This week, the House Judiciary Committee began overseeing the federal government’s activities to monitor and surveil Americans – something which is outlawed by the 4th Amendment to the Constitution. The subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government has focused on law enforcement’s interactions with private entities to single out citizens as potential threats.
The committee discovered a far-reaching surveillance program with no legal basis under the ruse of investigating possible wrongdoing on January 6, 2021, and beyond. The program included the seemingly willing coordination of banking institutions to hand over personal consumer data to the federal government.
Weapons Registry
The House Judiciary Committee discovered this week that federal investigators requested banks search and filter customer transactions using terms like “MAGA” and “Trump” when investigating the events of January 6, 2021. Materials sent to banks from the Treasury Department’s Office of Stakeholder Integration and Engagement in the Strategic Operations in the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, warned of “typologies” to look for when searching “various persons of interest.”
FinCEN went so far as to suggest search terms and what are known as Merchant Category Codes or MCCs that could be used to identify alleged suspicious transactions and release them to federal law enforcement.
The materials provided included a slide deck that includes the implication that certain purchases could be indicative of:
“…potential active shooters, and who may include dangerous International Terrorist/Domestic Terrorists/Homegrown Violence Extremists (‘Lone Wolves’).”
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The MCCs suggested for search and filter included:
3484: Small Arms
5091: Sporting and Recreational Goods and Supplies
Something as innocuous as a law-abiding citizen exercising their Second Amendment right to bear arms or the harmless purchase of sporting equipment such as archery gear could land you on a list of possible extremist suspects for the federal government – if you have the wrong politics.
Buy your Bible with cash
In addition to MCCs focused on firearms and sporting goods, the federal government also urged banks to query general purchases from stores such as:
Dick’s Sporting Goods
Cabela’s
Bass Pro Shops
Additionally, the Feds warned that purchases of “religious texts” could indicate “extremism.” So, my recent purchase of a children’s Bible for my seven-year-old and a women’s focused Bible study book could make me an extremist?
Congressman Jim Jordan wrote to the former FinCEN Director Noah Bishoff:
“According to this analysis, FinCEN warned financial institutions of ‘extremism’ indicators that include ‘transportation charges, such as bus tickets, rental cars, or plane tickets, for travel areas with no apparent purpose,’ or ‘the purchase of books (including religious texts) and subscriptions to other media containing extremist views.’”
What constitutes “media containing extremist views”? It is whatever the federal government decides is extremist to include anything that goes against the left-wing narrative.
Congressman Jordan breaks it down:
“In other words, FinCEN used large financial institutions to comb through the private transactions of their customers for suspicious charges on the basis of protected political and religious expression.”
And yet the left-wing controlled mainstream media continues to falsely claim it’s Donald Trump who is the biggest threat to democracy as we know it.
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Track and suppress
The subcommittee claims they received information that Bank of America gave the FBI a list of people who bought goods in Washington D.C. using their debit or credit cards between January 5 and January 7, 2021, “without any legal process.”
Congressman Jordan lays out the alarming trend that this activity proves:
“Despite these transactions having no apparent criminal nexus – and, in fact, relate to Americans exercising their Second Amendment rights – FinCEN seems to have adopted a characterization of these Americans as potential threat actors.”
Let’s break that down further. Don’t be fooled by the long office name and shortened moniker FinCEN.
This is a federal entity under the Treasury Department, using banking institutions to track and monitor the purchasing habits of Americans without any suggestion of a warrant. If that’s not dystopian enough, the federal government uses this information to pinpoint undesirable Americans based on their purchasing habits by labeling them “potential threats” without due cause or process.
This sort of action has been pushed before. In 2021, the Biden administration tried to push a requirement that banks report any transactions over $600 to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
Former Kansas City Fed President Thomas Hoenig described this requirement as:
“…a massive search without a search warrant.”
Which is precisely what the federal government did after January 6. The government, particularly those on the progressive left, wants to track, monitor, and control the population.
The best way to do that is through American consumer activity. Hence, the push for a central bank-backed digital or virtual currency. (This is something Donald Trump has openly opposed.)
It’s time to start paying in cash again and supporting the few politicians who don’t want to monitor our actions.
Now is the time to support and share the sources you trust.
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The post The Feds Continue to Attack Citizens’ Second Amendment Rights Through Bank Surveillance appeared first on The Political Insider.
