Abusive investigations that must themselves be investigated are piling up.
In the case commanding our attention today, the meta-investigating organization is the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. It is investigating the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).
Who does FinCEN pursue? True scoundrels? Hapless executives caught in a regulatory net?
Nope. FinCEN has been on fishing expeditions. It hasn’t been going after persons suspected of either willfully committing crimes or even tripping over regulations accidentally, or at least not only such types.
It has been going after anybody whose purchasing history puts them in the category of wrong-thinking rightists — hence, I guess, crypto-terrorists.
FinCEN has been instructing banks to scan customer records for evidence of suspect purchases. Not illegal purchases. Just “suspicious” in light of an ideological filter, unconstitutionally applied.
On Twitter, Representative Jim Jordan reported recently that the subcommittee now knows that FinCEN required financial institutions to screen transactions in which terms like “MAGA,” “Trump,” “Bible,” and “Bass Pro Shop” popped up.
Apparently, if you’re fishing while wearing a MAGA cap and quoting Genesis, you just might be on the verge of shooting up your local post office.
Please don’t ask me to explain what anybody involved with FinCEN could possibly be thinking by engaging in this illegal spying. Or whether they have even a glancing acquaintance with constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.
I’m just glad Jordan and his Weaponization Subcommittee are on the job, “watching the watchers.”
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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2 replies on “Home of the Surveilled ”
Ooo! A couple of people are going again to raise claims that Jordan must have known about sexual abuse in the athletics programme at the Ohio State University, because … because … because … well, he just must have!
Anyway, how do I contact FinCEN to explain that my collection of Bibles reflects an interest in philosophy and social thought, and that I’m not one of those scary Christians about whom the corporate left warn us? I haven’t even visited a church in years!
Thank Go— Thank Goodness that I don’t fish!
Just one more reason to pay cash whenever possible.
And one more reason why they are trying so hard to ban it.