survive as a nation without the government warning us about all this.
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"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God!" -- P.Henry, 1775

reply to Zyrtec
If people took that advice seriously, there would be so many tips called in about it that a tip about a genuine crime would be like a needle in a haystack. I think the FBI would be overwhelmed by it.

reply to Zyrtec
1) Alex Jones' relationship with reality has always been tenuous at best.

2) You are misinterpreting what the FBI notice actually says. It's aimed at "internet cafes" (do they still exist?) where one pays for net access, not "coffee shops" - thus a reasonable reader can infer it's basically cash-for-net-access that is the indicator, not cash-for-coffee.

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Which is not to say that the FBI notice seems sound, merely that misrepresenting what it says is not helpful unless, like Jones, you are a rabble-rouser.

reply to Zyrtec
Could they please issue a flier in your Country outlining the list of activities not deemed potentially terrorist activity? Seems like it might be more concise.

I pay cash for small transactions not because I have something to hide, but out of habit and convenience. Dig out my ATM, swipe it and enter a pin for a $2 cup of coffee? I think not.

But as a practical consideration, does the FBI actually have the resources to act on every report by over-zealous internet cafe employees who report the license plate numbers of every customer who paid cash?
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“Any claim that the root of a problem is simple should be treated the same as a claim that the root of a problem is Bigfoot. Simplicity and Bigfoot are found in the real world with about the same frequency.” – David Wong

reply to hm

reply to dave
dave,

I can't get overly excited over the fact that Zyrtec used an Alex Jones (associated) web page as the source of the story. My concern is primarily with the guidance itself.

The whole thing about "internet cafes" is sort of a canard, since the term is not defined in the flyer, or on the FBI or the DoJ website. What it really comes down to is whether the owner, manager, or employee of an organization believes that they fall within the purview of this guidance and has the inclination to comply with it.

Specifically, I think that you're overreaching when you try to maintain that this set of guidelines only applies to some narrowly defined concept of "internet cafe", and thereby specifically was not intended to apply to other, similar organizations. Do you really maintain that it's intended to apply only to organizations that provide the equipment to connect to the Internet, that only charge directly for the internet access (as opposed to incorporating a surcharge into the prices of other goods or services offered) or possibly even providing it free? Is it really the FBI's intent that these other organizations simply ignore these guidelines? Does it only apply to wired connections (as the initial "internet cafes" offered) or does it also extend to wireless hot spot services that one can get at places like Starbucks? Are fast-food joints, hotels, libraries and airports intended to be included or excluded?

To me personally, all this really does is re-emphasize the lack of critical thought that went into formulating this particular guideline.
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Regards,
Joseph V. Morris

It says "internet cafe". My understanding of that term is that it means a place whose primary business is selling internet access. None of the coffee shops that I have visited, that incidentally offer internet access to their customers, call themselves "internet cafes".

»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_caf%C3%A9

Naturally, I can't tell you what the FBI's intent was - I merely note that the words "internet cafe" are prominent, and observe that I have never as far as I can remember been anywhere that called itself an internet cafe, though I have seen them.

reply to Curiosity