THE COST OF FREEDOM: LIMIT GOVERNMENT INTRUSION EVEN
FOR A PERCEIVED COMMON GOOD

Editor, The Times:

Thank you for your editorial regarding the proposed "Know Your
Customer" banking regulations ("No to bank snoops," Feb. 25).

The "Know Your Customer" banking rules attempt to provide security
from drug and other illicit monies while jeopardizing all of our basic
freedoms. The founding fathers understood that economic freedom was
the cornerstone of democracy, and the "pursuit of property" was an
early version of the "pursuit of happiness" in the Declaration of
Independence.

The "Know Your Customer" act is a blatant attack against the
fundamental privacy of the individual financial actions and, as such,
violates our basic freedoms, including - but not limited to -
unwarranted search. It is a case of letting democracy and freedom
erode by adopting a policy that allows the ends to justify the means.

Additionally, the act requires private businesses to collect vital
information about citizens' activities - in effect, becoming agents of
the government - without any checks or balances as to the use of this
information.

Once transaction histories have been created, what provisions are made
for the subsequent private-sector use of this information? Surely the
banks' costs of tracking and recording this information will be offset
by sales to marketers, advertisers or political-action committees. One
shudders to think what a future Richard Nixon might do with this kind
of information at his disposal.

Freedom has costs. Among those costs might be limiting the actions of
government even when acting for a perceived common good.

In short, if letting a few drug runners launder money is the price of
keeping the financial records of all Americans private, the cost is
tiny compared to letting the government become privy to the day-to-day
financial details of our lives.

Douglas Staley,
Mountlake Terrace