San Jose Strip Clubs: The Bogus Anti-Terrorist Crackdown on Financial Freedom
Strippers and the Cuban embargo
Most of the warrantless financial searches the feds have ordered under the PATRIOT Act have had no connection to terrorism. Kevin Bankston of the Electronic Frontier Foundation observed,
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The feds used PATRIOT Act financial sweep-search powers in 2003 in “Operation G-String,” an investigation of bribes involving Las Vegas strip clubs. Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.) complained, “It was never my intent to have the PATRIOT Act used as a kitchen sink for all of the law-enforcement-tool goodies that the FBI has been trying to get for the last decades…. It is PATRIOT Act creep.” Berkley was especially indignant that the powers had been used in a tawdry public corruption case: “Never … did the FBI say we needed additional tools to keep this nation safe from strip-club operators.”