Federal agencies gave banks automated censorship tools to flag as possible domestic terrorists any Americans who buy Bibles or support the enforcement of immigration law, says testimony today before a House committee.
“Federal agencies are funding tools for the financial sector similar to those social media is using to target misinformation and hate speech,” says written testimony from Jeremy Tedesco, senior counsel at the nonprofit First Amendment law firm Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF). “Unfortunately, this is just the tip of the iceberg.”
Federal regulators are successfully pressuring financial institutions to discriminate against customers based on their religious and political beliefs. If the federal government discriminated directly, it would be unconstitutional, notes Tedesco in testimony this afternoon to the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. On March 6, 16 state attorneys general called on Wells Fargo to stop “using debanking as a political tool to extend the policies of the Biden Administration throughout the economy.”
“Wells Fargo has institutionalized discrimination by imposing race and sex-based quotas into credit agreements with customers like BlackRock,” says a letter fromthe attorneys general. The bank is among others working to end customers’ use of low-cost energy sources and increase their grocery bills to meet Democrats’ economic central-planning goals, the letter says.
In short, the same sorts of government pressure erecting an Iron Curtain around the Internet are already constructing a financial social credit system like Communist China’s inside the United States. Tedesco notes the FBI gave financial institutions a document that reportedly said “indicators of domestic violent extremism” banks should monitor in customer purchases include objections to “firearm legislation,” “the easing of immigration restrictions,” and Covid-19 lockdowns.
Earlier hearings found Treasury Department officials told financial institutions that buying religious texts like a Bible, supporting former President Donald Trump, or shopping at sporting goods stores flags law-abiding Americans as potential domestic terrorists.
Also, “major banks have attended CISA Cybersecurity Advisory Committee meetings concerning misinformation and disinformation. For example, JPMorgan Chase attended one such meeting on March 21, 2022, 86 CISA considers ‘financial services’ to be ‘critical infrastructure’ that is put at risk by ‘the spread of false and misleading information,'” Tedesco’s testimony says.
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