A secret federal program allowed for a major increase in government surveillance at every level. Even local police could have access to your bank account information as part of a spying program that included bank transfers to 20 countries.
The Wall Street Journal reported on a major abuse of government power to spy on private bank accounts.
It started as most government abuses did, as a good idea gone wrong. The Transaction Record Analysis Center (T.R.A.C.) was originally created by the office of the Arizona attorney general to help discover money trafficked due to the cross-border drug trade.
It has since become a major database of more than 600 law enforcement agencies– large and small.
A database maintained by nonprofit Transaction Record Analysis Center (TRAC) provides 600+ local and federal law enforcement agencies with warrantless access to sender, recipient & transfer amount via services like Western Union, MoneyGram & Viamericas.https://t.co/o0gMpFq9DX
— Justin Hendrix (@justinhendrix) January 21, 2023
The newest means to look into your private life is yet another expansion of government power. The ironic thing is that government power doesn’t always just grow at the federal level. We tend to think that way because of the actions of politicians such as Joe Biden or Democrats in Congress.
That’s certainly the case on the national level, but not the only one. There are increasing examples of government overreach and abuse at the state and local levels. We think of our local government as the last bulwark against the growth of big government: but that’s not always the case.
The growth of the national security state is now affecting us even in our small towns and counties.
The Internal Revenue Service (I.R.S.) planned something similar, hoping to use every transaction of more than $600 for tax reporting— and taking— purposes. While the tax agency is planning to delay the move, it will likely be back before you know it.
Government has access to more and more information about us. It’s prying into our private accounts is an abuse that we should not abide by.
The original attempt to stop drug traffickers has become a means to spy on the country as a whole. Hopefully, local officials can resist the temptation to use it as a means for nefarious purposes.
