"Christian conservatives and a flank of Republican legislators are fighting alongside populist Biden administration figures such as Chopra for free speech rights and new protections against debanking."
This is about corporate power being leveraged to discriminate based on people's speech and their views -- it's the banks in this case. We've also seen Congress pressure Big Tech corporations to censor and ban people based on their views.
Funny thing is that Democrats always wanted to cut corporations down to size -- lately the Democratic liberals have been cozying up to corporations to ban or deny services to conservative voices.
Glad to see the CFPB step up to defend Christians' rights -- and crack the ideological wall. It's time for people on the left and right to ally with each other when they agree on issues -- anti-war movement, anti-monopoly/oligopoly movement, anti-censorship movement, and so on.
Both too much government power and too much corporate power needs to be opposed regardless of whose ox is getting gored. Same with media -- shine the light on corruption, oppression, wrongdoing, with no regard to whether they're liberal or conservative.
Dems use banks for other forms of discrimination. They are using certain codes for firearms and ammo. They are also using banks to oppress access to crypto with chokepoint 2.0. If they can’t use the govt to go after you they will get an NGO to contact said company or org. to do their dirty work. This is basically communism at its finest. A huge reset is needed and god forbid the Dems sweep in November. Goodbye USA
The transaction tracking codes are not unique to firearms, they apply to everything you purchase with an electronic transaction. Information banks sell to advertisers about you, but also use to detect credit card fraud. It's not new, and it's been used successfully to track illegal straw gun purchases and gun trafficking by criminals.
Crypto is a scam always has been and always will be, banks slowing you down from handing your money over to a con-artist isn't a bad thing.
Neither of these things is communism and its dumb to claim they are.
The reset we need is the Democrats sweeping to power and implementing anti corruption provisions in government, while the Republicans kick all the unhinged nutcases out of their party.
Great post; I was unaware of this. I'm immediately reminded of The Left's attempt to cancel Jack Phillips in Colorado, who was protected by SCOTUS and specifically by the First Amendment. I've not read any arguments in favor of canceling unfavored entities by financial service firms. Still, it strikes me that the First Amendment and state Equal Access Laws favor those being canceled, not nefarious financial service operators.
Cancelled my own account with PayPal when it debanked several organizations immediately after PayPal did it. Don't need to do business with their genre.
And that's a valid response. Choosing to exclude some customers for reasons of philosophy should and will cause other valuable customers to quit your business. Ouch!
That's a funny argument coming out of an industry that in its current form would not exist except in collusion with the government. If they were operating within a truly competitive free market, all the too big to fail banks would have failed back in 2008....
Meanwhile, despite any pretense otherwise, surely the debanking phenomenon began happening at the behest of government actors in the first place.
"Hey, help us shut up the wrong-thinkers."
"Hey, be our temporary scapegoat, so we can look like we care about free speech."
If they were operating completely independently, what incentive would big banks and tech platforms have to lose customers?
Maybe there will be hearings, maybe there will be new regulations carefully crafted to be open to manipulation by the right people; underneath all that, the drive to censor inconvenient voices will continue.
It terrifies me to wonder what recourse we will have when they start targeting reporters like Lee Fang and Taibbi and platforms like Substack.
I believe the Obama administration used the trillions given to banks and the "too big to jail" stance to weaponize the banking industry. They bought off opposition from heavy hitters like Jamie Dimon. Operation Chokepoint was an opening salvo. If you had seen the lists of to be closed accounts, the thing that stood out was the preponderance of small minority businesses. If it was about crime or terrorism, you would want the accounts in the banking system, so you could track the money flow. WSJ did a story about people taking 2 carry-ons stuffed with cash onto planes headed for places like Dubai. All under the watch of TSA. These were money service businesses whose accounts were closed. The cash was remittances earned in the US bound for relatives in foreign countries.
Operation Chokepoint was folded into bank policy and procedure, far beyond the reach of Donald Trump's attempt to stop it. This begat things like "enhanced due diligence". Think waterboarding for customers and the bankers managing the relationships. A new definition of a customer came into place - a criminal who has yet to be caught. Bankers were accomplices. A huge power shift toward operations took place. A former regulator, then working at BofA., was quoted to say the process wasn't to look for a needle, rather it was picking up every piece of hay to make sure it wasn't a needle. Exceedingly inefficient and they never caught anyone. The then head of FinCEN, speaking to a banking convention said, "If we catch just one terrorist it will be all worth it". Billions of dollars in costs later and we are still waiting for the supposed payoff.
The evolution was to reputational risk for the banks. This is what went beyond Operation Chokepoint to everything and everyone. Bank was going to close the account of a publicly traded company that years earlier settled a lawsuit rather than go to court. They became a reputational risk to the bank. When pushed back, the excuse was "The OCC says we are not closing enough accounts".
Ugly to be caught in-between cat ladies in compliance and good customers.
Obama offered hope and apparently justice in the wake of the Crash. Instead Americans and the rest of us experienced a mind-boggling and brutal betrayal. The years that followed have underlined what an utter fraud Barack Obama was/is.
Banks are mostly private enterprises and so are entitled to choose who to do business with, so long as strict scrutiny applies to such decisions affecting protected classes like race, gender and the like. When banks join together to support each other's right to make decisions in this way, again, they are on firm ground. When they share specific information about such debanking cancellations, such that other banks act similarly on the same entities, that's probably a combination in restraint of trade and so subject to antitrust laws. Those affected might have a shot at some treble damages.
The unilateral seizure of deposits is straight up breach of contract and violation of fiduciary duty, also subject to legal recourse and sanctions. If a bank believes monies on deposit have come from criminal activities, its recourse is to law enforcement, warrants and court orders.
All this is covered by existing settled law. Let's not pile on more legalese with possibly conflicting mandates and other unknowns. Just apply the laws we have.
Fear of terrorism, on display for the world since the 1972 Olympics, has driven political, legal and business decisions. Terrorism is the deranged violence of the deranged powerless. Unfortunately it's real and here to stay. It drives decisions with bad outcomes, like U.S. wars in the Middle East. It also drives remote control decision making against speech, seen as a growing self-replicating ponerology, branded as the return of the ghost of communism. Fear, relatively rational or not, drives men mad whereas courage and the search for gold drove the explorers of the 15 and 1600's to sail the seven seas, and look what happened. "A house divided against itself" is what humanity has become.
"It [Bank of America] also canceled the accounts of Christian ministry groups for “operating a business type we have chosen not to service.” The bank also voluntarily cooperated with the FBI and U.S. Treasury to profile conservative and religious Americans as potential domestic terrorists.Apr 18, 2024"
Is the word "unfair" not technical enough for the bank trade associations ? Hard to get around such a simplistic term. Another issue with debanking, is who's doing the reporting for determinations. Paypal partnered with the ADL and I think the SPLC. With Wikipedia downgrading the ADL as unreliable I wonder is Paypal still partnering with them? I'll have to look that up. Good news and great reporting. Thanks Lee!
"Christian conservatives and a flank of Republican legislators are fighting alongside populist Biden administration figures such as Chopra for free speech rights and new protections against debanking."
This is about corporate power being leveraged to discriminate based on people's speech and their views -- it's the banks in this case. We've also seen Congress pressure Big Tech corporations to censor and ban people based on their views.
Funny thing is that Democrats always wanted to cut corporations down to size -- lately the Democratic liberals have been cozying up to corporations to ban or deny services to conservative voices.
Glad to see the CFPB step up to defend Christians' rights -- and crack the ideological wall. It's time for people on the left and right to ally with each other when they agree on issues -- anti-war movement, anti-monopoly/oligopoly movement, anti-censorship movement, and so on.
Both too much government power and too much corporate power needs to be opposed regardless of whose ox is getting gored. Same with media -- shine the light on corruption, oppression, wrongdoing, with no regard to whether they're liberal or conservative.
Glad to see your reporting, Lee!
Well said.
Keep shining the light, Lee! Thank you!
Dems use banks for other forms of discrimination. They are using certain codes for firearms and ammo. They are also using banks to oppress access to crypto with chokepoint 2.0. If they can’t use the govt to go after you they will get an NGO to contact said company or org. to do their dirty work. This is basically communism at its finest. A huge reset is needed and god forbid the Dems sweep in November. Goodbye USA
The transaction tracking codes are not unique to firearms, they apply to everything you purchase with an electronic transaction. Information banks sell to advertisers about you, but also use to detect credit card fraud. It's not new, and it's been used successfully to track illegal straw gun purchases and gun trafficking by criminals.
Crypto is a scam always has been and always will be, banks slowing you down from handing your money over to a con-artist isn't a bad thing.
Neither of these things is communism and its dumb to claim they are.
The reset we need is the Democrats sweeping to power and implementing anti corruption provisions in government, while the Republicans kick all the unhinged nutcases out of their party.
Great post; I was unaware of this. I'm immediately reminded of The Left's attempt to cancel Jack Phillips in Colorado, who was protected by SCOTUS and specifically by the First Amendment. I've not read any arguments in favor of canceling unfavored entities by financial service firms. Still, it strikes me that the First Amendment and state Equal Access Laws favor those being canceled, not nefarious financial service operators.
A very heartening article. Thank you.
Cancelled my own account with PayPal when it debanked several organizations immediately after PayPal did it. Don't need to do business with their genre.
And that's a valid response. Choosing to exclude some customers for reasons of philosophy should and will cause other valuable customers to quit your business. Ouch!
I did as well but it’s a real pain having principles. No one else uses what I use now. What did you switch to?
"...interferes with free market principles..."
That's a funny argument coming out of an industry that in its current form would not exist except in collusion with the government. If they were operating within a truly competitive free market, all the too big to fail banks would have failed back in 2008....
Meanwhile, despite any pretense otherwise, surely the debanking phenomenon began happening at the behest of government actors in the first place.
"Hey, help us shut up the wrong-thinkers."
"Hey, be our temporary scapegoat, so we can look like we care about free speech."
If they were operating completely independently, what incentive would big banks and tech platforms have to lose customers?
Maybe there will be hearings, maybe there will be new regulations carefully crafted to be open to manipulation by the right people; underneath all that, the drive to censor inconvenient voices will continue.
It terrifies me to wonder what recourse we will have when they start targeting reporters like Lee Fang and Taibbi and platforms like Substack.
I believe the Obama administration used the trillions given to banks and the "too big to jail" stance to weaponize the banking industry. They bought off opposition from heavy hitters like Jamie Dimon. Operation Chokepoint was an opening salvo. If you had seen the lists of to be closed accounts, the thing that stood out was the preponderance of small minority businesses. If it was about crime or terrorism, you would want the accounts in the banking system, so you could track the money flow. WSJ did a story about people taking 2 carry-ons stuffed with cash onto planes headed for places like Dubai. All under the watch of TSA. These were money service businesses whose accounts were closed. The cash was remittances earned in the US bound for relatives in foreign countries.
Operation Chokepoint was folded into bank policy and procedure, far beyond the reach of Donald Trump's attempt to stop it. This begat things like "enhanced due diligence". Think waterboarding for customers and the bankers managing the relationships. A new definition of a customer came into place - a criminal who has yet to be caught. Bankers were accomplices. A huge power shift toward operations took place. A former regulator, then working at BofA., was quoted to say the process wasn't to look for a needle, rather it was picking up every piece of hay to make sure it wasn't a needle. Exceedingly inefficient and they never caught anyone. The then head of FinCEN, speaking to a banking convention said, "If we catch just one terrorist it will be all worth it". Billions of dollars in costs later and we are still waiting for the supposed payoff.
The evolution was to reputational risk for the banks. This is what went beyond Operation Chokepoint to everything and everyone. Bank was going to close the account of a publicly traded company that years earlier settled a lawsuit rather than go to court. They became a reputational risk to the bank. When pushed back, the excuse was "The OCC says we are not closing enough accounts".
Ugly to be caught in-between cat ladies in compliance and good customers.
Obama offered hope and apparently justice in the wake of the Crash. Instead Americans and the rest of us experienced a mind-boggling and brutal betrayal. The years that followed have underlined what an utter fraud Barack Obama was/is.
And cultivated fertile ground for a populous demigod to ascend to power.
Banks are mostly private enterprises and so are entitled to choose who to do business with, so long as strict scrutiny applies to such decisions affecting protected classes like race, gender and the like. When banks join together to support each other's right to make decisions in this way, again, they are on firm ground. When they share specific information about such debanking cancellations, such that other banks act similarly on the same entities, that's probably a combination in restraint of trade and so subject to antitrust laws. Those affected might have a shot at some treble damages.
The unilateral seizure of deposits is straight up breach of contract and violation of fiduciary duty, also subject to legal recourse and sanctions. If a bank believes monies on deposit have come from criminal activities, its recourse is to law enforcement, warrants and court orders.
All this is covered by existing settled law. Let's not pile on more legalese with possibly conflicting mandates and other unknowns. Just apply the laws we have.
Fear of terrorism, on display for the world since the 1972 Olympics, has driven political, legal and business decisions. Terrorism is the deranged violence of the deranged powerless. Unfortunately it's real and here to stay. It drives decisions with bad outcomes, like U.S. wars in the Middle East. It also drives remote control decision making against speech, seen as a growing self-replicating ponerology, branded as the return of the ghost of communism. Fear, relatively rational or not, drives men mad whereas courage and the search for gold drove the explorers of the 15 and 1600's to sail the seven seas, and look what happened. "A house divided against itself" is what humanity has become.
"It [Bank of America] also canceled the accounts of Christian ministry groups for “operating a business type we have chosen not to service.” The bank also voluntarily cooperated with the FBI and U.S. Treasury to profile conservative and religious Americans as potential domestic terrorists.Apr 18, 2024"
https://dojmt.gov/attorney-general-knudsen-demands-action-from-bank-of-america-to-correct-debanking-practices/#:~:text=It%20also%20canceled%20the%20accounts,Americans%20as%20potential%20domestic%20terrorists.
This is great news, thank you, most everything I’ve been reading lately has left me depressed. So, thank you.
PayPal stinks, as long as it exists.
Go get ‘em!
It would be true discrimination if the banks refused to launder drug cartel money. What would the poor drug lords do? Go to Switzerland?
This will be the most effective weapon of all to silence the peasants and skim as much in fees as possible to further enrich themselves.
They, the corporatists, use the “free market grounds” argument when it’s convenient.
These are rights protected by the constitution. Any FDIC-insured institution that violates those rights should have their knuckles rapped.
Is the word "unfair" not technical enough for the bank trade associations ? Hard to get around such a simplistic term. Another issue with debanking, is who's doing the reporting for determinations. Paypal partnered with the ADL and I think the SPLC. With Wikipedia downgrading the ADL as unreliable I wonder is Paypal still partnering with them? I'll have to look that up. Good news and great reporting. Thanks Lee!