By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
If you bought firearms or ammunition, or bought other goods at stores including Bass Pro Shop, Cabela’s or Dick’s Sporting Goods, it’s just possible those transactions got the attention of federal agencies following the Jan. 6, 2021 protest at the U.S. Capitol, a new report from the House Judiciary Committee and its Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.
According to an Executive Summary of the report, “Following January 6, the FBI shared an intelligence product titled ‘Domestic Violent Extremists Likely Emboldened in Aftermath of Capitol Breach,’ prepared by the FBI, DHS, and the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), with financial institutions to alert them to individuals that may fit the profile of criminal and domestic violent extremists (DVEs).”
As if to add to the potential for paranoia, an unrelated Rasmussen survey released Thursday revealed that 52 percent of likely voters “believe it’s likely that U.S. intelligence agencies are seeking to control the outcome of the 2024 presidential election, including 31% who consider it Very Likely.”
On the other hand, Rasmussen sad 38 percent of survey respondents don’t believe intelligence agencies are trying to control the election, while 20 percent aren’t sure.
On Page 6 of the Subcommittee report is a paragraph certain to raise alarms among conservatives and gun rights activists.
“The emergence of credit cards, mobile banking, and other digital marketplaces have resulted in an unprecedented amount of private data entrusted to financial institutions,” the report states, “potentially revealing all sorts of sensitive information about a customer. For that reason, financial records have become an important investigative tool for federal law enforcement. Still, federal law enforcement’s interest in financial records must be weighed against the privacy interests of Americans. Without greater oversight and the necessary legislative reforms reflecting the advances in modern-day banking practices, Americans’ private financial data is still vulnerable to the shortcomings of an outdated legal framework and pervasive government surveillance.”
According to an article in the National Review, the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) “instructed banks on how to use Merchant Category Codes (MCCs) four-digit numbers used by brands to categorize transactions, and political search terms to find ‘indications of involvement in the riots or political violence.’”
Terms which got attention included “MAGA,” “Trump,” “Biden,” “Pelosi,” “Kamala,” “America First” and “Patriot,” the National Review article noted, referring to an “attachment sent by FinCEN to banks” on Jan. 15, 2021.
The subcommittee report spans 56 pages, including a 20-page Appendix which includes some memoranda, heavily-redacted emails and other material.
The main report provides some conclusions, including this cautionary note: “The decline of cash and the rise of digital payments and e-commerce platforms has provided financial institutions with more insight and influence over the financial system than ever before. In fact, very little financial activity occurs beyond the purview of modern financial institutions. As a result, these financial institutions often act as arms of federal law enforcement as they work in coordination with federal law enforcement to identify what transactions and other information is ‘suspicious’ enough to be reported. Other times, law enforcement uses backchannel discussions to commandeer financial institutions’ databases in order to collect Americans’ data and build a profile of any ‘typology’ it deems ‘suspicious.’ When working together, these two parties wield a tremendous amount of influence and power over the American financial system with almost no oversight of their partnership and no possibility for recourse when that system is abused at the cost of victims who have been wrongfully targeted by the secret information-sharing network.”
