MovieChat Forums > Good People (2015) Discussion > Police tracking American's bank accounts...

Police tracking American's bank accounts - Illegal, no?


Trying to get through this movie on Netflix, but got stopped when the police saw some transactions in the Americans' bank accounts, which the investigator then showed up to their house and implicated Franco of discovering money.

I assume the UK isn't that totally backwards compared to the USA. How would that NOT be illegal for police to track financial information like that, without any warrant, or them being suspects of any wrong doing, nonetheless???

Also, as soon as they got into some serious sh*t between drug lords and corrupt UK police, why did they not just go to the U.S. Embassy for help? They were there on a visa (Hudson's character said something earlier about "going back home", making it seem like they hadn't become full citizens), so they were still technically Americans who could've gotten help at the U.S. Embassy.

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When logic and science aren't on your side, you always lose.

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I assume the UK isn't that totally backwards compared to the USA.


Rest easy: having lived in both countries, I can assure you the UK is well ahead of the US in most ways that matter.

How would that NOT be illegal for police to track financial information like that, without any warrant, or them being suspects of any wrong doing
It is of course illegal. The detective was working on his daughter's killers, and therefore not too concerned about the niceties.

They were there on a visa (Hudson's character said something earlier about "going back home", making it seem like they hadn't become full citizens)
Hmm, I didn't get that, sounded to me like they had fully moved to UK and were planning life in grandma's house.

why did they not just go to the U.S. Embassy for help?
They could have, the assumption being neither of them had given up their citizenship. My guess is they wanted to take a chance on a clean getaway, rather than going to prison for a few years--which is what would have happened if they went to the embassy.

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My guess is they wanted to take a chance on a clean getaway, rather than going to prison for a few years--which is what would have happened if they went to the embassy.

They cannot be extradited back into the hands of those who want to kill them, if they are escaping eminent danger. And even if they renounced citizenship (don't believe so), America is quite open-border on asylum seekers under Obama administration.

As for serving time - you are assuming they could be justly tried in a judiciary system, by burden of proof evidence (bank funds), that should be dismissed anyway because it was illegally obtained.

And above all else, jail for a minimal amount of time sure beats the alternative: death.

_______
When logic and science aren't on your side, you always lose.

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Funny, I too have lived in both countries, and I firmly believe the opposite -- to me, it's the US that is well ahead of the UK in most ways that matter. In nearly all ways, in fact.

When I came back to live in the UK I felt like I'd stepped back in time at least thirty years, things were so behind, here.

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