Considering the laws that financial institutions have to follow concerning money movement, this is completely unsurprising. It's like the guy went to the airport and joked about having bombs in his shoes while waiting in the TSA line. it's just kind of stupid. Oh, sorry dude, you thought you could just name-drop an identified terrorist group in your financial transactions and someone would not pay attention to it? Like you thought we were all so smart that we decided it would be stupid to look for blatant red flags on transactions, because of course no one could possibly use words like "Al Quaeda" or "ISIS" unless it was a joke?
Uh, yes? I mean, sure it's not totally unreasonable that it sets off a flag somewhere, but unless one of the parties involved in the transaction is also somehow tied to ISIS it's pretty absurd that the government actually took the money. I know it's not a good idea to overestimate the intelligence of an average human (let alone one who supports ISIS), but how many times has someone used Venmo to transfer money to ISIS and included the word "ISIS" in the memo? you thought you could just name-drop an identified terrorist group in your financial transactions and someone would not pay attention to it?
1) Venmo took the money, not the government. 2) Again, so : You're saying that we should just assume that, because it's patently ridiculous for the average American to actually mean "ISIS" when they type it into a memo identifying a transaction (and why is it patently ridiculous other than because it seems absurd/uncommon?), we should assume "ISIS" is never deliberately used to actually, you know, identify ISIS? That is like saying that every time someone labels a transaction "Door Purchase," we should assume it's not actually for a door purchase, because no one ever purchases doors, of course!how many times has someone used Venmo to transfer money to ISIS and included the word "ISIS" in the memo
1) Why is the author applying to the Treasury to get the money back then? 2) No, I'm saying it's reasonable to investigate such transactions, but not reasonable to take action without some additional evidence of actual malicious intent.
The fact that ISIS aren't beer drinkers makes it a bit funny. Well, they aren't supposed to beer drinkers, anyway. It's a shame that someone down the line couldn't just apply some common sense to the incident. We do have a system that is overly-sensitive. I own stock in what was ISIS Pharmaceuticals. The poor bastards had to change their name to Ionis last year. Someone in their HR department could have genuinely tagged a transaction as 'beer money for ISIS'. EDIT: Hello, intelligence employee! You should join Hubski. You are sitting at a computer all day, anyway.
I think the funniest name change was an organization in Halifax which helps immigrants get settled. They changed it too ISANS. http://www.isans.ca/halifax-immigrant-service-to-change-its-name-from-isis/