Treasury Department Claims Power To Seize Gold

[Guest Riser]

This could be just a storm in a tea cup as the US treasury confirms its current policy but do the US administration see a declared emergency ahead and want to try and dampen down a gold price spike.

There have been suspicions for some time that the US government has been trying to keep the gold price down artificially, perhaps they feel they are now losing control and will use fear of confiscation to keep people using their helicopter money.

Treasury Department Claims Power to Seize Gold Silver--and Everything Else, GATA Says Monday August 22, 8:45 am ET

MANCHESTER, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 22, 2005--The U.S. Government has the authority to prohibit the private possession of gold and silver coin and bullion by U.S. citizens during wartime, and, during wartime and declared emergencies, to freeze their ownership of shares of mining companies, the Treasury Department has told the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee.

But gold and silver owners aren't alone in such jeopardy. For the U.S. Government claims the authority in declared emergencies to seize or freeze just about everything else that might be considered a financial instrument.

The Treasury Department's assertions came in a letter to GATA dated August 12 and written by Sean M. Thornton, chief counsel for the department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, who replied to questions GATA posed to the department in January. It took GATA six months and some prodding to get answers from the Treasury, but the Treasury's reply, when it came, was remarkably comprehensive and candid

The government's authority to interfere with the ownership of gold, silver, and mining shares arises, Thornton wrote, from the Trading With the Enemy Act, which became law in 1917 during World War I and applies during declared wars, and from 1977's International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which can be applied without declared wars.

While the Trading With the Enemy Act authorizes the government to interfere with the ownership of gold and silver particularly, it also applies to all forms of currency and all securities. So the Treasury official stressed in his letter to GATA that the act could be applied not just to shares of gold and silver mining companies but to the shares of all companies in which there is a foreign ownership interest......................

And ordinary citizens with no particular interest in gold and silver may want to ask their members of Congress to reconsider these statutes simply for being wildly tyrannical.

GATA's correspondence with the Treasury Department is posted on the Internet here: GATA's Correspondence

For further discussion see:Kitco Discussion

[aclwalker]

This could be just a storm in a tea cup as the US treasury confirms its current policy but do the US administration see a declared emergency ahead and want to try and dampen down a gold price spike.

There have been suspicions for some time that the US government has been trying to keep the gold price down artificially, perhaps they feel they are now losing control and will use fear of confiscation to keep people using their helicopter money.

Treasury Department Claims Power to Seize Gold Silver--and Everything Else, GATA Says Monday August 22, 8:45 am ET

For further discussion see:Kitco Discussion

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Interesting post. I've often wondered, however, what's to stop a government doing pretty much anything in an 'emergency'? Surely gold and silver would be safer in these circumstances, since, as another poster said recently in another thread, gold or silver, if bought carefully, is essentially untraceable and easily hidden. This is not the case with any other wealth store, short of stuffing banknotes under your mattress. Even then, currencies can be replaced or banknotes obsoleted.

They could even take your house off you if they wanted!!!

I often struggle with the concept that there are things that governments are "allowed to do" and things that they have the "power" to do. Essentially they can do anything they like.

[bottletop]

Having sold half the UK reserves at the market bottom I'd demand to see the person responsible for that in jail before I'd give any up.

Anyway, where are they going to find it? Mine only clinks when I run, and my pockets would be empty

[Solvent Celt]

Interesting post.  I've often wondered, however, what's to stop a government doing pretty much anything in an 'emergency'?  Surely gold and silver would be safer in these circumstances, since, as another poster said recently in another thread, gold or silver, if bought carefully, is essentially untraceable and easily hidden.  This is not the case with any other wealth store, short of stuffing banknotes under your mattress.  Even then, currencies can be replaced or banknotes obsoleted.

They could even take your house off you if they wanted!!! 

I often struggle with the concept that there are things that governments are "allowed to do" and things that they have the "power" to do.  Essentially they can do anything they like.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That's why there are checks and balances within the US system the best of which is the right to bear arms. An armed citizenry really forces government to think things through!