https://twitter.com/i/standing/1865108551611396247
A Congressional investigation committee launched an especially regarding report this week entitled: “FINANCIAL SURVEILLANCE IN THE UNITED STATES: HOW THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT WEAPONIZED THE BANK SECRECY ACT TO SPY ON AMERICANS” that particulars how the US authorities has been monitoring Americans by way of financial institution transactions, with an emphasis on residents who’ve expressed conservative viewpoints.
“Monetary information can inform an individual’s story, together with one’s “faith, ideology, opinions, and pursuits” in addition to one’s “political leanings, areas, and extra,”’ the report begins. This investigation started after a whistleblower who occurs to be a retired FBI agent alerted Congress that the Financial institution of America (BoA) voluntarily supplied the Biden Administration data on clients who used a credit score or debit card in Washington, D.C., across the January 6 protests. The brand new report has revealed that federal businesses have been working “hand-in-glove with monetary establishments, acquiring nearly unchecked entry to non-public monetary information and testing out new strategies and new expertise to proceed the monetary surveillance of Americans.”
As I’ve mentioned numerous instances, “cash laundering” is ALWAYS the excuse for why the federal government should monitor and monitor our monetary transactions. The Financial institution Secrecy Act (BSA) E-Submitting System is a system for monetary establishments to file stories required by the BSA electronically. By regulation, the BSA requires companies to maintain information and file stories to assist forestall and detect cash laundering. That is how the Biden Administration is making an attempt to ignore privateness and weaponize monetary establishments.
US intelligence businesses searched by way of information for phrases like “Trump” and “MAGA” to focus on People who they believed might maintain “extremist” views. The businesses looked for People who bought non secular texts, such because the Bible, and in addition labeled them extremists. Anybody expressing disdain for the COVID lockdowns, vaccines, open borders, or the deep state had been positioned on a watchlist. Once more, the BSA was used as a premise to tug transactions positioned by the people on this listing.
As defined by the investigative committee:
“With slender exception, federal regulation doesn't allow regulation enforcement to inquire into monetary establishments’ buyer data with out some type of authorized course of.9 The FBI circumvents this course of by tipping off monetary establishments to “suspicious” people and inspiring these establishments to file a SAR—which doesn't require any authorized course of—and thereby present federal regulation enforcement with entry to confidential and extremely delicate data.10 In doing so, the FBI will get across the necessities of the Financial institution Secrecy Act (BSA), which, per the Treasury Division, specifies that “it's . . . a financial institution’s duty” to “file a SAR each time it identifies ‘a suspicious transaction related to a attainable violation of regulation or regulation’”11 Whereas at the very least one monetary establishment requested authorized course of from the FBI for data it was in search of,12 all too usually the FBI appeared to obtain no pushback. In sum, by offering monetary establishments with lists of people who it views as typically “suspicious” on the entrance finish, the FBI has turned this framework on its head and contravened the Fourth Modification’s necessities of particularity and possible trigger.”
Below this premise, anybody who held a viewpoint that opposed the Biden Administration was thought of a “suspicious” particular person who required monitoring. The Treasury Division’s Monetary Crimes Enforcement Community created a database to rigorously watch potential dissenters. Over 14,000 authorities staff accessed the FinCEN database final yr and carried out over 3 million searches and not using a warrant. The truth is, over 15% of FBI investigations throughout 2023 has some hyperlink to this database. It’s estimated that 4.6 million SARs and 20.8 million Forex Transaction Stories (CTRs) had been filed within the final yr.
The committee famous that the federal government is incorporating AI to shortly search the online for “suspicious” People:
“Because the Committee and Choose Subcommittee have mentioned in different stories, the expansion and growth of AI current main dangers to People’ civil liberties.211 For instance, the Committee and Choose Subcommittee uncovered AI getting used to censor “alleged misinformation relating to COVID-19 and the 2020 election . . . .”212 These considerations usually are not hypothetical. Some AI techniques developed by Huge Tech corporations have been programmed with biases; for instance, Google’s Gemini AI program praised liberal views whereas refusing to do the identical for conservative views, regardless of claiming to be “goal” and “impartial.” With monetary establishments seemingly adopting AI options to observe People’ transactions, a equally biased AI program may consequence within the systematic flagging or censoring of transactions that the AI is educated to view as “suspicious.”
That is extraordinarily troubling and goes past authorities overreach and violated quite a few Constitutional protections. The federal government successfully remodeled banking establishments into spy businesses, and anybody who may doubtlessly maintain a view that didn’t match the Biden-Harris agenda has been handled as potential terrorist. It’s utterly insane that somebody could possibly be seen as an extremist for buying a spiritual textual content or buying a firearm. That is discriminatory, predatory habits that places thousands and thousands of lives in danger. Consider governments prior to now who’ve rounded up names of dissenters based mostly on faith or ideology. They declare they’re merely observing us, however the aim is to silence us.
The committee mentioned their investigation has simply begun as they won’t permit the federal government’s abuse of economic information to go unchecked. Moreover, they’re involved that these warrantless searches can result in widespread debanking practices the place the federal government can simply block any dissenter from taking part in society by crippling them financially. That is but another excuse why governments wish to push banks to create CBDC in order that they’ll punish residents with a easy click on of a button.
