Today's comment is by Mark Nestmann, The Sovereign Society's Privacy Expert and President of The Nestmann Group.
Dear A-Letter Reader:
There was a time in the U.S. when personal and financial privacy was taken for granted.
"Gentlemen do not read one another's mail," said U.S. Secretary of State Henry Stimson in 1929 as he shut down the infamous Black Chamber code-breaking operation, the predecessor to today's National Security Agency.
Nor did gentlemen (or gentlewomen for that matter) snoop in one another's bank accounts or delve into other details of one another's financial affairs, at least not without a court order.
At that time, your personal and financial life was your own -- nobody else's. In those long gone days your banker was a professional who was discreet and bound both by professional discretion and a long legal tradition to never discuss your financial affairs with anyone, certainly not with government agents, without a valid search warrant or court order.
Alas, that description of privacy has long departed America, particularly when it comes to financial privacy and banking confidentiality. Laws like the Bank Secrecy Act, the Money Laundering Control Act and the USA PATRIOT Act have converted your trusted banker into a government spy. Your banker's highest duty is not to you, the paying customer, but to the government. And guess what....if your banker fails to spy on you, he or she can be imprisoned.
Further, every detail of your financial life, no matter how intimate, is available at the touch of a button for unaccountable government bureaucrats to examine, in complete secrecy, without a warrant or any probable cause.
Fortunately, there are places in the world where the long-lost tradition of financial privacy (at least with respect to the U.S.) still exist.
Many foreign nations not only preserve financial privacy because it's a long-standing tradition. They also do as a matter of law. Anyone who violates that privacy is punished with fines and jail terms.
In most of these privacy havens, only a court order can pry open your financial records. There are procedures which require financial professionals to give you notice of such inquiries and a chance to be heard in an official proceeding. In most offshore jurisdictions, a U.S. civil judgment will not be honored unless an entire new trial is conducted under local law.
For instance, Switzerland made it a crime to reveal financial information decades ago. In Austria, strong privacy guarantees are of constitutional rank. Similar privacy protections are written into the laws of countries like Panama, Nevis, Andorra, and Monaco.
So how can you reestablish real personal and financial privacy? The easy answer: move offshore with your cash and assets. As soon as you do, your privacy picture changes drastically.
How can you learn the best way to do it? The easy answer: join me and more than 20 other offshore experts at The Sovereign Society's Offshore Advantage Seminar, Nov. 8-11, in beautiful Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.
You'll learn the best ways to diversify internationally; the most promising investments worldwide; the most effective ways to protect your assets from frivolous lawsuits...and of course, the very best ways to protect your precious financial privacy offshore.
For more information on this unique event, click here www.offshoreadvantageacademy.com .
Hope to see you there!
MARK NESTMANN, Privacy Expert
On behalf of The Sovereign Society
asssetpro@nestmann.com
www.nestmann.com
P.S. In Lesson 7, of the soon-to-be-released book, Offshore Advantage: A Beginner's Guide to the Offshore World , I discuss not only why you should strive for financial privacy but also reveal practical ways you can keep your offshore investments and bank accounts confidential.
