- PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Walter Soehnge is a retired Texas schoolteacher who
traveled north with his wife, Deana, saw summer change to fall in Rhode
Island and decided this was a place to stay for a while.
-
- So the Soehnges live in Scituate now
and Walter sometimes has breakfast at the Gentleman Farmer in Scituate
Village, where he has passed the test and become a regular despite an accent
that is definitely not local.
-
- And it was there, at his usual table
last week, that he told me that he was "madder than a panther with
kerosene on his tail."
-
- He says things like that. Texas does
leave its mark on a man.
-
- What got him so upset might seem trivial
to some people who have learned to accept small infringements on their
freedom as just part of the way things are in this age of terror-fed paranoia.
It's that "everything changed after 9/11" thing.
-
- But not Walter.
-
- "We're a product of the '60s,"
he said. "We believe government should be way away from us in that
regard."
-
- He was referring to the recent decision
by him and his wife to be responsible, to do the kind of thing that just
about anyone would say makes good, solid financial sense.
-
- They paid down some debt. The balance
on their JCPenney Platinum MasterCard had gotten to an unhealthy level.
So they sent in a large payment, a check for $6,522.
-
- And an alarm went off. A red flag went
up. The Soehnges' behavior was found questionable.
-
- And all they did was pay down their debt.
They didn't call a suspected terrorist on their cell phone. They didn't
try to sneak a machine gun through customs.
-
- They just paid a hefty chunk of their
credit card balance. And they learned how frighteningly wide the net of
suspicion has been cast.
-
- After sending in the check, they checked
online to see if their account had been duly credited. They learned that
the check had arrived, but the amount available for credit on their account
hadn't changed.
-
- So Deana Soehnge called the credit-card
company. Then Walter called.
-
- "When you mess with my money, I
want to know why," he said.
-
- They both learned the same astounding
piece of information about the little things that can set the threat sensors
to beeping and blinking.
-
- They were told, as they moved up the
managerial ladder at the call center, that the amount they had sent in
was much larger than their normal monthly payment. And if the increase
hits a certain percentage higher than that normal payment, Homeland Security
has to be notified. And the money doesn't move until the threat alert is
lifted.
-
- Walter called television stations, the
American Civil Liberties Union and me. And he went on the Internet to see
what he could learn. He learned about changes in something called the Bank
Privacy Act.
-
- "The more I'm on, the scarier it
gets," he said. "It's scary how easily someone in Homeland Security
can get permission to spy."
-
- Eventually, his and his wife's money
was freed up. The Soehnges were apparently found not to be promoting global
terrorism under the guise of paying a credit-card bill. They never did
learn how a large credit card payment can pose a security threat.
-
- But the experience has been a reminder
that a small piece of privacy has been surrendered. Walter Soehnge, who
says he holds solid, middle-of-the-road American beliefs, worries about
rights being lost.
-
- "If it can happen to me, it can
happen to others," he said.
-
-
- Bob Kerr is a columnist for The Providence
Journal.
- Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service,
www.shns.com
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