The United States Department of the Treasury has an Office of Foreign Assets Control. It’s responsible for implementing and enforcing economic sanctions against foreign individuals, companies, governments, terrorists, etc. I’ve covered some of the strange things they do here before, such as censoring foreign dissidents. One of the other strange things they do is to maintain what security expert Bruce Schneier calls the no-buy list.

Known as the Specially Designated Nationals List, this is a list of companies, governments and individuals with which no one in the U.S. is to do business of any sort. We’re talking everything from selling them guns to selling them groceries. Any sort of commerce with any person or entity on the list is forbidden.

But unlike the secret no-fly list, this no-buy list is wide open to the public, and by design. The U.S. wants people to know who is on it and to refuse to do business with anyone on the list.

“The OFAC requirements apply to all U.S. citizens. The law prohibits anyone, not just car dealers, from doing business with anyone whose name appears on the Office of Foreign Assets Control’s Specially Designated Nationals list,” says Thomas B. Hudson, senior partner at Hudson Cook LLP, a law firm in Hanover, Md., and publisher of Carlaw and Spot Delivery, legal-compliance newsletters and services for car dealers and finance companies.

Hudson says that, according to the law, supermarkets, restaurants, pawnbrokers, real estate agents, everyone, even The Washington Post, is prohibited from doing business with anyone named on the list. “There is no minimum amount for the transactions covered by the OFAC requirement, so everyone The Post sells a paper to or a want ad to whose name appears on the SDN list is a violation,” says Hudson, whose new book, “Carlaw — A Southern Attorney Delivers Humorous Practical Legal Advice on Car Sales and Financing,” comes out this month. “The law applies to you personally, as well.”

. . . But while admitting that compliance is “obviously a challenge,” U.S. Treasury spokeswoman Molly Millerwise says it is improving. “The financial institutions have really stepped up to the plate in combating illicit finances and checking the list,” she says. “Other industries are following suit. . . . We expect U.S. businesses to do all they can to comply with the law, but we do recognize there are challenges in applying broad sanctions of this sort.”

But if Bad Guy List compliance were to increase substantially, and if your name is similar to that of a suspect listed, wouldn’t you risk running into all sorts of hassles buying anything from automobiles to washing machines? — Washington Post

OFAC also prohibits foreigners from certain countries from publishing in the U.S. without approval, and has also claimed the power to seize currency and financial instruments during wartime and national emergencies.