Flutterby™! : not so safe 2007-07-02 17:01:40.554015+00

not so safe

2007-07-02 17:01:40.554015+00 by Dan Lyke 4 comments

If you have something important, don't store it in a safe deposit box in a B of A in California...

I think this is a great example of how the government is a collective illusion. We only own what the government allows us to own... Hmmm... Maybe it's not government that's the illusion...

#Comment Re: made: 2007-07-03 09:34:29.98402+00 by: meuon [edit history]

The government has allowed us to believe we are still "citizens" in a "democracy" and that it means something. As I read stories of abuse of power and authority ranging from police harassing bicyclists to minor government issues regarding "abandoned property" to the major abuses of the IRS, the military, the "White House"... the illusion is fading.

I find myself asking myself: Will they let Burning Man continue? Or do "they" just so they can point to things like it and say: This is still a "free" country.

We need to exercise our existing rights to the limit. Not over.. no abuses. Perhaps like the "Secret Admirer" gun nuts in Neil Stephenson's Cryptonomicon, by carrying as big as weapon as possible out in the open. legally. Or "Critical Mass" bike rides where they follow traffic laws precisely, 1/2 lane, stop and go properly at lights. Don't let just the preachers testify on street corners, got something to say publically: say it. loudly. Let us blog, children, let us blog.

And lastly, we need to vote and get involved politically at whatever level we can. The decent intelligent "us" need to become "them". Maintaining our ethics, ethos, and agenda will be hard in a corrupted system, but if each of us can tweak the world just a little bit more back to where it should be, it'll help a lot.

I want to be proud to be an American, the land of the free and the brave. A place where doing the "right thing" often replaced the enforcement of any law.

Let's take a step back here. The article doesn't really mention what the criteria for abandoned property is. Is it 5 years without visiting the box? Non-payment for 2 years? How did the lady pay her rental fee? Did she send a check every year, or did the bank deduct it from her "active" account? is the problem one of an abandoned property law, or is the problem criminally weak rules for the definition?

Yeah, the only thing that really bothered me about that story was that the BofA folks didn't take basic steps to contact the box holder. I want to do business with an organization that's willing to pick up a phone before they send my stuff off to be auctioned off.