The House Judiciary claims that the Feds are illegally accessing Americans' financial data through banks without warrants.

The House Judiciary Committee claimed on Friday that federal law enforcement has been using the Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) system to obtain Americans' financial information without warrants or probable cause.

The Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government released its interim report, which was first obtained by Planet Chronicle Digital and details its findings.

The report from the committee stated that the FBI manipulated the SAR's filing process to treat financial institutions as de facto arms of law enforcement, issuing "requests" without legal process that were essentially demands for information related to certain individuals or activities deemed "suspicious" by the FBI.

"Federal law generally prohibits law enforcement from accessing customer information in financial institutions without legal process, except in narrow circumstances. However, the FBI bypasses this requirement by informing financial institutions of "suspicious" individuals and encouraging them to file a SAR, which does not necessitate any legal process. As a result, the FBI gains access to confidential and highly sensitive information."

The committee stated that the FBI's actions result in the circumvention of the Bank Secrecy Act's requirement for banks to file a SAR when they detect a "suspicious transaction related to a possible violation of law or regulation."

The committee observed that "at least one financial institution requested legal process from the FBI for information it was seeking," but pointed out that "all too often the FBI seemed to receive no resistance."

The FBI has violated the Fourth Amendment's requirements of particularity and probable cause by providing financial institutions with lists of people it views as generally 'suspicious' on the front end, according to the report.

The committee stated that their monitoring of "financial surveillance" has brought to light the deteriorating condition of Americans' financial privacy and the extensive, unjustified surveillance activities of the federal government.

Earlier this year, the committee started their investigation into government-led financial surveillance following a whistleblower's disclosure that after the Jan. 6, 2021, events, Bank of America voluntarily and without legal process provided the FBI with a list of names of all individuals who used a Bank of America credit or debit card in the Washington, D.C., region around that time.

In March, it was reported by Planet Chronicle Digital that federal investigators had instructed banks to search and filter customer transactions using keywords such as "MAGA" and "Trump" as part of an investigation into the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot. The warning given was that purchases of "religious texts" could be indicative of "extremism."

The committee obtained documents suggesting that officials recommended banks to query transactions with keywords such as Dick's Sporting Goods, Cabela's, Bass Pro Shops, and others.

According to a source familiar with the documents, while Jan. 6 served as the catalyst for the inquiries and searches, none of the documents obtained by the committee disclosed any specific time frames or restrictions for banks searching for customer transactions with the terms. The source added that the federal government utilized the information for investigations beyond Jan. 6.

The FBI and the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network collaborated after January 6, 2021, to urge financial institutions nationwide to search their records and submit SARs on potentially hundreds of Americans, with no discernible criminal connection.

At the time, Bank of America stated that it adheres to all applicable laws and regulatory requirements when handling law enforcement requests.

The committee's documents showed that at least one financial institution contacted FinCEN with the intention of assisting the Bureau in combating the threat of domestic terrorism.

"FinCEN was urged by the financial institution to use SARs as the basis for issuing Patriot Act 314 (a) requests, which enables FinCEN to gather potential lead information from more than 37,000 points of contact at more than 16,000 financial institutions in order to locate accounts and transactions of individuals suspected of involvement in terrorism or money laundering."

The panel obtained more than 48,000 pages of documents and found the information they received through their investigation to be "concerning."

The report states that federal law enforcement is increasingly collaborating with financial institutions, gaining almost unrestricted access to private financial information and experimenting with new techniques and technology to continue monitoring American citizens' financial activities.

Federal and state officials, including law enforcement and regulatory agencies, have access to Americans' financial data, which should concern all Americans.

"The report suggests that the increasing use of e-commerce and cash alternatives like credit cards and peer-to-peer payment services has limited the financial activity that can be monitored by modern financial institutions and the government. This is because Americans are required to disclose personal information to the financial industry, which has been too eager to share this information with federal law enforcement."

The committee's investigation reveals that federal law enforcement has exploited the dynamic by using financial institutions as tools to enforce federal law, instructing financial institutions to monitor Americans based on the profiles they distribute or pressuring financial institutions to identify any "suspicious activity" an individual may have engaged in.

If renewed safeguards are not put in place, the federal government and financial institutions will continue to take Americans' sensitive financial data and give it to bureaucrats, resulting in a further erosion of financial privacy in the United States.

The FBI declined to comment on Planet Chronicle Digital's request.