New Bill Seeks to Curtail Banks’ Role as Agents of Federal Surveillance

Republican legislators took steps this week to revoke the power the government has granted itself to access Americans’ personal bank accounts without a search warrant.
Through existing laws such as the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), “We basically deputized banks as law enforcement agencies, mandating them to collect information on their customers and report that information to the federal government,” said Rep. John Rose (R-Tenn), a member of the House Financial Services Committee. Rose reintroduced the Bank Privacy Reform Act on Monday; it was originally introduced in October 2022.
While speaking at a Cato Institute forum on Monday, Rose stated that his bill “keeps the Bank Secrecy Act record-keeping requirements intact, but prevents the government from accessing consumers’ transaction history without first obtaining a warrant, thus statutorily restoring the Bill of Rights protections that we were granted under the Fourth Amendment.”…}