Feds conducted ‘broad’ and ‘unjustified’ surveillance of Americans’ private financial data: House Judiciary
Fox News
FIRST ON FOX: A new report from the House Judiciary Committee and its Weaponization Subcommittee revealed that the federal government conducted “broad” and “unjustified” surveillance of Americans’ private financial data through financial institutions, while suggesting banks use information from anti-conservative organizations’ lists of “hate symbols” to determine potential persons of interest.
Fox News Digital first obtained the committee’s report, titled “Financial Surveillance in the United States: How Federal Law Enforcement Commandeered Financial Institutions to Spy on Americans.”
“The Committee on the Judiciary and its Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government are charged by the House of Representatives with upholding fundamental American civil liberties,” the report states. “As a part of this mission, the Committee and Select Subcommittee have uncovered startling evidence that the federal government was engaged in broad financial surveillance, prying into the private transactions of American consumers.”
The report states that the “financial surveillance was not predicated on any specific evidence of particularized criminal conduct and, even worse, it keyed on terms and specific transactions that concerned core political and religious expression protected by the Constitution.”
Fox News Digital first reported that following the events of Jan. 6, 2021, federal law enforcement officials from the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and the FBI initiated multiple discussions with financial institutions.
“These meetings were geared toward discussing options for financial institutions to share customer information voluntarily with federal law enforcement outside of normal legal process,” the report states.
Fox News Digital first reported that federal investigators asked banks to search and filter customer transactions by using terms like “MAGA” and “Trump,” and warned that purchases of “religious texts” could indicate “extremism.” Fox News Digital also first reported that the officials suggested that banks query transactions with keywords like Dick’s Sporting Goods, Cabela’s, Bass Pro Shops and more.
Fox News Digital also first reported that additional search terms included: “White Power,” “Camp Auschwitz,” “Antifa,” “Proud B,” “Storm, the,” “Capitol,” “Groyper Army,” “Threepers,” “boogaloo,” “civil war,” “last sons,” “kill,” “shoot,” “gun,” “death,” “murder,” “Biden,” “Kamala,” “Pelosi,” “Schumer” and “Pence.”
“Despite these transactions having no criminal nexus, FinCEN seems to have adopted a characterization of these Americans as potential threat actors and subject to surveillance,” the report states.
A source familiar with the documents held by the House Judiciary Committee told Fox News Digital that while Jan. 6, 2021, was the “impetus” for the queries and searches, he documents the committee has obtained do not reveal any specific time frames or limitations for banks searching customer transactions with the terms. The source said the federal government used the information for investigations beyond Jan. 6.
It is unclear if the terms are still being used by banks to search private transactions.
Meanwhile, the report revealed that FinCEN, in a January 16, 2021 email, shared with financial institutions a hyperlink to “relevant terms” from the Anti-Defamation League website. The report refers to the ADL as a “notorious anti-conservative activist group.”
“In advance of today’s discussion, we have attached a slide from FinCEN containing some key terms applicable to matters related to racially and ethnically motivated violent extremism (REMVE), which may have application to the capitol riots and related activity,” the email from FinCEN states. FinCEN added that “many additional relevant terms maybe found on the Anti-Defamation League website.”
The report states the “hate symbols” that ADL recommended monitoring included the “Celtic Cross,” the “Okay Hand Gesture,” “Pepe the Frog,” and “White Lives Matter” as hate symbols.
“It should alarm Americans that FinCEN approved of and distributed a link to a database that considers symbols of faith such as the Christian Celtic Cross and other images opposing Antifa, a violent left-wing anarchist group—as hate symbols,” the report states. “This practice is reminiscent of the FBI’s disdain for ‘Radical Traditionalist Catholics,’ and the FBI’s reliance on the Southern Poverty Law Center—another far-left activist group—as an authoritative source on the Catholic Church.”
The report states that FinCEN also circulated a hyperlink to a report authored by the ISD.
“The ISD is a left-wing organization that holds itself out as an ‘independent’ monitor of ‘disinformation’ that promotes the censorship of speech it decrees as false or extreme,” the report states. “FinCEN’s distribution of the ISD report amounts to an approval of its content, its methods, and its conclusions. Such an endorsement is concerning because the ISD report labels and demonizes various right-of-center groups in America as ‘hate groups.'”
The ISD report “incorrectly characterizes several conservative groups such as the Center for Immigration Studies, Numbers USA, the Alliance Defending Freedom, along with several others, as ‘hate groups,'” the report states. “In fact, the ISD’s report draws a false equivalency between certain conservative civil society groups and the American Nazi Party and the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, suggesting FinCEN views them equally.”
The report added: “Still, FinCEN circulated the ISD report to some of the largest financial institutions in the world, including the very financial institutions that are likely responsible for providing financial services to many of the listed ‘hate groups,’ without regard for the chilling effect it would have on protected speech and its potential to be weaponized against the groups by financial institutions.”
When asked for comment, a Treasury Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital that “FinCEN’s mission is to safeguard the financial system from illicit use, combat money laundering and its related crimes including terrorism, and promote national security through the strategic use of financial authorities and the collection, analysis, and dissemination of financial intelligence.”
“FinCEN is deeply committed to fulfilling this important national security and criminal justice mission in accordance with the law,” the spokesperson said.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan told Fox News Digital that the committees’ report “shows that the surveillance of Americans’ private financial data was broad, unjustified, and jeopardized fundamental civil liberties.”
The committee’s investigation is ongoing.