FBI surveilling Americans' financial data without warrants: House Judiciary Committee

Federal law enforcement has been able to access bank customer financial information through manipulating the Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) system, the report said

Published: December 6, 2024 3:02pm

Federal law enforcement is surveilling Americans' financial activity without warrants, according to an interim report released on Friday by the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.

The FBI has been able to access bank customer financial information through manipulating the Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) system.

The report found that the FBI requested banks search private bank transactions for "MAGA," "Trump" and "Biden."

"With narrow exception, federal law does not permit law enforcement to inquire into financial institutions’ customer information without some form of legal process," the report read. "The FBI circumvents this process by tipping off financial institutions to ‘suspicious’ individuals and encouraging these institutions to file a SAR — which does not require any legal process — and thereby provide federal law enforcement with access to confidential and highly sensitive information." 

 

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