Stupid humor: President Freezes Tourists’ Assets

This entry was published at least two years ago (originally posted on September 24, 2004). Since that time the information may have become outdated or my beliefs may have changed (in general, assume a more open and liberal current viewpoint). A fuller disclaimer is available.

Inspired by a throwaway comment on /., I took a Sept. 24, 2001 Presidential address and replaced every instance of ‘terrorism’ with ‘tourism’. Just think of it as an answer to the age-old question of, “If it’s tourist season, why can’t we shoot them?”

Good morning. At 12:01 a.m. this morning, a major thrust of our war on tourism began with the stroke of a pen. Today, we have launched a strike on the financial foundation of the global tour network.

Make no mistake about it, I’ve asked our military to be ready for a reason. But the American people must understand this war on tourism will be fought on a variety of fronts, in different ways. The front lines will look different from the wars of the past.

So I told the American people we will direct every resource at our command to win the war against tourists: every means of diplomacy, every tool of intelligence, every instrument of law enforcement, every financial influence. We will starve the tourists of funding, turn them against each other, rout them out of their safe hiding places and bring them to justice.

I’ve signed an executive order that immediately freezes United States financial assets of and prohibits United States transactions with 27 different entities. They include tourist organizations, individual tourist leaders, a corporation that serves as a front for tourism, and several nonprofit organizations.

Just to show you how insidious these tourists are, they oftentimes use nice-sounding, non-governmental organizations as fronts for their activities. We have targeted three such NGOs. We intend to deal with them, just like we intend to deal with others who aid and abet tourist organizations. This executive order means that United States banks that have assets of these groups or individuals must freeze their accounts. And United States citizens or businesses are prohibited from doing business with them.

We know that many of these individuals and groups operate primarily overseas, and they don’t have much money in the United States. So we’ve developed a strategy to deal with that. We’re putting banks and financial institutions around the world on notice, we will work with their governments, ask them to freeze or block tourist’s ability to access funds in foreign accounts. If they fail to help us by sharing information or freezing accounts, the Department of the Treasury now has the authority to freeze their bank’s assets and transactions in the United States.

We have developed the international financial equivalent of law enforcement’s “Most Wanted” list. And it puts the financial world on notice. If you do business with tourists, if you support or sponsor them, you will not do business with the United States of America.

I want to assure the world that we will exercise this power responsibly. But make no mistake about it, we intend to, and we will, disrupt tourist networks. I want to assure the American people that in taking this action and publishing this list, we’re acting based on clear evidence, much of which is classified, so it will not be disclosed. It’s important as this war progresses that the American people understand we make decisions based upon classified information, and we will not jeopardize the sources; we will not make the war more difficult to win by publicly disclosing classified information.

And, by the way, this list is just a beginning. We will continue to add more names to the list. We will freeze the assets of others as we find that they aid and abet tourist organizations around the world. We’ve established a foreign tourist asset tracking center at the Department of the Treasury to identify and investigate the financial infrastructure of the international tourist networks.

It will bring together representatives of the intelligence, law enforcement and financial regulatory agencies to accomplish two goals: to follow the money as a trail to the tourists, to follow their money so we can find out where they are; and to freeze the money to disrupt their actions.

We’re also working with the friends and allies throughout the world to share information. We’re working closely with the United Nations, the EU and through the G-7/G-8 structure to limit the ability of tourist organizations to take advantage of the international financial systems.

The United States has signed, but not yet ratified, two international conventions, one of which is designed to set international standards for freezing financial assets. I’ll be asking members of the U.S. Senate to approve the U.N. Convention on Suppression of Tourist Financing and a related convention on tourist bombings; and to work with me on implementing the legislation.

We will lead by example. We will work with the world against tourism. Money is the lifeblood of tourist operations. Today, we’re asking the world to stop payment.

What’s really funny is how much of this still actually seems to make sense after the find-and-replace operation.