The Patriot Post® · Team Biden Told Banks to Surveil Republicans
Americans have long suspected their in-store and online transactions are being monitored by companies to aggregate and adapt to our shopping trends and preferences.
After all, who hasn’t had an Amazon ad pop up on their screen to peddle a product they were looking at earlier that morning or talking about a couple of days ago? It’s a little creepy and somewhat invasive, but what’s the harm of an algorithm luring us into buying a new Keurig?
Until recently, we often dismissed so-called conspiracy theories that access to our shopping habits would be useful to Big Brother, but now we know for a fact that the federal government is not only tracking our spending but monitoring our political beliefs. As The Daily Wire reports: “Documents obtained by the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government showed that the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) had flagged the terms as part of its investigation related to the January 6 riot. Banks were also told to look at transactions involving the purchase of religious texts and outdoor sporting goods stores like Cabela’s.”
Because, you know, people who shop at Cabela’s might be insurrectionists, right?
It might be funny if it weren’t such an outrageous and dangerous overreach of government power to keep track of citizens’ political leanings. Imagine if President Donald Trump, the guy Democrats think is a threat to our sacred democracy, had allowed FinCEN to generate a list of the limousine liberals who shop at Whole Foods.
You guessed it. There would be calls for impeachment, which they did anyway. Twice.
Now, if you buy a MAGA coffee mug online or dare go into Dick’s Sporting Goods to look for a compound bow, you might end up on a growing list of extremists compiled by the federal government.
Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, for one, is taking this very seriously. Scott, the ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, penned a letter with Kentucky Representative James Comer to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in which they wrote: “Federal government efforts to target individuals and entities based on their political views is a blatant and egregious violation of our Constitution. Additionally, reported actions like these disrupt confidence in federal law enforcement and raise significant questions regarding the independence of federal financial regulators.”
More specifically, they highlighted Treasury’s role in instructing financial institutions to monitor financial transactions that included specific keywords or search terms. The Treasury Department reportedly searched through Zelle transactions to look for terms such as “MAGA,” “Dick’s Sporting Goods,” and “Trump.” Even more chilling, it identified people purchasing religious books or other materials considered extreme.
Scott also refreshed Yellen’s memory about how this all started when then-President Barack Obama used the powers of the Justice Department and “Operation Choke Point” to pressure financial institutions from providing services to businesses with political positions the Obama administration opposed.
Over in the House, Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan wrote a letter to Noah Bishoff, former director of the Financial Crimes Network (FinCEN), stating, “In particular, your testimony will help to inform the Committee and Select Subcommittee about federal law enforcement’s mass accumulation and use of Americans’ private information without legal process.”
Jordan has already written a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray about information indicating the intelligence organization’s personnel had contacted Bank of America with specific search terms in its customers’ financial transactions.
During a House hearing this week, Missouri Republican Ann Wagner asked Secretary Yellen if the Treasury had directed financial institutions to monitor purchases in order to identify what might be considered extreme viewpoints or whether FinCEN or the FDIC had pressured financial institutions to do the same. Yellen’s response was evasive: “Well, we received the letter from you, I believe, on this topic, and we intend to investigate and to respond.”
Don’t expect Yellen to come back anytime soon and admit an egregious violation of Americans’ privacy and their freedom to choose their political candidates without fear of retribution. And while the letters from Scott and Jordan are a good first step, it’s not enough.
As our own Nate Jackson wrote recently, “Jim Jordan’s a great guy and a tenacious former wrestler, but sternly worded letters and dour lectures for the cameras in a congressional hearing aren’t going to fix this problem.”
Our only hope is that the GOP holds onto the speaker’s gavel in the new Congress. Because if Democrats wrestle back control of the House this November, they will have gotten away with another Orwellian abuse of power.