Comment by mothballed 3 days ago
I'd expect a presumption of innocence, and at the very least I'd expect some documentation from the government showing probable cause of a specific crime the money was involved in before blocking the transaction. The presumptive innocent party shouldn't have to provide anything by default.
50K cash is under the real value of the $10k CTR cutoff when congress passed the bank secrecy act (around 85k in current USD), so you can see how this slippery slope of the erosion of the 'up to a certain amount' has only gotten worse.
The amount was just an example. Any kind of transaction using large amounts of cash is going to trigger flags all over the system and you can be expected to be quizzed on the origin of the funds. The only time I've seen someone that legitimately came by a suitcase full of cash it was when a waitress left her daughter said suitcase, which contained decades of tip money that she never spent. It was insanely heavy and it caused quite a few problems when she tried to do a deposit with her local bank.
The fact that society has normalized a silly burden upon the law abiding doesn't make it right or good or justifiable.
You have a presumption of innocence up to a certain amount. After that there is a - minor - burden of proof. Not a single time that this happened to me did any of this appear to me to be unduly burdensome or invasive, and whoever did the investigation went out of their way to state that they did these checks as a formality, not because I was suspected to be in any way out of line. I don't recall it ever taking more than a few minutes (if that) either.
If I showed up with 50K in cash at the tellers window or a local notary to pay in part for a house tomorrow morning though I would expect the conversation would be an entirely different one.