Gov’t Access to Americans’ Private Financial Data Is ‘Widespread and Virtually Unchecked’: House Report
A new House report has revealed that the Biden administration is illegally manipulating federal laws to access the financial records of Americans without proper search warrants. The report details how methods used in investigating January 6 protestors and Trump supporters are now being employed far beyond their original purpose to surveil the private data of U.S. citizens.
The report, which was released by the House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government last week, noted that “federal law enforcement increasingly works hand-in-glove with financial institutions, obtaining virtually unchecked access to private financial data and testing out new methods and new technology to continue the financial surveillance of American citizens.”
The committee found that the “FBI has manipulated the Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) filing process to treat financial institutions as de facto arms of law enforcement, issuing ‘requests,’ without legal process, that amount to demands for information related to certain persons or activities it considers ‘suspicious.’”
The activity largely began in the wake of January 6, 2021, when “the FBI coordinated with the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) to encourage financial institutions across the country to scour their data and file SARs on hundreds of Americans, if not more, without any clear criminal nexus.” At the time, federal investigators asked banks to search records for terms like “MAGA” and “Trump,” but they also extended the keyword searches for terms like “Cabela’s,” “Bass Pro Shops,” and “Dick’s Sporting Goods” to search for possible gun purchases.
But as the report went on to detail, searches of private financial records have subsequently surged to staggering levels, causing the committee to conclude that “the government’s access to Americans’ private financial data is widespread and virtually unchecked.” In 2023 alone, “financial institutions filed 4.6 million SARs and 20.8 million Currency Transaction Reports (CTRs) with FinCEN, which are accessible to government officials for querying and downloading via various programs.” The report estimates that “at least 25,000 authorized users across federal, state, and local government have warrantless access to these filings, known as BSA data.”
The report additionally found that in 2023, government officials ran over 3.3 million searches of the filings in the FinCEN Query program.
The surveillance of private financial data is only going to increase as time goes on, the congressional report further noted. “Previously confidential BSAAG [Bank Secrecy Act Advisory Group] documents indicate that it is advancing plans that would require Americans to have a digital identification to access financial services, testing artificial intelligence to surveil Americans’ financial activity, and working towards even closer coordination between financial institutions and federal law enforcement.”
The report concludes by observing that “the rise in e-commerce and the widespread adoption of cash alternatives like credit cards or peer-to-peer payment services … leaves very little financial activity beyond the purview of modern financial institutions or the government’s prying eyes. This is because, as a condition of participating in the modern economy, Americans are forced to disclose details of their private lives to a financial industry that has been too eager to pass this information along to federal law enforcement.”
“Absent renewed safeguards,” the committee warns, “the federal government and financial institutions will continue to siphon off Americans’ sensitive financial data, place it into the hands of bureaucrats, and erode any remaining semblance of financial privacy in the United States.”
During a hearing regarding the surveillance in March, famed author and psychologist Jordan Peterson cautioned that “if the emerging collusion between government and gigantic corporations continues in the manner it is continuing, there won’t be anything that you do that can’t be used against you. … We are in danger of eliminating the private sphere in its entirety. It’s already happening in places around the world, particularly China.”
Lawmakers like Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) concur and have emphasized the need for legislation to address the issue. “[W]e have to change the law fundamentally,” he told Family Research Council President Tony Perkins earlier this year. “The Bank Secrecy Act is very flawed. … The Judiciary Committee, in a rare set of events, you had Jim Jordan [R-Ohio] and Jerry Nadler [D-N.Y.] agreeing that the government needs to get a warrant. … The intel community, on the other hand, is asking to expand the surveillance on Americans. … And those ideas deserve a debate, and they deserve a recorded vote. So we hope Speaker [Mike] Johnson [R-La.] will give us that vote very quickly.”
Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.