In 1975, the Church Hearings exposed the abuses of multiple federal agencies. More abuse is occurring. It needs to be exposed.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized
4th Amendment to the US Constitution
In his book The Liberty Amendments, one of the constitutional changes radio host Mark Levin proposed was sunsetting all federal agencies at three years.[1] Not that he wants every department removed, but it would be good for executive agencies to justify their existence on a regular basis. The classic example for this need was the federal Y2K office. It was alive and sucking taxpayer money seventeen years after the world did not end on 1/1/20.
There is a greater reason, abuse of power by these agencies. While I’m not in any way soft on crime, I got a weird idea. You must be a suspect in a crime before we start to investigate you. Democrats have no issue with charging someone who is not suspected of anything criminal. Or classifying political disagreements as crime.
Exaggeration? I don’t think so. Recent acts by the Treasury Department show a lack of respect for the rights of US citizens.
Feds asked banks to search customer data
Last week it came out that the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCen) “asked financial institutions to search for ‘Trump’ and ‘MAGA’ when combing over customer data in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
The House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, headed by Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH), demanded testimony from the agency’s former Strategic Operations Division director Noah Bishoff as part of a probe into what the Ohio Republican called an “alarming” case of “pervasive financial surveillance” seemingly conducted “on the basis of protected political” speech. Specifically, the committee wants testimony on FinCEN tasking financial institutions to search financial transactions with ‘typologies’ of various persons of interest.
FinCEN provided financial institutions with suggested search terms and Merchant Category Codes (MCCs) for identifying transactions on behalf of federal law enforcement, such as “TRUMP” and “MAGA” to “search Zelle payment messages.” Congressman Jordan called “alarming,” FinCen passing along its analysis of “Lone Actor/Homegrown Violent Extremism Indicators,” including purchases such as “bus tickets, rental cars, or plane tickets, for travel to areas with no apparent purpose” or “the purchase of books (including religious texts) and subscriptions to other media containing extremist views.”
Travel and reading are extremist and suspicious. Sounds like the former Soviet Union.
Jordan concluded, “In other words, FinCEN urged large financial institutions to comb through the private transactions of their customers for suspicious charges on the basis of protected political and religious expression.”
He also charged FinCEN distributed slides explaining how financial institutions can flag customers who fit the profile of a “potential active shooter” or terrorists based on their transactions and to search for terms such as “Small Arms,” “Cabela’s,” and “Dick’s Sporting Goods.”
“Congressman Jordan is seeking to question a FBI official, Peter Sullivan, about the bureau’s “mass accumulation and use of Americans’ private information without legal process; the FBI’s protocols, if any, to safeguard Americans’ privacy and constitutional rights in the receipt and use of such information; and the FBI’s general engagement with the private sector on law-enforcement matters…”
Remember a few years back liberals wanted people who were on the FAA “No Fly” List banned from purchasing firearms. Seeing people are put on that list without notification, they have no knowledge why, or who to appeal this to? Sounds like a Democratic dream, even though the ACLU has issues with it.
Sullivan, he said, provided Bank of America with specific search terms to look for as it looked over customer data, indicating firearm, hotel, Airbnb, or airline ticket purchases leading up to and after Jan. 6, 2021. Bank of America reportedly handed over the information of 211 people to the FBI, Fox News reported in February 2021. Only one of the 211 was brought in for questioning.
In twenty-five years as a cop, I’ve filed countless search warrants. Strange thing, I need to the warrant my reasonable suspicion to initiate an investigation and the stated probably cause for a search or an arrest. If it’s not on there, the judge will throw it back at me.
Democrats have often been unconcerned with the privacy rights of American citizens. A few examples:
Clinton Filegate. President Bill Clinton said with a straight face he had no idea how over 700 FBI background check files ended up in the private quarters of the White House. And only Republican staffers, including high level executives like former Secretary of State James Baker and National Security Advisor Brent. I’ve been the subject of multiple background investigations over my Army career and they contain sensitive information, i.e., blackmail material (e.g., criminal offenses, bankruptcy and other financial issues).
IRS Targeting of TEA Party during the Obama administration. The IRS, at direction of the Obama administration, deliberately delayed TEA Party organizations for certification as tax-exempt organizations.
Utah Data Center
The Utah Data Center, under the control of the National Security Agency, is a 1.5 million square foot facility. It’s there “to intercept, decipher, analyze, and store vast swaths of the world’s communications as they zap down from satellites and zip through the underground and undersea cables of international, foreign, and domestic networks…Flowing through its servers and routers and stored in near-bottomless databases will be all forms of communication, including the complete contents of private emails, cell phone calls, and Google searches, as well as all sorts of personal data trails—parking receipts, travel itineraries, bookstore purchases, and other digital “pocket litter.”
This facility is estimated to have a storage capacity of five zettabytes of data. Check the link out. It’s hard to get your head about how much one zettabyte is, but it’s 1,000,000,000,000 gigabytes of data.
I don’t question collection on the electronic communications of a targeted suspect is logical and needed in criminal and other investigations. But, again, this is beyond the restrictions of the US Constitution. It’s safe to assume the NSA, who’s purpose is to target the exterior threat to the US, not the interior threat (see DOJ, FBI, etc.). It’s supposed to be the MI-6 of America, not the MI-5.
It’s a safe assumption Trump will be the GOP nominee this year. I pray he wins and Republicans have at least one side of the Congress. It is time for many bureaucracies to be brought up to the representatives of the people and justify their existence, and their actions.
Michael A. Thiac is a retired Army intelligence officer, with over 23 years experience, including serving in the Republic of Korea, Japan, and the Middle East. He is also a retired police patrol sergeant, with over 22 years’ service, and over ten year’s experience in field training of newly assigned officers. He has been published at The American Thinker, PoliceOne.com, and on his personal blog, A Cop’s Watch.
Opinions expressed are his alone and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of current or former employers.
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- Levin, Mark R, The Liberty Amendments: Restoring The American Republic, Simon & Schuster (New York NY), page 99. ↑
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