[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
HEARING ON THE WEAPONIZATION OF THE
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SELECT SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE WEAPONIZATION
OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
THURSDAY, MARCH 7, 2024
__________
Serial No. 118-65
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via: http://judiciary.house.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
55-073 WASHINGTON : 2024
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
JIM JORDAN, Ohio, Chair
DARRELL ISSA, California JERROLD NADLER, New York, Ranking
KEN BUCK, Colorado Member
MATT GAETZ, Florida ZOE LOFGREN, California
ANDY BIGGS, Arizona SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
TOM McCLINTOCK, California STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
TOM TIFFANY, Wisconsin HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky Georgia
CHIP ROY, Texas ADAM SCHIFF, California
DAN BISHOP, North Carolina ERIC SWALWELL, California
VICTORIA SPARTZ, Indiana TED LIEU, California
SCOTT FITZGERALD, Wisconsin PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington
CLIFF BENTZ, Oregon J. LUIS CORREA, California
BEN CLINE, Virginia MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania
KELLY ARMSTRONG, North Dakota JOE NEGUSE, Colorado
LANCE GOODEN, Texas LUCY McBATH, Georgia
JEFF VAN DREW, New Jersey MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania
TROY NEHLS, Texas VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas
BARRY MOORE, Alabama DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina
KEVIN KILEY, California CORI BUSH, Missouri
HARRIET HAGEMAN, Wyoming GLENN IVEY, Maryland
NATHANIEL MORAN, Texas BECCA BALINT, Vermont
LAUREL LEE, Florida
WESLEY HUNT, Texas
RUSSELL FRY, South Carolina
------
SELECT SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE WEAPONIZATION OF THE
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
JIM JORDAN, Ohio, Chair
DARRELL ISSA, California STACEY PLASKETT, Virgin Islands,
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky Ranking Member
ELISE M. STEFANIK, New York STEPHEN LYNCH, Massachusetts
MATT GAETZ, Florida LINDA SANCHEZ, California
KELLY ARMSTRONG, North Dakota DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida
W. GREGORY STEUBE, Florida GERRY CONNOLLY, Virginia
DAN BISHOP, North Carolina JOHN GARAMENDI, California
KAT CAMMACK, Florida COLIN ALLRED, Texas
HARRIET HAGEMAN, Wyoming SYLVIA GARCIA, Texas
WARREN DAVIDSON, Ohio DAN GOLDMAN, New York
RUSSELL FRY, South Carolina
CHRISTOPHER HIXON, Majority Staff Director
CAROLINE NABITY, Chief Counsel for Oversight
AARON HILLER, Minority Staff Director & Chief of Staff
CHRISTINA CALCE, Minority Chief Oversight Counsel
C O N T E N T S
----------
Thursday, March 7, 2024
Page
OPENING STATEMENTS
The Honorable Jim Jordan, Chair of the Select Subcommittee on the
Weaponization of the Federal Government from the State of Ohio. 1
The Honorable Stacey Plaskett, Ranking Member of the Select
Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government
from the Virgin Islands........................................ 3
WITNESSES
Dr. Jordan Peterson, Psychologist, Professor Emeritus, University
of Toronto
Oral Testimony................................................. 6
Prepared Testimony............................................. 9
Brian Knight, Senior Research Fellow, Director of Innovation and
Governance, Mercatus Center
Oral Testimony................................................. 12
Prepared Testimony............................................. 14
Jeremy Tedesco, Senior Counsel and Senior Vice President,
Alliance Defending Freedom
Oral Testimony................................................. 43
Prepared Testimony............................................. 45
Norbert Michel, Vice President and Director, Center for Monetary
and Financial Alternatives, Cato Institute
Oral Testimony................................................. 67
Prepared Testimony............................................. 69
Michael Fanone, Metropolitan Police Department, District of
Columbia
Oral Testimony................................................. 81
Prepared Testimony............................................. 83
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC. SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
All materials submitted for the record by the Select Subcommittee
on the Weaponization of the Federal Government are listed below 121
Materials submitted by the Honorable Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a
Member of the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the
Federal Government from the State of Florida, for the record
An email thread from the FBI to financial institutions
requesting information about Eduard Florea, Jan. 7, 2021
An email thread from the FBI, Jan. 13, 2021
A press release entitled, ``Queens Man Sentenced to 33 Months
in Prison for Posting Threats to Kill a Member of
Congress and Illegally Possessing Ammunition,'' Dec. 16,
2021, United States Attorney's Office
An email threat entitled, ``OPS Inauguation Daily SitRep,'' Jan.
16, 2021, FBI, Office of Private Sector, submitted by the
Honorable Gerry Connolly, Member of the Select Subcommittee on
the Weaponization of the Federal Government from the State of
Virginia, for the record
Materials submitted by the Honorable Linda Sanchez, a Member of
the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal
Government from the State of California, for the record
A press release entitled, ``California Man Sentenced To 3
Years In Prison For Making Threats Against Political
Officials And Journalists Relating To The Outcome Of The
2020 Presidential Election,'' Dec. 20, 2021, United
States Attorney's Office
An email threat from the FBI, Jan. 14, 2021, Senior Private
Sector Partner Outreach, Strategic Partner Engagement
Section
An email threat from the FBI, Jan. 19, 2021, Senior Private
Sector Partner Outreach, Strategic Partner Engagement
Section
An article entitled, `` `Dating Coach' Charged in Capitol
Riot Gets Prison Term for Gun Crime,'' Apr. 4, 2022, The
New York Times
A report entitled, ``Domestic Violent Extremists Likely
Emboldened in Aftermath of Capitol Breach,'' Jan. 2020, Liaison
Information Report, Office of the Private Sector, submitted by
the Honorable Stephen Lynch, a Member of the Select
Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government
from the State of Massachusetts, for the record
APPENDIX
A report entitled, ``Financial Surveillance in the United States:
How Federal Law Enforcement Commandeered Financial Institutions
To Spy on Americans,'' Mar. 6, 2024, Interim Staff Report,
submitted by the Honorable Jim Jordan, Chair of the Select
Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government
from the State of Ohio, for the record
A statement from the Honorable Gerry Connolly, a Member of the
Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal
Government from the State of Virginia, for the record
HEARING ON THE WEAPONIZATION OF THE.
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
----------
Thursday, March 7, 2024
House of Representatives
Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government
Committee on the Judiciary
Washington, DC
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:10 a.m., in
Room 2141, Rayburn House Office Building, the Hon. Jim Jordan
[Chair of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Members present: Representatives Jordan, Issa, Massie,
Stefanik, Gaetz, Armstrong, Steube, Bishop, Cammack, Hageman,
Davidson, Fry, Plaskett, Lynch, Sanchez, Wasserman Schultz,
Connolly, Garamendi, Allred, Garcia, and Goldman.
Chair Jordan. The Subcommittee will come to order. Without
objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a recess at any
time. We welcome everyone to today's hearing on the
Weaponization of the Federal Government.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Kentucky, Mr.
Massie, to lead us all in the Pledge of Allegiance.
All. I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States
of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one
Nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for
all.
Chair Jordan. We will start with opening statements, then
move onto our witnesses. The Chair now recognizes himself for
an opening statement.
Big government was colluding with big tech to censor
Americans. That is the first thing we learned. Now, it is big
government colluding with big banks and big business to spy on
everything Americans buy, every place they go, and everything
they do. Big government wants your financial data because it is
full of sensitive information about you.
Our investigation started when an FBI whistleblower, George
Hill, came forward and talked to the Committee. Mr. Hill was
supervisory intelligence analyst at the FBI in the Boston Field
Office. He told the Committee that the FBI got information from
Bank of America, specifically, it received a list of any
customer who made purchases in the Washington, DC, area January
5-7, 2021. The whistleblower's supervisor, Special Agent in
Charge of the Boston Field Office, Mr. Bonavolonta,
corroborated Mr. Hill's testimony when he spoke to the
Committee, and so did Steve Jensen, the FBI's Domestic
Terrorism Operations Section Chief. It wasn't just purchasing
data around the specific date that the FBI got from Bank of
America. That was actually also overlaid with any firearm
purchase at any time. How did the FBI get this information?
They asked for it, like you can see on the display, on the
screen here, the email that was sent. The FBI told Bank of
America to recap our morning call. We are prepared to action
immediately on the following threshold customers confirmed as
transacting business in Washington, DC, between these specific
dates.
So, if you are in Washington, DC, visiting your kids, maybe
visiting your aunt or maybe just a friend, the FBI wanted to
know about every single purchase you made. If you are a gun
owner, look out, you are going to the top of the list for
simply exercising your Second Amendment right, you are on the
FBI's target list. Never forget, the Federal Government got
this information without any process, no warrant, and frankly,
no notification. The bank didn't tell the customer that hey, we
are handing this information over to the FBI, the most powerful
law enforcement agency in the world.
These FBI agents, Mr. Hill, Mr. Bonavolonta, and Mr. Jensen
all said this was wrong and in fact, sent the information back
to FBI headquarters in D.C. So, that is how our investigation
began and we continue to investigate, but since then, we have
learned that the financial surveillance was broader and there
was actually a specific objective. Federal Government is
building profiles on the American people and the profile isn't
based on criminal conduct, it is based on political beliefs and
if you have got the wrong political beliefs, well, you are
potentially a domestic violent extremist.
Now, how are they actually doing this? What are the
mechanics of this? There is this entity we have discovered
called the Domestic Security Alliance Council, kind of
Orwellian in sound and title, the DSAC. This is an entity where
the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security works with 650 of
the largest companies in the world. These companies have to do
over a $1 billion in revenue a year. They represent two-thirds
of the gross domestic product of the United States economy, and
they work through controlled access portal. We will put that on
the screen here.
What are they sharing in this secret portal? Well, we are
not exactly sure because it is secret, but we do know that they
share some information, share reports. One of the reports we
got called a Liaison Information Report said this: ``Any
American who opposes firearm legislation, the easing of
immigration restrictions, and COVID mandates is someone banks
should be watching,'' because again, they might be an
extremist.
Now, stop to think about that for a second. In other words,
if you are against gun registration, you are for a secured
border, you oppose lockdowns, and vaccine mandates, you are a
domestic violent extremist according to the FBI and the
government should get your data, should get your financial
data. It actually gets worse. The Federal Government and banks
also use what they call merchant category codes to flag
Americans that shop at places like Bass Pro Shops and Cabela's.
They flag Americans who bought religious texts. We can show you
that one, too. Because everybody knows if you want to secure
border and you oppose COVID lockdowns, then you probably shop
at Bass Pro Shops and you read your Bible and of course, all
that makes you an extremist. Literally, that is the logic that
you see displayed from the information we have been able to
gather thus far in our investigation.
Now, remember, these are also the same folks who just a
couple years ago told us if you are a parent showing up at a
school board meeting, you are a terrorist. If you are a pro-
life Catholic, you are an extremist. Now, of course, if you
oppose lockdowns, vaccine mandates, want a secure border, don't
want gun registration, you are in that category as well. This
is scary where things are headed. We have seen the censorship.
Now, we see what is happening with big banks and big government
relative to your financial data. Again, all this being done
with no process, no warrant, no notification to the customer
that the banks are actually supposed to serve.
Big government is not supposed to use big tech to censor
Americans and big government shouldn't be working with big
banks to target Americans for behavior that is legal and
constitutional. That is the concern. That is why we are having
this hearing. We will get to our guests here in a second. With
that, I would yield to the Ranking Member for an opening
statement before we get to our witness.
Ms. Plaskett. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good morning to
everyone who is here at this hearing. I am glad that the Chair
opened with who instigated this hearing which is George Hill
and what the purpose of what this hearing is. At the end of the
day, the purpose of this hearing is to minimize what happened
on January 6th and the lawful prosecution of individuals who
were engaged in that practice. The Chair wants us to believe
that people are being persecuted for their political conduct,
rather than their criminal behavior. So, basically, he is
trying to tell us that everyone who has been indicted and
prosecuted for January 6th did not engage in criminal conduct?
That is the logic of what he is saying, and we have just come
so low in this House. It is just frightening to me what people
will do to try and minimize the work of those individuals who
came to this Capitol on January 6th.
This entire Republican conspiracy theory was launched based
on the testimony of a so-called whistleblower, George Hill. He
appeared for a transcribed interview last year. Hill claimed
that the FBI was using the Bank of America to survey Americans.
All Americans? Not all Americans. Everyone who owns a firearm,
as the Chair said? Not everyone who owns a firearm. Picking and
choosing of language within an entire report is just
inappropriate information given to the American people. Give
them all of it so that they can see the true picture. Tell half
a story? You are not telling the truth.
The FBI asked the Bank of America for information on
individuals who fit three categories: People who came, there is
evidence that they were here on January 6th; that they
purchased a firearm in the last six months; and that is key,
and not or, and they planned to come back for the Inauguration.
They know that they were coming back for the Inauguration based
on Airbnb purchases, hotels, and RSVPs in the DMV area. They
were individuals who had come on January 6th and know that
through those purchases as well. These were not all the people
that they were looking at, but what was the purpose of this? It
was to make sure that a January 6th event didn't happen on
Inauguration because people were talking about it.
You had up there DMVs, do we know what DMVs are? I am going
to tell you that, it is domestic terrorists, individuals
engaged in domestic violence. That happens. When it is people
who fit your political agenda, they are not criminals anymore?
They are patriots? They are victims? They are not. They are
criminals and a jury of their peers found that when so many of
them have been prosecuted in our court of law. Not by Brown
shirts, not by Nancy Pelosi, not by Biden's Justice Department,
by a jury of their peers.
It is surprising that we don't have George Hill here today
because in the same way that their star witness on their
impeachment, Alexander Smirnov, remember him, who was their key
witness in the Hunter Biden impeachment probe until we found
out that everything he said was made up and he actually got his
information from Russia. We don't know what is going to happen
with George Hill, but we can pretty well guess based on the
track record.
I want to thank our witnesses for being here. We don't
always agree on things the witnesses say, but we thank them for
their willingness to come and give their thoughts and be
questioned by the Members of Congress here and of this hearing.
I particularly want to thank Mr. Fanone for being here with
us today. I want to thank him publicly for his bravery and his
willingness in sharing his traumatic harrowing experience so
publicly, so that we can understand and so that there can be
truth juxtapose to falsehoods. I am sorry for you and all the
men and women who fought on the front lines, just steps away
from this room that we are in today to protect all of us in
this building and staff, from the architects of the Capitol to
the Members of Congress to the young people who are here.
My experience here today is nothing compared to what those
officers went through and Mr. Fanone, while those of us on the
dais were being protected and in secure locations, some of us
fearing for our lives, many of us on both sides of the aisle
fearing for their life on that day, that they quickly forgotten
about after visits to Mar-a-Lago, I want to thank you because
you saw it all because you were out there. You didn't hide, you
ran toward danger. You went out to meet the mob. You and your
brothers and sisters in blue went out and did that.
I wanted to share just a reminder of what really occurred
on that day.
[Video shown.]
Ms. Plaskett. That is a battle scene. That is what that is.
That is a battle scene. That is not political discord. That is
criminal behavior. That is what that is. While Capitol Police
Officers were slipping in blood on the ground as they fought
their fellow officers' fight in that insurrection, those of us
who were in the Capitol, those Members of Congress and staff,
were seeking shelter. Unfortunately, Mr. Fanone, you have met
the times that we are in. You have given up your safety to
secure truth. Unfortunately, many of my colleagues on the other
side know the truth, but they are still seeking shelter from
Donald Trump's hoards. They are still seeking shelter from the
truth. They want to protect not just themselves, but their
political careers, their jobs. They are hiding behind lies for
that.
We know what happened, not just by those videos and
footage, but the nearly thousand convictions obtained against
those rioters across an array of jurisdictions, convictions
from career prosecutors, not political hacks, with juries of
the defendants' peers, everyday Americans who saw the evidence,
evidence that has been obtained by prosecutors and
investigators have worked to hold these violent individuals
accountable for their horrendous deeds.
So, I have got a lot of else that I could have talked
about, but I guess we will get to it.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back. Without objection,
all other opening statements will be included in the record. We
now introduce today's witnesses.
Dr. Jordan Peterson is a psychologist, author, Professor
Emeritus at the University of Toronto. He previously taught at
Harvard University and McGill University. He has published more
than a hundred scientific papers, hosts a popular podcast,
hosts public lectures across the United States, Canada,
Australia, and Europe, and offers online programs to help
consumers better understand their personalities and themselves.
Dr. Peterson has been targeted for his views on the importance
of free speech and traditional values and has warned of the
dangers of debanking political opponents as he has seen in
Canada.
Mr. Bright Knight is Director of Innovation and Governance
and a Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center. He has
researched and published widely on financial regulation,
including the creation of pro-innovation, regulatory
environments, the role of regulation for credit markets and
consumer protection, and the sharing of data between financial
institutions, their regulators, and other Federal entities.
Mr. Jeremy Tedesco serves as Senior Counsel and the Senior
Vice President of Corporate Engagement at the Alliance
Defending Freedom. In these roles, he works to advance free
speech, religious freedom, and human dignity in companies. He
also works to prevent political and religious debanking at
major financial institutions. I actually believe the Alliance
Defending Freedom is one of the entities targeted by the
government in some of this correspondence, so we appreciate you
being here as well.
Mr. Norbert Michel is Vice President and Director of the
Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives at the Cato
Institute. He has researched and published on issues pertaining
to financial markets and monetary policy including the Bank
Secrecy Act, an important piece of legislation that needs
change, and particularly has advocated for reforms that advance
individual's rights against Government overreach and protecting
personal financial privacy.
Mr. Michael Fanone is a law enforcement analyst, security
consultant, and firearms instructor. He previously served for
20 years as a police officer with the D.C. Metropolitan Police
Department.
We welcome our witnesses and thank them for appearing
today. We will begin by swearing you in. Would you please rise
and raise your right hand?
Do you swear or affirm under penalty of perjury that the
testimony you are about to give is true and correct to the best
of your knowledge, information and belief so help you God?
Let the record show that the witnesses have answered in the
affirmative. Thank you. You may be seated. Please know that
your written testimony will be entered into the record in its
entirety. Accordingly, we ask that you summarize your testimony
in five minutes. We will be a little lenient on the time, so if
you go a little over, that is fine. If you go too far over, we
may have to just move on to the next, but many of you have done
this before, so you know how this works. There is a microphone
we would ask that you turn that on when you are testifying. We
will start with Dr. Peterson.
Mr. Peterson, you are recognized for five minutes. Thank
you again for being here.
STATEMENT OF DR. JORDAN PETERSON
Dr. Peterson. Yes, well, I would like to start by
expressing my appreciation for the privilege awarded to me to
testify here today. It really is an honor to be asked to do so.
I am not here to talk about January 6th or about any
particular threat, insurrection, protest, political or
ideological, real or imaginary. I am here to talk about the
already extent and expanding collusion of the government and
corporations in restricting the individual freedom and autonomy
on which the productive, generous, and stable psyche, economy,
and State are themselves necessarily founded.
I will begin my comments therefore in the most general
terms to shed light on the mounting problem. There are now 700
million CCTVs in China under the rule of the Communist Party, a
system to which those electronic eyes are attached is the most
complete State apparatus of surveillance yet imagined with the
ability not only to recognize faces at a distance, but gait
itself when facial features are hidden or obscured. Such
capability can and will soon be augmented to the point where
the movement of eyes themselves, monitored by high resolution
and intelligent cameras, will soon be sufficient to identify
any aware and active party.
The demented, naive, and prideful engineers who so
enthusiastically helped build this system call it Skynet, after
the rogue and all-seeing technology that took such a dreadfully
wrong turn in the famous science fiction movie Terminator
series, featuring artificially intelligent robot intelligences
hell bent on protecting themselves by destroying humanity. The
name also references a well-known Chinese phrase describing the
reach of the divine itself. The net of heaven is vast, yet it
misses nothing, which aptly describes the capabilities of the
new State apparatus.
The system is integrated with the so-called Chinese social
credit system which awards its involuntary participants with a
score indicating their compliance with the dictates of the
Chinese Communist Party, allowing for full control over access
to everything they possess electronically, most ominously their
savings, and their access to travel, certainly all modern means
of travel, but increasingly as the electronic gaits come up
even by walking.
If you are Chinese or a visitor, your access to the world
can be reduced to zero if your social credit score falls beyond
an arbitrary minimum. This allows you purposely to be shut out
of all activities that can be virtualized and in a rapidly
virtualizing world, this increasingly means all activities,
driving, shopping, working, eating, finding shelter, even
fraternizing with friends and family. As merely being in the
presence of someone with a low social credit score means that
your own score can be lowered.
This has also opened up the opportunity for the government
to extract slave-like labor from its citizens so burdened. As
the donation of free work to the State still constitutes one
means by which erring Chinese men and women can increase their
score and remain part of human society. This is precisely the
payment system most desired by the most tyrannical, not the
work for me and benefit thereby that constitutes the
contractual arrangement undertaken by free and sovereign
citizens, but the work for me and I will lift the deprivation I
impose that has always been the leitmotif of this labor.
Why is any of this relevant to people in the West? Because
the technology that the Chinese Communist Party employs is an
extension of Western technology; because we already fell prey
to the terrible temptation of lockdown employed by that State
in the face of hypothetical crisis once and in the very recent
past; because we are walking, step by step, in the same
direction, partly because of the hypothetical convenience of
universal and automatic recognition of identity; and partly
because any problem whatsoever that now confronts us can easily
be used to justify the increasing reach of the security and
nanny State.
It is said that stone-age people, first confronted with
cameras and their resultant photographs by modern
anthropologists, objected to having their images captured, as
they feared the captivity of their souls. It turns out that
such fear was prescient: The images that we leave behind while
navigating virtual space are such close duplicates of our
actual selves that the capture of our essence is at this point
all but guaranteed.
We all now have our doppelgangers. We all live so much in
the virtual world, in consequence of our purchasing habits and
modes of electronically mediated communication, that our very
selves have become reducible to a frightening degree to data,
the modern equivalent of our footprint, with the same data
making up an image of our identity, an identity which can be
and is increasingly bought and sold by the invisible corporate
brokers that still mostly use it to sell us what we so
desperately and carelessly and conveniently want, but that can
also be used to track, monitor, and punish everything we do and
say.
Behavioral scientists facilitate this process with their
reprehensible nudging: The practice of pushing people in a
given ideologically determined direction by manipulating
invisible incentives behind the scene. Corporations track
purchasing decisions, developing algorithms that with
increasing accuracy track our patterns of attention and action,
allowing for the prediction of what might next be most
enticing, doing so not only to offer us what we want, but to
determine and shape what we need. Governments can and are
colluding with these corporate agents to develop a picture not
only of our actions, but of our thoughts and words so that
deviation from the desired end can be mapped, rewarded, and
punished. The development of a digital identity and currency is
nothing more than the likely end consequence of such
inclinations and the combination of both can and will
facilitate the development of a surveillance State the scope of
which optimistic pessimists of totalitarianism such as George
Orwell could scarcely imagine.
The new AI systems, which are so rapidly emerging, do
nothing but increase this danger, providing for the possibility
of a super-surveillance whose scope exceeds anything that mere
unaugmented humans could imagine, while also making it certain
that even the perceptions that in the real world shape our
attitudes, conduct, and personalities can be manipulated to the
degree that we will not even be able to see a reality outside
that which has been constructed by the superstate, the ultimate
fascist collusion between gigantic self-interested corporations
and paranoid security-obsessed antihuman governments
We are already selling our souls to the superstate for the
purposes of immediate gratification, while being enticed to do
so by--
Mr. Connolly. Mr. Chair, could the witness be asked to
summarize, please?
Dr. Peterson. Mr. Chair, do I have my five minutes or do I
not?
Ms. Plaskett. You have gone over five minutes.
Dr. Peterson. I am sorry. I can certainly--
Chair Jordan. If the witness can summarize. We are already
a little lenient with the time.
Dr. Peterson. I will take ten more seconds.
Chair Jordan. Sure.
Dr. Peterson. With increasing ability to monitor not only
the actual attention patterns and behaviors of its citizens,
but to predict those that are most likely, the persecution of
even potential crime becomes ever more likely. ``If you have
nothing to hide, you will have nothing to fear,'' will be the
slogan commandeered by those most likely to turn to
surveillance to protect and to control. What was the famous
Soviet totalitarian joke, attributed to Lavrentiy Beria, head
of the secret police? ``Show me the man, and I'll show you the
crime.'' Those words were true enough in the time of Joseph
Stalin's KGB and the police were secret enough then, as well.
That is nothing compared to what we can and likely will produce
now: A police so secret that we will not even be able to detect
their comprehensive and subtle activity; monitoring crime so
pervasive that everyone under the dictates of the system will
have something to hide and much to fear.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Peterson follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Sanchez. Regular order, Mr. Chair.
Chair Jordan. Yes, the gentleman's time has expired.
We now go to Mr. Knight for your statement.
STATEMENT OF BRIAN KNIGHT
Mr. Knight. Chair Jordan, Ranking Member Plaskett, and the
Members of the Subcommittee, it is an honor to be asked to
testify. My name is Brian Knight, and I am a Senior Research
Fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University where
my research focuses on financial regulation, including its use
as a tool of broader policy.
Americans write the story of their lives in their bank
account. To function in a modern economy, Americans must create
a trail of records that can reveal their movements, their
religious and political beliefs, their sexual preferences,
health conditions, whether they are likely to own a gun or have
had an abortion. the government can access these records
without meaningful due process or the person ever knowing it
happened.
It is perhaps not surprising then that efforts to expand
the use of financial surveillance are increasing. While
potentially well meaning, these efforts present a pressing
threat to Americans' privacy and a glaring weakness in our
constitutional order that should be addressed. A recent example
of this is Federal law enforcement and financial institutions
collaborating to share financial records of an unknown number
of Americans after January 6th. While publicly available
information is limited, it appears this was done to identify
suspects based on their movement, political or religious
beliefs, and whether they owned a firearm. These searches used
broad categories, many of which relate to lawful, sensitive,
and constitutionally protected activity. This was apparently
done under the Bank Secrecy Act which allowed the information
to be provided without a warrant or any outside check and
prevented the targets of the search from being told it
happened. We only know it occurred because of the testimony of
whistleblowers and the work of this Subcommittee. We do not
know how often similar techniques were used in the past and if
their use is currently ongoing.
To add insult to injury, it is unclear that the data was
even useful and was removed by the FBI, but only after it had
been shared with at least two field offices.
Now, it isn't surprising that after a serious crime and
fearing more violence that law enforcement would use every tool
available. However, the way this appears to have happened is
emblematic of the serious defects in our protection of
Americans' privacy enabled by financial surveillance. This
isn't the only recent example of the expansive use of financial
surveillance. There are currently efforts to distort the
financial system to turn it into a tool to track
constitutionally protected behavior including firearms
purchases. Advocates of this approach argue it will help
prevent violence, especially mass shootings. To be sure, this
is a noble aspiration. However, it is unlikely the effort will
accomplish its goal while imposing significant cost to privacy,
trust, and the ability of our anti-money laundering system to
fulfill its legitimate ends, as well as encouraging a broader
escalation of surveillance.
As discussed in more detail in my written testimony, our
problem is that our financial system provides a convenient,
almost one-stop shop without the constitutional protections
that apply to similar information elsewhere. It is too easy for
the government to obtain a comprehensive and retrospective,
though not perfect, picture of a person's life without due
process. A further problem is that the Bank Secrecy Act is
opaque by design. Banks are prohibited from alerting the target
of a report. This prevents most citizens whose information is
shared from challenging the law in court, removing one of the
core means we use to check government excesses.
Congress has also been kept in the dark about the
effectiveness of the BSA, despite requiring reports revealing
the system's effectiveness be provided by law. In fact, the
bank apparently even refused to share information with this
Subcommittee based on the Bank Secrecy Act's confidentiality
requirements. It even appears that the agencies that administer
the BSA--and use the BSA lack a full or even a partial picture
of how the information is used, how useful it is and how long
it takes for government to act on it. We have these problems
due to a combination of technology, bad law, and bad Supreme
Court precedence a lot of which thankfully may be finally
coming under question, but we cannot and should not rely on the
court.
As discussed further in my written testimony, Congress
should reform our financial surveillance system, especially the
Bank Secrecy Act, to restore proper protection for Americans'
privacy. Importantly, and I want to emphasize this, this does
not mean that law enforcement could not access the information.
Rather, it means that the access would be done pursuant to due
process. To be clear, I am not here to impugn anyone's motives,
but good intentions can pave the road to hell and our history
is unfortunately replete with times when motivated by real
threats, we have violated the rights of Americans, often
without benefit, and to our later regret. We should learn from
those mistakes and get off the path I feel we are currently
taking which will provide us with neither liberty nor security.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Knight follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chair Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Knight.
Mr. Tedesco, you are recognized for your opening statement.
STATEMENT OF JEREMY TEDESCO
Mr. Tedesco. Chair Jordan, Ranking Member Plaskett, and
distinguished Members of the Select Subcommittee, good morning.
It's an honor to be here.
My name is Jeremy Tedesco, and I serve as Senior Counsel
and Senior Vice President of Corporate Engagement for Alliance
Defending Freedom.
Yesterday, this Subcommittee released documents that showed
that the U.S. Treasury Department's Financial Crimes
Enforcement Network colluded with big banks to monitor their
customers to identify domestic threats and shared a list of so-
called hate groups published by the hyper-partisan Institute
for Strategic Dialogue to help them do so.
Echoing the discredited and morally bankrupt Southern
Poverty Law Center, the ISD list includes ADF, where I work, as
well as other mainstream religious and conservative
organizations, like Family Research Council, Liberty Counsel,
Pacific Justice Institute, and Ruth Institute. Simply put, the
Federal Government appears to have swept up Christian and
conservative organization, organizations in its domestic
terrorist dragnet.
This Orwellian surveillance of American citizens has no
place in a free society. Neither does the Federal Government's
weaponiza-
tion of the financial industry against peaceable, religious,
and conservative groups.
Our story is just one of many demonstrating the increased
rise in threat of viewpoint-based debanking. In 2023, Bank of
America closed the longstanding bank account of Indigenous
Advance Ministries, a Christian nonprofit that helps
impoverished widows and children in Uganda. The bank also
closed the account of a local Tennessee church that donates to
that ministry. The bank claimed it no longer wanted to serve
their business type and that Indigenous Advance exceeded the
bank's risk tolerance. The bank's abrupt decision created a
logistical nightmare for Indigenous Advance and inflicted real
harm on the populations they serve.
The list goes on. JPMorgan Chase debanked the Arkansas
Family Council for being high-risk and never provided a
credible reason for canceling the account to former U.S.
Senator Samuel Brown-
back's organization, the National Committee for Religious
Freedom.
Wells Fargo denied payment processing to the pro-life group
The Ruth Institute because it was a hate group.
These debanking stories and many more highlight the
systemic risk of political and religious bias that pervades the
financial industry, particularly at the largest banks and
payment processors. These institutions maintain reputational
risk policies that allow them unfettered discretion to punish
customers who have, in their view, problematic political or
religious views. Many also have prohibitions on hate speech and
intolerance that require the institution to make subjective and
value-based judgments on a customer's viewpoint.
Both types of policies are vague and ambiguous, sweep in
broad swathes of content, chill constitutionally protected
speech, and erode economic freedom. Worse, government
regulators can all too easily shield their outsized power--I'm
sorry--wield their outsized power over financial institutions
to pressure them to leverage reputational risk policies, hate
speech policies, and similarly vague language against
disfavored views--all with virtually no public accountability.
Financial institutions, in turn, can hide behind that same
shield to discriminate without ever explaining it to the
customer, regardless of whether the action was prompted by
government pressure.
There is ample evidence of the two collaborating to censor
views they don't like, whether it was the DOJ and FDIC in
Operation Chokepoint; the State of New York in NRA v. Vullo, a
case currently pending before the Supreme Court, or the FBI and
Treasury, in recent revelations from this Subcommittee. Each of
these incidents show that the government can and will weaponize
the financial marketplace against Americans for political
benefit.
Several factors exacerbate this risk. Banking regulators
have expansive authority over banks' day-to-day operations and
decisions. Both the government and banks have shown an
unsettling willingness to increase data collection practices
around customers' speech and religious exercise. Most banking
supervision is shrouded in secrecy.
the government props up many of these institutions with
bailouts, subsidies, and an anticompetitive chartering system.
Due in part to these benefits, the top five banks control 50
percent, over 50 percent of the market for deposit accounts.
This only elevates the need to ensure viewpoint neutrality in
the provision of financial services.
Congress should take action. This is an issue that we
should all agree on and deserves our utmost attention. We
cannot continue to let law enforcement, regulators, and banks
that are too big to fail run roughshod over our First Amendment
freedoms.
I welcome your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Tedesco follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chair Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Tedesco.
Mr. Michel, you are recognized for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF NORBERT MICHEL
Mr. Michel. Good morning, Chair Jordan, Ranking Member
Plaskett, and the Members of the Committee. Thank you for the
opportunity to testify at today's hearing.
I'm Norbert Michel, Vice President and Director for Cato's
Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives, and the views
that I express today in this testimony are mine. They should
not be construed as representing any official position of the
Cato Institute.
In my testimony, I argue that it is long past the time for
Congress to reaffirm Americans' constitutional rights that
guarantee an expectation of financial privacy, particularly
those secured by the Fourth Amendment.
Excuse me.
The Bank Secrecy Act and the antimoney-laundering framework
that the government has developed around it are unnecessary,
wasteful, and harmful. A typical American is not a terrorist,
criminal, or a tax cheat, and does not want to live among such
individuals. The typical American does, however, recognize that
the Constitution protects all Americans from unreasonable
persecution and limitless invasions of privacy. I'd like to
make three main points in support of my position.
First, Congress should not have passed the Bank Secrecy Act
of 1970. It was a much broader bill than the legislation that
its original sponsor promised to deliver, and its relationship
to the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution was controversial
enough to spur several legal challenges, two of which ended in
split decisions at the U.S. Supreme Court during the 1970s.
Further, the bill was so controversial that it spurred
Congress to pass multiple bills, including the Right to
Financial Privacy Act, just eight years after passing the Bank
Secrecy Act. It did so with the explicit intent of countering
the very financial surveillance that the Bank Secrecy Act
itself created. Unfortunately, the 1978 bill was so watered-
down with 20 different exceptions, that it failed to live up to
its name.
As a result, financial institutions remain responsible for
both recordkeeping and reporting requirements, and law
enforcement has the authority to obtain Americans' financial
records without first obtaining a valid search warrant. The so-
called third-party doctrine, born largely out of those Supreme
Court decisions in the 1970s, excuses this legal status by
effectively claiming that bank customers have no expectation of
privacy from the government once they give their information to
the bank.
Much like the dissenting Justices of those cases, I believe
this logic defies all reasoning. There is simply no sphere of
our lives that would remain free of government involvement,
surveillance, and control if it were taken seriously.
Second, the agencies themselves have failed to demonstrate
how the Bank Secrecy Act regime provides a net benefit, and it
has merely created an information overload for Federal agencies
through excessive reporting. In 2022, for instance, financial
institutions were required to file over 26 million reports with
the Federal Government on customer activity.
Even though it's been decades since the first suspicious
activity report was filed, the Financial Crimes Enforcement
Network still cannot provide data that explains how law
enforcement even uses those reports.
These two points are just the tip of the iceberg. Difficult
as it may be to believe, there are virtually no convictions to
show for all this regulating and reporting. Depending on the
Federal crime data that we use, the per-conviction cost ranges
anywhere from $7-$178 million. Those figures do not include any
implicit cost of violating a citizen's right to financial
privacy; banks' decisions to terminate or limit customers'
accounts, or banks' refusal to provide financial services to
certain customers.
Finally, personal and financial privacy are pillars of life
in a free society. The American system of government was
designed, with good reason, to ensure that individuals do enjoy
a private sphere free of government involvement, surveillance,
and control.
Unless there is a reasonable suspicion that someone has
committed a crime or conspired to commit a crime, people should
generally be free to live their lives unmolested and
unsurveilled by the government. That is literally why the
Fourth Amendment to the Constitution protects Americans from
unreasonable searches and seizures, and Americans' financial
records should not be an exception to that rule.
It is, of course, healthy to debate what private companies
should be allowed to do with the data they collect from
customers, but no American should confuse that debate with why
we have the Fourth Amendment. The Fourth Amendment protects us
from unwarranted government persecution. That is why Congress
should amend the Bank Secrecy Act and restore Americans' Fourth
Amendment rights.
Thank you. I welcome any questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Michel follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chair Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Michel.
We now go to Mr. Fanone for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL FANONE
Mr. Fanone. Mr. Chair and the Members of the Committee,
thank you for inviting me here today to answer questions
regarding the events that occurred at the United States Capitol
on January 6, 2021.
I would like to tell you that I've forgotten some of the
events of that day or that my recollection is not as clear as
it once was, but that would not be the truth. The events of
January 6th are as vivid to me now as when they occurred over
three years ago. While the physical scars of that day have
healed, the emotional scars remain.
We are a government of laws, not of men. I've spent nearly
two decades as a law enforcement officer trying to enforce the
law. My career began in the United States Capitol as a Capitol
Police Officer and ended when called on as a Metropolitan
Police Officer to protect the Capitol against a mob of people.
While much of my career involved dangerous encounters with
violent criminals, that experience was unlike anything I had
experienced. I'm here to tell you what happened to me on that
day and what I saw and heard happening to fellow officers.
As for me, I was violently grabbed, restrained, beaten, and
tased--all while being called a traitor to my country. I was at
risk of being stripped of and killed with my own firearm, as I
heard chants of ``Kill him with his own gun.''
My body camera video captured the violence of the crowd
directed toward me during those very brutal moments. The
portions of the video I have seen remain extremely painful for
me to watch, but doing so is crucial to fully understand what
really happened that day and the extent of the violence. During
those moments, I remember thinking that there was a good chance
that I could be killed, and my thoughts were of my children who
may lose their father.
While I'm here to share my experience, I know that hundreds
of other law enforcement officers responded that day. They were
outnumbered and acted with tremendous bravery to protect the
Capitol and all those present inside who serve our country.
Those officers have sustained injuries, both physical and
emotional. They, too, have been scarred--some visible and some
that cannot be seen. I think of them often.
Like my partner, Jimmy Albright, who dragged me to safety
while I was unconscious and who drove me to the emergency room,
though injured himself. Then, about Commander Ramey Kyle who,
like so many of us, self-deployed to the Capitol, who organized
the defense of the Lower-West Terrace Tunnel. His rally cry,
``Do not give up the door'' echoes through my thoughts.
I think of all the brave men and women, newly minted
officers and those nearly retired, who responded to the call of
service that day in defense of our Nation, those who are still
on the frontlines each and every day to make our city safe and
protect our institutions of government.
I appear today not to give my opinion or analysis or
advocate for some action, but simply to bear witness. I leave
whatever actions to be taken to your wisdom and where we go as
a Nation to the American people. I have no agenda or
affiliation. I do not come with malice in my heart, but only a
deep love of this country, which I know is shared by so many
others, both young and old, both Republican and Democrat.
In the process of speaking--more importantly, listening to
each other--hopefully, we can come together as one Nation with
shared values of wanting tomorrow to be better than today, with
the hope and confidence that we do each and every day. Excuse
me. It's for the singular purpose of trying to provide a better
life for our children and our children's children and
generations to come.
I thank you for your invitation to be here today and the
opportunity to speak with you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Fanone follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chair Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Fanone.
We'll now proceed under the five-minute rule with
questions.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from California for five
minutes.
Mr. Issa. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Fanone, I want to express my heartfelt thank you for
being here today. Those of us who were here on January 6th in
no small part owe you and others a debt of gratitude for the
work you did ushering people into--Members of Congress and
others--into safety. I truly appreciate that and thank you.
Mr. Fanone. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Issa. If this were only about January 6th, that would
have been my last comment, and we would be done. I'm going to
ask a series of questions that I think beg the question of
something beyond January 6th.
For all of you, if you'd raise your hand, are there any of
you who think that it would be better if we had the same rules
of discovery that China, Cuba, Russia, and Iran have from a
standpoint of looking for criminals among us? Is there anyone
here that would raise their hand? I thought not.
For all of you, let's ask some questions, and I'll use Mr.
Tedesco as my strawman for a moment.
With the way the Bank Secrecy Act has been used, is there
anything that stops an administration from choosing to look at
and gather, strip away and get from the major banks, or all the
banks, all the data of all the citizens and participants in our
society? In other words, simply haul it all in, so they have a
data base for whatever they need to do, whether it's January
6th or somebody driving in town and not paying a parking
ticket.
Mr. Tedesco. Sir, I don't know the Bank Secrecy Act
particularly well. I know the First Amendment implications of
the way in which banks--
Mr. Issa. I'm really looking at the Fourth Amendment for a
moment.
Mr. Tedesco. Sure.
Mr. Issa. Again, for the others--Mr. Knight, I think you
answered this. Really, there's nothing that would stop an
administration in secret from taking vast amounts, potentially
all of it, under current law. The only question you'd really
ask is, can you later go to court and say it was excessive and
would the court side with you? From a functional standpoint,
what they ask for at the FBI, they get, is that correct?
Mr. Knight. I believe that's correct, Representative. In
fact, I think it's even worse than that, in the sense that it
doesn't necessarily need to be evidence of a crime. It could be
evidence of some other violation of a noncriminal violation.
Also, because the target of a suspicious activity report is
prohibited from finding out, it would actually be very hard for
the person to go to court later and challenge it, unless they
were the subject, potentially, of a prosecution, in which case
you're already starting behind the eight ball.
Mr. Issa. OK. So, as we stand right now, the Fourth
Amendment relative to your banking records, which doesn't just
say what you spent money on, it says where you were. Because,
by definition, when you put that credit card into the gas pump,
we know exactly where you were. So, there's nothing that stops
the government from finding out not only what you're spending
on, but where you are and what you're doing, is that correct?
Mr. Knight. Sir, that's absolutely correct. The reason for
that is, from the court's perspective, those records aren't
yours; they belong to the bank. Therefore, you have no
protectable privacy right in them.
The court recently has been starting to change their
thinking on that type of thing.
Mr. Issa. We're hoping to spur the court to think more
through legislation.
Summarizing, though, we're talking mostly about bank
records because those are the ones that we have a current
example. Isn't it true that the FBI and other agencies want the
same access to all your phone records, which would include
where you are moment by moment and who you talk to? Is that
correct?
Mr. Knight. Well, yes, that was an issue in the Carpenter
case, where law enforcement tried to pull location data from
cell phone towers. The court found that customers have a
protectable Fourth Amendment right, even those records belong
to the phone company, not to the customer.
Mr. Issa. So, in closing, for everyone here, if I want to
get those kinds of records--I'm the FBI--in the case of your
phone records, for all practical purposes--there are exigent
circumstances, exceptions--but for all practical purposes, you
need to get a warrant. You don't need it for bank records.
Isn't it true that those records very often provide the same
information, and thus, are equally invasive into, not just your
First Amendment, but your Fourth Amendment reasonable
expectation for privacy and the keeping of your files and
personal effects?
Mr. Knight. I would argue they're potentially more
sensitive and can provide more accurate information than cell
phone towers.
Mr. Issa. Well, I, for one, would close by saying that I
don't see a problem getting warrants. I don't see a problem
getting judges--and this Committee has a significant role with
FISA and other cases like that. The question is, will we amend
the law, so that no matter where the data is being grabbed by
the government, it's being grabbed pursuant to a reasonable
expectation that you have a reason to get it and a judge who
agrees?
Mr. Chair, thank you for holding this hearing, and I yield
back.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Massachusetts.
Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank the witnesses for their willingness to
testify before the Committee.
As evidenced by today's hearing, the singular mission of
this so-called Subcommittee on Weaponization and the House
Republican leadership is to be the proliferation or,
ironically, the weaponi-
zation of false narratives for political purposes. Combined
with the rudderless efforts to develop evidence for the
impeachment of President Biden, these proceedings have become
increasingly bizarre at every turn.
Once upon a time, we were told that the key to all of this
was the Hunter Biden laptop. That was the smoking gun that
would solve all of this--until then, it wasn't.
Then, it was getting Hunter Biden to testify. That was
going to be the conclusive evidence--until, at one point, he
had the courage to walk into a hearing, sit in the front row,
and then, all of a sudden, Republicans rejected his offer to
testify publicly, and instead, voted to hold him in contempt.
Then, it was going to be the testimony of the Republicans'
top legal expert witnesses, who were going to appear before
Congress and offer evidence against President Biden and lay out
the legal theory to justify Articles of Impeachment.
They showed up--all of them with great resumes, but with no
evidence. They testified under oath--under oath--that they
could not find any evidence that would support or suggest such
charges.
Finally, last month, the Trump-appointed Special Counsel
David Weiss announced that he had indicted Chair Jim Jordan's
star witness, former FBI informant Alexander Smirnov, for
making false statements and fabricating evidence to Federal
investigators about President Biden and his family, including
the shameless lie that President Biden sought millions in
bribes from Ukrainian energy company Burisma when he served as
Vice President.
Now, Smirnov, some of you may not remember, but Smirnov is
the guy that Chair Jordan described--and I'll give you a quote,
the Chair's quote--as providing, quote, ``the most
corroborating evidence the Republicans have,''--in support of
impeachment.
So, given that Smirnov is being charged by the Republican,
Trump-appointed Special Counsel for lying and fabricating
evidence, and the pathetic show that the Republicans have put
on so far, that assessment is probably correct--he's probably
the best they've got.
Now, the Chair of this Subcommittee is determined to
obscure the facts surrounding January 6th. Today's hearing
appears to be based on the false narrative that conservative
Americans, and even Bible purchasers, are the targets of
pervasive and baseless financial surveillance by the Federal
Government.
It also follows statements made by several House Members
downplaying the attacks that Officer Fanone has described at
the U.S. Capitol Complex as, quote, ``acts of vandalism,'' and
``a normal tourist visit.''
That could not be further from the truth. As reported by
the bipartisan Select Committee on January 6th in its final
report, our Nation endured an insurrection that specifically
sought to violently block Congressional Certification of the
2020 Presidential Election.
The sheer scale of the mob violence that you saw on the
video earlier, and the lawlessness that was exhibited that day,
tested the very fabric of our democracy with rioters savagely
beating law enforcement officers like Officer Fanone, amid
repeated crowd chants, such as, ``Hang Mike Pence,'' and
``Shoot him with his own gun.'' The Republican Vice President--
``Hang Mike Pence.''
That's what makes you an extremist. That's what makes you a
terrorist--not just your desire to purchase, under the Second
Amendment, a weapon that you're legally entitled to have.
It also warranted additional investigatory efforts by
Federal law enforcement authorities to prevent more violence
leading up to the 2021 Presidential Inauguration.
Officer Fanone, as a former Metropolitan Police Officer,
could you please tell us how the promulgation of false
narratives, like ``This was just a tourist visit,'' or ``simple
vandalism,'' how that distorted description affects your
ability to do your job?
Mr. Fanone. Thank you for the question.
Well, essentially, the distortions, mischaracterizations,
and lies about January 6th resulted in, or at least partially
played a role in, me leaving my job as a Metropolitan Police
Officer. They have inspired fellow Americans to threaten me,
threaten members of my family, simply because of the statements
that I've made about my experience, both on January 6, 2021,
and in the aftermath.
Mr. Lynch. Well, thank you very much.
My time has expired.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Mr. Chair?
Chair Jordan. The gentlelady--
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. I have a unanimous consent request.
Mr. Lynch. Officer Fanone, I would like to thank you for
your service.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. I have a unanimous consent request,
Mr. Chair.
Chair Jordan. The gentlelady may state her request.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Mr. Chair, I ask unanimous consent
to enter into the record a January 7, 2021, email from the FBI
to financial institutions requesting information about Eduard
Florea because he, quote, ``claimed to be armed and intending
to travel to D.C. to unleash some violence.''
I also ask unanimous consent to enter into the record a
press release from the Eastern District of New York announcing
Eduard Florea's sentencing for making threats to kill elected
officials, like Senator Raphael Warnock, entitled, quote,
``Queens Man Sentenced to 33 Months in Prison for Posting
Threats to Kill a Member of Congress and Illegally Possessing
Ammunition.''
Chair Jordan. Without objection.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman from Florida is recognized for
five minutes.
Mr. Steube. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Just sitting up here listening to all your testimony, it's
just absolutely insane, the level of the deep state acting to
go after pro-life groups, pro-gun groups, that you, Mr.
Tedesco, talked--the Arkansas pro-life group that now they
can't even bank at the bank that they were banking at because
of their political beliefs.
The information that the Chair put up about people
purchasing religious texts and firearms--all without a warrant.
You go to law school, and they teach you constitutional law and
the Fourth Amendment, and all these things that have to happen
for the government to get information about you or to search
your information. All this is happening without even the person
knowing that it's going out--without a warrant and without an
ability to even defend themselves.
In the aftermath of the 2020 Presidential Election, the
Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, FinCEN, at the U.S.
Department of Treasury, told major banks to be on the lookout
for customers using credit and debit cards for the purchase of
legal firearms.
As a gun owner and a strong proponent of our Second
Amendment rights, it's appalling that a Federal agency would
ask private companies to spy on their customers conducting
perfectly legal business transactions. It's not like there's a
suspicion of criminality going on. These are just typical
purchases of firearms.
FinCEN also passed along a report to several large banks
titled, ``Bankrolling Bigotry: An Overview of the Online
Funding Strategies of American Hate Groups.'' Included among
those supposedly hate groups is the Alliance Defending Freedom,
which is represented before us today by Mr. Tedesco.
I found this characterization curious because the ADF that
I know is anything but a hate group. ADF defends Americans'
God-given right to religious liberty in courts around this
country. It seems the Biden Administration views advocacy for
religious liberty as hate these days. That says far about the
Administration than it does about ADF.
President Obama once infamously remarked that many
conservative Americans ``cling to guns or religion.'' Given
FinCEN's actions, it seems that President Biden's
Administration shares the same hostility for millions of
Americans like me who proudly cling to our First and Second
Amendment rights.
Mr. Tedesco, what's your reaction to your organization
being identified as a hate group in a report shared by a
government agency?
Mr. Tedesco. It's unbelievable that this is being used by
the Federal Government to advise banks on domestic terrorist
threats, but I think the bigger point here is that the concept
of hate is a tool of suppression. On top of that kind of
language, hate speech and similar kinds of vague concepts, are
permeated through the financial industry and are used to shut
down events and to debank people.
JPMorgan Chase has used it several times. Arkansas Family
Policy said they were high risk. They shut down an event by
defensive liberty on--Donald Trump, Jr., was speaking at it.
They shut down that event on the basis of a hate policy.
So, we know these policies are being weaponized in the
financial industry. Again, because of the Bank Secrecy Act and
a lot of the shrouding of the way regulation happens in the
banking context it's really hard to know why are these things
happening? We just know it's on the rise, and it's a real
concern.
Mr. Steube. Well, one of my colleagues was just saying that
this is just a narrative that we are creating, a political
narrative. You have gone through specifics. If you want to,
highlight specifically some of these instances that you are
referring to facts where pro-life groups or organizations that
are conservative have been debanked by these private entities.
Mr. Tedesco. Sure. The highest profile one is a former
Member of the Senate, Samuel Brown backs the organization
National Committee for Religious Freedom. JPMorgan Chase
canceled that account in 2022. They gave escalating and very
different reasons that were contradictory over the next year as
scrutiny mounted. None of the reasons ever held any weight.
Interestingly enough, they referred to anti-money
laundering, financing of terrorism, and a concept called
politically exposed persons. All these are within the banking
regulations. I think they're used as tools ultimately to
suppress people because of their views.
Again, the secrecy and the shrouding of the reasons for the
decisions is a huge part of the problem, and I think that's
something Congress needs to address.
Mr. Steube. Is there circumstances in which the consumers
may never know that their information was privately disclosed
from the bank to the FBI or a government agency?
Mr. Tedesco. Yes, this is a huge part of the problem is our
clients, to a person, any time they go to the bank, once they
get debanked, it's always under some vague policy. The only
thing the bank will say is high risk or business type or risk
tolerance. Every time they go back and ask for an answer, a
specific reason, the bank just stonewalls them. So, they can't
get access to the information.
Mr. Steube. I only have a couple of seconds left. So, what
is your recourse if you do find out? So, let's say--because I
basically ticked a lot of those boxes that were referenced:
Firearms, Bibles, and religious texts. So, if you do find out
that your information was divulged from the bank that you bank
to a government agency, do you have any recourse whatsoever to
go after the government or the bank?
Mr. Tedesco. It's difficult for consumers who are in that
position because they usually don't know it happens. If it
happens, there are consumer complaints you can file with the
State Attorneys General. There are probably other avenues that
people could pursue.
I think that's part of the reason why Congress should act
to cordon off some of the secrecy and confidentiality that's
happening in the banking industry. Also, affirmatively require
banks to stop using reputational risk and some of these other
vague categories to determine whether they're going to bank
with someone.
Mr. Steube. Thank you all for being here today.
Mr. Connolly. Mr. Chair, I have a unanimous consent
request.
Chair Jordan. State you request.
Mr. Connolly. I thank the Chair. I ask unanimous consent to
enter into the record the FBI's Situation Report sent to
financial institutions with respect to an explicit and clear
threat on January 16, 2021 with respect to the inauguration.
Chair Jordan. Without objection.
Mr. Connolly. I thank the Chair.
Chair Jordan. The gentlelady from California is recognized.
Ms. Sanchez. Thank you. I thank our witnesses for being
here and I want to examine some of the actual requests that the
FBI sent to financial institutions in the wake of the violence
that occurred on January 6, 2021, not the overly broad groups
that my Republican colleagues are purposely trying to scare
Americans into believing that are being surveilled every single
day without any crime prevention or crime solving purpose in
mind.
On January 14, 2021, the FBI asked financial institutions
for information about Robert Cory Lemke who made, quote,
``Interstate threats of violence targeting the family of a U.S.
Congressman as well as other in furtherance of anti-government,
anti-authority extremism.'' I would ask unanimous consent to
enter into the record the email dated January 14, 2021, from
FBI employee to financial institutions into the record.
Chair Jordan. Without objection.
Ms. Sanchez. Lemke ultimately pleaded guilty and was
sentenced to three years in prison for making threatening
interstate communications against Members of Congress and
journalists in connection with the 2020 election. He sent
threatening electronic and audio messages to approximately 50
victims he targeted because of their statements about Donald
Trump losing the 2020 Presidential Election. He sent messages
to a New York City Congressman's brother threatening him and
the brother's children. He sent messages to the family of a
journalist.
I would ask unanimous consent to insert into the record the
press release entitled, ``California Man Sentenced to Three
Years in Prison for Making Threats Against Political Officials
and Journalists Relating to the Outcome of the 2020
Presidential Election.''
Chair Jordan. Without objection.
Ms. Sanchez. Officer Fanone, in your experience is it
appropriate for law enforcement to use all lawfully available
tools in the investigation of somebody who is threatening the
family of members of public officials or journalists?
Mr. Fanone. Yes, ma'am. It's not only appropriate, it's law
enforcement's responsibility to do so.
Ms. Sanchez. Would it be a dereliction of duty if you
didn't use every lawfully available tool to you to try to
prevent a crime from happening or to solve a crime that has
already happened?
Mr. Fanone. Yes, ma'am, I believe so.
Ms. Sanchez. Thank you. The day before the inauguration the
FBI requested information about Samuel Fischer who was
photographed on the steps of the U.S. Capitol and is suspected
of unlawfully entering Federal property on January 6, 2021. The
FBI noted that Fischer may also have been, quote,
``manufacturing trafficking guns in preparation for civil war.
Additionally, Fischer espouses racially motivated and anti-
government extremist ideology.''
The FBI noted that it was, quote, ``Currently preparing
enforcement action and is interested in financial information
that corroborates Fischer's involvement in firearms tracking.''
I would ask unanimous consent to enter into the record the
email from FBI employee to financial institutions about this
matter into the record.
Chair Jordan. Without objection.
Ms. Sanchez. Officer Fanone, why might law enforcement
agencies seek financial information in cases of arms
trafficking?
Mr. Fanone. Well, outside of the obvious that potential
receipts or purchases made would provide evidence that in fact
the weapons were purchased by a specific individual, my
understanding is within these particular requests it was the
FBI seeking voluntary compliance from a number of banking
institutions in which their ask was very specific in that they
were looking for (1) individuals who were present on January
6th, which I think we can all agree was an incredibly violent
assault against law enforcement officers, (2) those individuals
that also had purchased firearms within the past six months and
at least (3) there was evidence to support they were planning
on returning to the Nation's Capital on January 20th.
Ms. Sanchez. So, they weren't just looking for people based
on their beliefs; there were three different criterias that
they were using that all had to be present to do the search. Is
that correct?
Mr. Fanone. That's my understanding, yes.
Ms. Sanchez. Great. Samuel Fischer, by the way, was
arrested the very next day and when he was arrested FBI agents
found over 1,000 rounds of ammunition and several weapons
including an illegally modified AR-15 rifle and machetes in his
Upper East Side apartment and his car.
Fischer, by the way, wrote after the Capitol riot, quote,
``Seeing cops literally run was the coolest thing I've ever
seen in my life.''
I would ask unanimous consent to enter into the record that
The New York Times article entitled, ``Dating Coach Charged in
Capitol Riot Gets Prison Term for Gun Crime'' into the record.
Chair Jordan. Without objection.
Ms. Sanchez. This is a clear example of people committing
criminal acts that my colleagues across the aisle are claiming
are the victims, the innocent victims of surveillance, but in
reality, the FBI was doing their job. They were working to
prevent threats to the inauguration and to hold January 6th
rioters responsible for their criminal actions.
Officer Fanone, I want to thank you for being here today
and I appreciate your willingness to bear witness to what
really happened on January 6, 2021, and to dispel these overly
broad fear-mongering tactics that innocent Americans are being
surveilled simply because of their beliefs or their religion.
With that, I yield back the balance of my time.
Chair Jordan. The gentlelady yields back.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Florida for five
minutes.
Mr. Lynch. Yield to Mr. Jordan.
Chair Jordan. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Mr. Knight, do you need a gun registration list of--
government can just go ask the banks every time some customer
purchases a gun?
Mr. Knight. Well, the banks won't know if you purchased a
gun per se, but your bank records can be a pretty good, though
not perfect, registration for almost anything.
Chair Jordan. My point is it is almost like a back door
registration, right?
Mr. Knight. Yes, one of the challenges is that highly
sensitive information can be accessed through financial records
that otherwise is constitutionally protected.
Chair Jordan. Yes. Dr. Peterson, do you think they are just
going to stop with conservatives? History tells us that the
cancel culture mob, the surveillance State, whatever you want
to call it, it doesn't just--they never are satisfied with just
certain--it always expands. I will give you an example.
A few years ago, Senator Feinstein, iconic Democrat Senator
from the great State of California--the folks in San Francisco
renamed the Diane Feinstein Elementary School. They took her
name off the school because they found that she said something
like 40 years ago that the cancel culture mob didn't like. So,
even a liberal Democrat Senator wasn't good enough for the mob.
They came after her, too.
This is the thing that scares me. We have invited probably
more Democrat witnesses in front of this Committee than any
other Committee. We invite Democrats who come in and say we
respect the First Amendment, Second Amendment, Fourth
Amendment, and respect the Constitution. My concern is it never
just stops with certain people. It always goes further. Do you
agree with that?
Dr. Peterson. Well, the reason I prefaced my remarks with
an insistence on nonpartisanship is because the danger posed by
this increasing ability of governments and large corporations
to collude threatens everyone's freedom equally. It could well
be that at the moment this is I think the case the Republicans
here are trying to make, is that the people who are in the
sights of that collusion tend to have more conservative
leanings. That will shift in a moment whenever the political
tides shift.
We're concentrating in this hearing a fair bit on the
specific events of January 6th, a very partisan issue that
produces a very partisan divide, but we're not addressing the
fundamental issue here directly, which is that our new
technology enables a mode of surveillance that's so intense and
all-pervading that no one will escape its purview regardless of
their political views.
Chair Jordan. No, I think that is exactly right. It also
seems to me--I will go to Mr. Tedesco--there seems to be a
pattern emerging.
I am going to take you back to when we first kind of
started getting into this issue with the somewhat famous now
school boards memorandum from the Department of Justice. I know
you probably remember what I am talking about here, Mr.
Tedesco. The opening sentence of the Attorney General's
document, this memorandum, says,
In recent months there's been a disturbing spike in harassment,
intimidation, threats of violence against school
administrators, board members, teachers, staff who participate
in the vital work of running our Nation's public schools.
At the hearing where we had the Attorney General, I asked him a
simple question, I said,
You make that opening statement as the basis for why you need
this memorandum to go after moms and dads showing up at school
board meetings. What was that first sentence based on?
He told us it was based on the National School Boards
Association, the memorandum they put out. The same thing
happened to you guys, because we had some entity here called
the the Global Disinformation Index puts out this information
and then the government uses that information as the basis to
say you are some terrorist group.
That is frightening. That our government--because FinCEN,
the Treasury Department used what agency put out--or not
agency--some entity put out as the basis to say you guys are
some hate group, or some terrorist group. I find that alarming,
and particularly the pattern that it--I guess, two doesn't make
a pattern, but it sure makes you start to wonder. Your
thoughts, Mr. Tedesco?
Mr. Tedesco. Sure. The FBI used the SPLC's report on
radical traditional Catholics to target them--
Chair Jordan. Exactly.
Mr. Tedesco. --as well in the interim between the Moms for
Liberty and parental rights groups and in what's going on
today. I think it's very alarming that the government uses
these obviously partisan and discredited third-party arbiters
of truth who really are just promoting their own political
agenda and trying to do damage to their perceived political
enemies to make decisions about anything, let alone sending
them to financial institutions as part of some kind of
financial surveillance.
Chair Jordan. Yes. Some left-wing group says you are bad.
Oh, then the government is going to use that information to
send it out to banks and say you might want to be concerned
about this. You maybe want to debank these individuals. That is
a frightening world. The point is I don't think it is going to
be just limited to conservative people in the future. Because
we have already seen--there were people in Black Lives Matter
who got targeted during the Summer of 2020 when all the
protests were happening around the country. I disagree with
some of the things--a lot of the things that happened that
summer, but I also don't like the fact that they are going
after liberals either. That is a scary thing.
Then there used to be an agreement in both parties that
First Amendment activities should be protected. Second
Amendment activities. Your right to privacy should be
protected. Unfortunately, now it has gotten way too partisan.
With that, we will go to the other side. The gentlelady
from Florida is recognized.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
For nearly 20 years in this chamber, I have heard time and
again Republicans claim that they back the blue. Just recently,
Chair Jordan put out a press release around the Law Enforcement
Appreciation Day resolution which said when it comes to
supporting the police, quote, ``Republicans put words into
action.'' Yet, when it comes to walking that walk Republicans
too often take a seat.
Just yesterday we took a vote on a bipartisan spending bill
that includes funding for our criminal justice programs. Of the
Republicans that make up this Committee a handful of you voted
against it. That of course would mean less funding for State
and local law enforcement agencies and more criminals on our
streets and in our neighborhoods. That no vote means no funding
for the Internet Crimes Against Children Program, a key law
enforcement tool that keeps online predators away from our
children. Those actions sure don't back the blue.
Now, today Republicans want to target law enforcement yet
again. This time they purposefully downplay the heinous
violence that injured and traumatized hundreds of Capitol
Police Officers in the January 6th insurrection, perhaps the
most infamous assault on law enforcement in recent American
history. Specifically, our Republican colleagues are taking aim
at the ability to use financial records as a tool to prosecute
the coup plotters, the criminals who attempted to stop the
legitimate constitutional transfer of power in Congress. These
are the very financial tools that help hold to account the
people who tried to overthrow a Presidential Election.
Officer Fanone, thank you so much for repeatedly testifying
about your experiences. I am sure it isn't easy, as you
mentioned, to relive these traumatic moments. Could you
describe some of the violence briefly that Capitol Police
Officers were subjected to on January 6th?
Mr. Fanone. Certainly. So, I, like many other officers from
the Metropolitan Police Department, self-deployed that day in
that I heard distress calls coming out from officers who were
already deployed at the Capitol Complex and took it on myself
to respond to those calls for assistance.
When I arrived at the Capitol, I made my way to the--what's
referred to as the lower-west terrace tunnel in response to a
specific distress call coming from officers that were defending
that tunnel against a large group of violent rioters that were
trying to gain access.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you.
Mr. Fanone. When I entered the tunnel, I observed about 40
or 50 D.C. Police Officers and a few U.S. Capitol Police
Officers attempting to hold back the violent mob. The officers
were being assaulted with a variety of different weapons,
everything from metal poles, two by fours, aluminum baseball
bats, and batons. Other police equipment that had been stripped
from police officers themselves were then used against
officers.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you, Officer Fanone. Thank
you. I am sorry. I want to just make sure I can get some other
items in.
The video that we saw earlier was disturbing. In a video
that I don't have time to show you can hear words like traitor
being yelled at police officers and shouts like ``F-- the
blue.'' Five police officers who served at the Capitol died in
the aftermath of the insurrection.
Officer Fanone, what is your response to those who say that
no police officers were killed by the events on January 6,
2021?
Mr. Fanone. Well, my thoughts on Officer Brian Sicknick
obviously--Brian Sicknick's cause of death was ruled unrelated
to the Capitol riot. That being said, I think that good decent
people would understand that if it were not for his
participation in the defense of this Capitol on January 6th
against a violent mob Brian Sicknick would be here with us
today.
I understand I think better than most the post-traumatic
stress that accompanied my participation in defending the
Capitol on January 6th and then enduring the
mischaracterization or lies about what I experienced that day
from people in positions of power, many of whom were here at
the Capitol themselves.
I understand what brought many officers to taking their own
lives and I certainly attribute their actions to their
participation in defense of the U.S. Capitol on January 6th.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you.
Mr. Chair and my Republican colleagues, once again I ask
that you stop trivializing the violent assault the entire world
saw that day, both to our democracy and to our law enforcement,
and please do not cavalierly discard financial information as a
law enforcement tool to prevent the next January 6th. The
necessity of making this tool for law enforcement is even more
imperative considering the Presidential Candidate your support
all but promises another assault, violent or otherwise, on our
sacred democracy. I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentlelady yields back.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Mr. Chair, before you go to the next
Member if I can ask again for a unanimous consent request?
Chair Jordan. Without objection.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. I ask unanimous consent to enter
into the record the FBI Situation Report sent to financial
institutions on January 13, 2021, which explains in the middle
of page 2, the exact kind of threats that the FBI was trying to
prevent leading up to the inauguration that day. These were
threats to murder Members of Congress and start a shooting at
the Inauguration, the exact type of threats the FBI is
responsible for investigating, and I quote:
On 8 January information was received regarding a video posted
on an identified website encouraging people to kill Senators
and Congress Members. The poster of the video was identified
via social media exploitation. The video was threatening
violence in Washington, DC, on Inauguration Day and advised
people to bring guns.
Chair Jordan. Without objection. We want the FBI to do
their job; we just want them to do it in a way consistent with
the Constitution.
With that, I recognize the gentlelady from New York.
Ms. Stefanik. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Knight, thank you for your testimony today. In 2022,
gun ban activists, amalgamated bank, and far left politicians
pushed for the creation of an unconstitutional merchant
category code to be assigned to firearms retailers to identify,
quote, ``suspect purchases and report purchasing patterns to
law enforcement,'' a clear unconstitutional infringement on
Second Amendment rights and a clear back door to a gun
registry.
In fact, failed New York Attorney General Tish James
specifically mentioned the importance of labeling gun and
ammunition sales as a way to indicate an imminent crime. Since
then, some States have banned the code, while States like
California have mandated it to surveil Americans' purchases.
This is why I introduced the Protecting Privacy in Purchases
Act with Congressman Barr and Hudson to put a stop to this code
and protect law-abiding Americans from this infringing
unconstitutional overreach.
Can you explain how does this code threaten Americans'
privacy and constitutional rights?
Mr. Knight. Thank you very much. This code, and if we were
to do similar codes for other sensitive issues, risks creating
a raft of false positives where individuals who are potentially
engaging in First Amendment activity--because it's important to
know that the MCC doesn't tell you what people buy; it just
tells you where they buy it, right--will be reported to the
government as potentially suspicious for no real basis, or at
least not a basis that is likely to be reasonable.
That's going to create a data base that is available that
could be searched later. One of the dangerous things about this
financial data base is that--or these financial records is that
they're retrospective. Perhaps just as bad is that there's
precious little reason to believe it would be effective at its
stated goal for a host of reasons I could get into, if you
want.
Ms. Stefanik. Yes, please expand.
Mr. Knight. OK. So, the problem here is that you won't know
what someone buys. You're expecting banks to correctly identify
what is really a hallmark of violence. You're expecting them to
report it promptly. You're expecting law enforcement to then
act on it promptly and effectively.
So, I'd like to point to; I don't know if they'd like me
pointing to it, but Guns Down America has a report that
advocates the MCC, but if you look at the examples they point
to as possible examples where this could have helped, it's hard
to believe they would either because there's such a short-
timeframe, 12 days--there's a reason to--I don't see why we
believe that 12 days would be enough time for law enforcement
to act on it, because we don't know how fast it takes the
government to use any SARS, or it's actually hard to
differentiate suspicious activity from legitimate activity.
Rather they look at cases and then work backward. So, we don't
know what the denominator is. We don't know how many false
positives there will be.
Also, in the recent report when we look at the key bank
methodology, it's very, very broad. It's very over-inclusive.
It's thresholds are such that it's far more than you need to
spend to commit a horrible act of violence, but less than you'd
spend to get a good hunting rifle and scope. So, how confident
should we be that we're actually going to get more noise than--
or signal than noise? I don't believe we should be. Given how
little we know about how SARS is treated as is, I think we
should be deeply skeptical.
Ms. Stefanik. Do you believe this is a back door to a gun
registry?
Mr. Knight. I believe it's a back--I believe some of its
supporters view it as a back door to discourage firearms
purchases.
Ms. Stefanik. Well, in my district in Upstate New York and
Americans across this country are proud to stand up for our
constitutional rights and understand this is an infringement on
our constitutional rights. Why is my bill so important?
Mr. Knight. Well, ma'am, I think that efforts to restrict
the collection of data at the bank level are the best option we
have currently because under current law, unless we can reform
the BSA, once the bank has that data, the government has that
data. So, preventing collection at the bank level is your first
best option.
Ms. Stefanik. Thank you very much. I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman from Texas is recognized.
Mr. Allred. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am going to yield my
time to the Ranking Member, but I just wanted to say to Officer
Fanone--I was on the House floor on January 6th. We haven't had
a chance to talk, but I know you have kids. My wife was at home
with our son Jordan who wasn't yet two. She was seven months
pregnant. Thanks to your bravery, the bravery of your
colleagues, and true patriots who defended this Capitol, I
believe I got to meet my son Cameron.
So, I want to thank you for your service. I want to thank
you for your bravery. I am sorry that you had to endure so much
of these personal attacks to try and undermine what you
actually did that day, but I want you to know that people all
across this country know what you did, respect you, and
appreciate your service. So, thank you.
I yield to the Ranking Member.
Ms. Plaskett. Thank you very much, Mr. Allred. I believe we
all share those sentiments.
I want to say that this is not a partisan issue. I heard it
said that January 6th is a partisan issue. I just want to read
something.
A mob was assaulting the Capitol in his name. These criminals
were carrying his banners, hanging his flags, and screaming
their loyalty to him. It was obvious that only President Trump
could end this. Former aides publicly begged him to do so.
Loyal allies frantically called the Administration, but the
President did not act swiftly. He did not do his job. He didn't
take steps so Federal law could be faithfully executed and
order restored.
Instead, according to public reports he watched television
happily as the chaos unfolded. He kept pressing his scheme to
overturn the election. Even after it was clear to any
reasonable observer that Vice President Pence was in danger,
even as the mob carrying Trump banners were beating cops and
breaching perimeters the President sent a further tweet
attacking his Vice President. Predictably and foresee-ably
under the circumstances Members of the mob seems to interpret
this as a further inspiration to lawlessness and violence.
That was the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell.
This is not partisan. The reason we kept say this is about
January 6th is because it is about January 6th. They are trying
to expand the scope of what the FBI was trying to do. It was
not to invade all Americans' bank records. It was not about a
violation of the Fourth Amendment against search and seizure.
I have been a practitioner of the law, not just a law
professor, not just someone with a graduate degree from law
school, but a prosecutor, an investigator. You use the tools
which you have to prevent crimes from happening.
Because guess what? I have shopped in a Bass Pro Shop
plenty of times. I read the Bible on a regular basis. I happen
to be, and my family happen to be gun owners. I am not afraid
that the FBI is going to be searching my account because I was
also not a rioter on January 6th and I did not purchase a gun
in the last six months before the inauguration and make plans
to come back to attempt to again stop the free and fair
election of our government. This is getting ridiculous.
Officer Fanone, you saw the violence on January 6, 2021,
and you saw the individuals. You were up close and way too
personal with many of them. You also, unlike many of the people
here, attended hearings, trials, and sentencing of many of
those individuals. Based on the knowledge that you have that
many of us here on this dais do not, do you know what ideology
the January 6th rioters embraced? If you do, how do you know
that?
Mr. Fanone. I am sorry, ma'am. I can't speak to every
single individual that was there that day at the Capitol. I
didn't have an opportunity to interview them. I was too busy
fighting for my life.
That being said, I was present at a number of the
sentencing hearings regarding individuals that were
specifically charged with and later pled guilty to violent
assaults of myself and other officers.
Many of those individuals, in their plea for leniency to
the judge at sentencing, cited the fact that they had been
inspired by rhetoric used by the former President, by
misinformation from news media outlets that led them to believe
that the 2020 election had been stolen. That it was their
patriotic duty to, in fact, respond to the Capitol that day and
fight to save their country.
Ms. Plaskett. Thank you. I yield back.
Chair Jordan. Gentlelady yields back. The gentleman from
Kentucky is recognized for five minutes.
Mr. Massie. We began this hearing by reciting the Pledge of
Allegiance. I would like to begin my questioning by reciting
the Fourth Amendment. Because I think the other side of the
aisle has kind of forgotten some of the terms that are in
there.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses,
papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures
shall not be violated and no warrants shall issue but upon
probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and
particularly describing the place to be searched and the
persons or things to be seized.
This is in our Constitution.
Mr. Michel, can you tell us how the Bank Secrecy Act and
exemptions to the Right to Financial Privacy Act may not be in
compliance with the Fourth Amendment, or how the implementation
of those acts may violate the Fourth Amendment?
Mr. Michel. Sure. Much like Brian Knight alluded to a
minute ago, once the bank or a financial institution has the
information, the government has it.
So, this came up in the early Supreme Court--in the early
court challenges, it came up in the Supreme Court cases that
eventually--those cases eventually went to the Supreme Court,
in that you have a--we effectively have a law that is a blank
check for the Federal Government or for law enforcement to
obtain all your information simply without a warrant.
Mr. Massie. Without probable cause?
Mr. Michel. They do not have to get a warrant; they do not
have to show probable cause to get the warrant.
Mr. Massie. Do they have to give an oath or affirmation?
Mr. Michel. No.
Mr. Massie. To a judge?
Mr. Michel. No, no. They have to go to the bank.
Mr. Massie. Yes. So, it seems to me that these acts, they
are not just out of date, but they are outside of the
Constitution.
Mr. Knight, you began your opening statement by
characterizing some of the things that the government could
know or infer about you based on how you spend your money.
Could you elaborate on that or reiterate? What are the things
the government can know or infer based on purchasing habits?
Mr. Michel. the government can know almost everything about
you with a relatively high degree of confidence. They know
where you live, they can figure out where you work. They can
figure out potentially things like your sexual orientation.
They can figure out, or at least have a high degree of accuracy
in guessing what your interests are.
They can figure out or have a high degree in guessing what
your religion is. What political beliefs that you support. They
can potentially figure out or at least have a better than
average chance of knowing whether or not you own a firearm.
They could also potentially know if you have had an
abortion. It is worth noting that after the Dobbs decision,
there was a lot of concern raised about the sensitivity of
medical information that would be available under the Bank
Secrecy Act in a State that prohibits or severely restricts
abortion.
So, I just really want to drive home the point that this is
not a left or right thing or an R or D thing. This is a
situation where everyone has sensitive information that is
potentially accessible with basically no due process.
Mr. Massie. Dr. Peterson, why are you such a Luddite? Why
don't you embrace artificial intelligence, facial recognition,
massive computer surveillance, and cameras on every street
corner so that we could all be safer?
Dr. Peterson. Because there is tremendous danger in too
much security. If the emerging collusion between government and
corporation, gigantic corporation, continues in the manner that
it is continuing, there won't be anything that you do that
can't be used against you and will be used against you in very
short order.
The concerns that are expressed here about the local
consequences of that, let's say with regard to January 6th,
seem to me to fail to take into account the much broader threat
that lurks underneath that everyone should be attending to.
We are in danger of eliminating the private sphere
entirely. It is already happening in places around the world,
particularly in China, which is why I made reference to that.
That technology is at hand, and it appears as though both giant
governments and giant corporations are utilizing it in every
way that they can manage.
It is generally, it is often motivated by the claim that
this is forestalling an immediate, proximal threat, right.
Well, that is a short-term justification for engaging in a
tremendous long-term danger.
It should be perceived as dangerous to those on the left
who are politically committed, because it will be the
politically committed who are first identified by such systems.
Mr. Massie. Is it true that you have a Ph.D.?
Dr. Peterson. Yes.
Mr. Massie. Well, then why did Canada decide that you
needed more education? Can you tell us about that?
Dr. Peterson. Well, one reason, the entire transcript of an
interview that I did with Joe Rogan was submitted as evidence
with regard to the unacceptability of my views. What I was
doing primarily in that interview that was criticized and was
questioning the validity of the economic models of economic
collapse that were stacked on the unstable models detailing out
climate change 100 years into the future.
That was deemed in Canada sufficient to proceed with
complaints against me with regard to my professional competence
to serve as a licensed psychologist. That was only one of many
anonymous complaints that were fostered directly in relation to
my political views.
Mr. Massie. Well, I thank you for showing up today. I think
they may use your testimony as evidence that your reeducation
has not been successful.
I yield back to the Chair.
Chair Jordan. Well done. The gentleman yields back. The
gentleman from Virginia is recognized for five minutes.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you. Mr. Knight, you come from the
Mercatus Center, funded generously by the Koch Brothers, as was
the Cato Institute. I, of course, represent George Mason
University, where you are located.
I have a simple question for you. The Republican Conference
Chair, Elise Stefanik, recently said, ``People who are being
imprisoned for crimes committed during January 6th are
hostages.''
Do you agree, yes or no, that the people who have been
arrested, tried, convicted, sentenced, and are serving those
sentences, are in fact hostages?
Mr. Knight. I have not studied that. My initial inclination
is no. If I can elaborate, I have not read all the transcripts
of all the convictions. I will soon--
Mr. Connolly. I thank you. I just find it interesting that
you can opine about menace to the Constitution and
infringements and warrants, but you haven't really looked at
the issue of whether people who committed crimes on January 6th
are hostages or not. Thank you for that moral equivocation.
Officer Fanone, maybe you don't want to equivocate. What do
you think? I am listening to my colleagues, I am listening to
this testimony, and apparently you got it wrong.
On January 6th, there were peaceful citizens simply
protesting on behalf of their First, Second, and Fourth
Amendments rights, carrying Bibles, who had just assembled
peacefully to express themselves here in the Capitol. Isn't
that what you encountered on January 6th?
Mr. Fanone. That couldn't be further from the truth. I
mean, my encounter was brutal, it was violent. It involved a
number of individuals restraining me and beating me.
At least one individual, while I was being restrained and
beaten, subjecting me to electroshock from a taser device on my
neck. All the while resulting in injuries I sustained as a
traumatic brain injury, as well as a heart attack.
Mr. Connolly. So, Mr. Tedesco talked about, among other
things, law enforcement running roughshod over citizens simply
expressing their First and Second Amendment rights. I had the
impression that law enforcement that day apparently was
violently seizing Bibles of good Christians who were simply
trying to exercise their faith. Because we were targeting them
for their faith.
Is that was happened on January 6th?
Mr. Fanone. I responded to the Capitol that day for no
other purpose than to assist fellow officers who were calling
out for help. I didn't care about the location, the Capitol
building itself, and quite frankly, I didn't give a shit about
the Members of Congress. I just came here because cops needed
help. That was it.
Mr. Connolly. We will pretend you didn't say that first
part. By the way, just an oh by the way because we have heard
some interesting testimony again--how long were you in law
enforcement?
Mr. Fanone. Twenty years.
Mr. Connolly. Twenty years. In those 20 years, were you
ever made aware of any effort by the FBI or law enforcement in
general to surveil the financial information of individuals
because of their beliefs or views? Because that is what we are
being led to believe has been occurring.
Mr. Fanone. No. I worked in collaboration--
Mr. Connolly. I am sorry, really loud and clear. Twenty
years of experience, have you ever experienced what they are
describing?
Mr. Fanone. No.
Mr. Connolly. No. Would you find that odd if you did
stumble on it?
Mr. Fanone. Yes.
Mr. Connolly. Why?
Mr. Fanone. Because it violates the very principles of law
enforcement, upholding the Constitution and respecting
Americans' rights.
Mr. Connolly. So, I am going to run out of time, I just,
first, I cannot tell you how much, even though I am a Member of
Congress. I was on the floor on January 6th. I heard it. I saw
a lot. I cannot imagine what you have gone through and how you
are still living through PTSD.
My office was attacked last May, and we are still living
through PTSD. It was violently attacked. I can only imagine.
You are a hero.
No matter what the attempts may be of some to minimize,
diminish, or even fabricate what really happened on January
6th, I assure you there are a number of us who will continue to
fight for the truth to make sure the American people know
exactly what happened.
That we won't equivocate about whether criminals who are
justifiably in jail for their crimes that day are not hostages.
They are criminals. They violated the law.
I cannot think of a more significant breach of the
Constitution than a violent attempt to prevent the free
exercise of an election being counted here in the Capitol.
I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back. The gentleman from
Ohio.
[inaudible].
Mr. Davidson. Thank you, Chair. Thanks for the witnesses
being here today. We are here to talk about, apparently, a
range of things that don't involve the topic of the hearing. I
think that is disappointing.
Freedom surrendered is rarely reclaimed. We have an
opportunity to do that. Few of the rights protected by our
Constitution are more infringed than the right to privacy. My
colleague Mr. Massie read the actual text of the Fourth
Amendment.
Mr. Peterson, Dr. Peterson, you referenced what a lot of
people might wish it said. It does not say that if you have
nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. It says that you
have a reasonable expectation of privacy.
It doesn't say you have an expectation of complete secrecy.
The reasonable expectation of privacy is guarded by due
process, warrants and subpoenas, for U.S. citizens.
You might not know that many of the Members of this
Committee are part of something really rare in Congress, which
is a nonpartisan view. We have got divisions that don't break
on party lines on privacy.
There are Republicans and Democrats who want to roll back
the Patriot Act. What a beautiful name. It is being used to
violate American citizens' rights to privacy.
We have one of the rarest things possible. You have Mr.
Jordan and Mr. Nadler in complete agreement on how to reform
the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Frankly, the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act part works pretty well, it is the
Domestic Surveillance Act. Well, there isn't one, because the
Fourth Amendment guards it. It says you are supposed to get a
warrant.
We are covering a giant hole here, not about January 6th,
but about the Bank Secrecy Act and third-party doctrine. Things
that are being abused, weaponized against the citizens of this
country.
Now, they don't have all these same safeguards in Canada.
Dr. Peterson, you have experienced some of the consequences of
not having the safeguards that we have in this country.
I wonder if you could elaborate on how consequential it is
to have the safeguards we do have here on privacy and speech.
Dr. Peterson. Well, I know that my colleagues on the
psychological front and on the medical front in Canada are
increasingly frightened of making any of their political
opinions known in any for whatsoever because governmental
agencies, usually of the mid-level bureaucratic sort, have been
empowered as a consequence of our lack of First Amendment
rights to intervene as they see fit in relationship to stated
opinion, political, or otherwise.
It is not good; it is seriously not good. There is new
legislation coming up also reflecting that lack of proper
constitutional protection will make even the suspicion that a
crime may be committed punishable. That is Bill C-63, which is
pending before the Canadian House--
Mr. Davidson. These are dangerous ideas, and I appreciated
that you highlighted how China is using it. Frankly, there are
people in the United States pushing for a central bank digital
currency that at the core is a violation of privacy. It is
really the one ring to rule them all.
It is a massive amount of course of power. At the root of
it is the surveillance capability. A lot of that, Mr. Knight,
you have highlighted with the consequences of the Bank Secrecy
Act.
I just wonder if a couple of you have highlighted the cost-
benefit ratio, Mr. Michel as well. Maybe you could highlight
the consequences of the Bank Secrecy Act and how we might
reform it so that we can accomplish the stated goal of safety,
but in a more constitutional framework.
Mr. Knight. Happy to speak to that. I think what we have
seen in this hearing is that one of the big consequences is
that people blur the distinction between not being able to
access information or being able to access information subject
to due process.
There is no reason to believe that the convictions obtained
after January 6th would be impossible without getting a warrant
or information subject to one of the exceptions to the warrant
provision for exigent circumstances.
We also have to worry about the fact that information is
being collected and is very collectible. If you are worried
about your political opponents having power, why do you want
this available to them?
Mr. Davidson. Thank you. Mr. Michel, you mentioned the
third-party doctrine and the hazard of that. Frankly, I am
reminded of a story that, disputed whether it was fully
accurate or not, but when Nikita Khrushchev became the leader
for the Soviet Union, he was pointing out how brutal the regime
had been under Stalin.
Someone from a large crowd yelled to him, ``Why didn't you
do anything?'' Here he is, the dictator of the Soviet Union,
everyone knowing the kind of power that he could wield, and he
said, ``Who said that? I demand to know who said that.''
Everyone got quiet. He let it stay quiet for a very long
time. He said, ``That is why.'' Because you know the course of
power, the State.
Now, I would submit that the police State powers that have
existed in previous eras of history are minor compared to the
capabilities that we have. When you link that to the
consequences of the unmitigated third-party doctrine, can you
lay out for us what is at stake?
Mr. Michel. Well, it literally means that any time you
engage in any commercial transaction, you are effectively
saying, OK, I don't have due process anymore. Which is rather
insane. It turns the concept completely on its head, that we
all have due process.
Mr. Davidson. So, I think we have a really incredible
burden to produce legislation that does reclaim the freedom
that has been surrendered. I hope we continue to work together
in a bipartisan fashion to deliver that reform. I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back. Unanimous consent
from--
Mr. Lynch. Mr. Chair, I have a unanimous consent request
entitled, this was an FBI liaison information report entitled
``Domestic Violent Extremists Emboldened in Aftermath of
Capitol Breach.''
It cites online rhetoric regarding the January 20th
Presidential Inauguration, with some calling for unspecified
justice for the January 6th shooting by law enforcement of an
individual at the Capitol building, and another positing that
``Many armed individuals would return on January 19th,
according to open-source reporting.''
Chair Jordan. Without objection.
Mr. Lynch. Thank you.
Chair Jordan. Gentleman from California is recognized.
Mr. Garamendi. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Chair Jordan. Hank, hold one second. We will stop your
time.
I should have mentioned, if any of you need a break, just
let us know. If you have to run to the restroom or anything,
just let us know. We have been going at this for two hours. We
have probably got a half hour to go, if you can, fine. If you
need a break, just let us know and we will go there.
I apologize, the gentleman is recognized.
Mr. Garamendi. No problem, Mr. Chair.
It is unfortunate that this has tended to focus on January
6th and the inaugural that followed two weeks later, because
there is a legitimate question about the gathering of
information, mostly by private sector businesses and the like,
and then the government accessing that information. It is a
worldwide phenomenon, and it is something that we should be
focusing on.
Unfortunately, what has happened here in this hearing is
that we have taken the January 6th issue, the insurrection, the
violence, the harm that came to Officer Fanone and others, and
morphed it into a larger question of our civil liberties.
That is unfortunate. Here we are, using this hearing to
somehow degrade the violence and the insurrection itself and
the ultimate effort to destroy our democracy. I think we have
to stay with that a few seconds.
Officer Fanone, just a couple of questions I want to get
clear. Do you have the number of insurrectionist rioters that
have been charged and found guilty?
Mr. Fanone. Correct.
Mr. Garamendi. Do you know the number is I think over
1,100.
Mr. Fanone. That is my understanding, close to 1,200.
Mr. Garamendi. In this process, was any information
developed that indicated there might be future violence? For
example, at the inaugural?
Mr. Fanone. Yes, that is my understanding from speaking to
those involved in the investigation.
Mr. Garamendi. Do any of the witnesses disagree with that?
Based on this, is it reasonable for the Federal Government,
FBI and other agencies, to investigate certain individuals in
an effort to prevent future violence? Is that a reasonable
thing for the government to do?
Mr. Fanone. Again, I don't only think it is reasonable, I
think that it is a requirement.
Mr. Garamendi. Now, do any of you disagree that it would be
reasonable for the Federal Government to investigate those who
were involved and the threats that there might be future
violence? Is that something that the FBI and others should do?
Dr. Peterson. I would disagree with that to some degree. It
depends on how they do it because--
Mr. Garamendi. Thank you. Point well made. Not going to--
Dr. Peterson. Yes.
Mr. Garamendi. So, the notion of continued investigation
based on information received as a result of the conviction and
investigations of those that were involved in the insurrection,
the rioting, would be reasonable.
So, now we get down to the point, and this is where this
hearing really got off track, and it is unfortunate to equate
this issue of our personal civil liberties and privacies with
the January 6th insurrection.
We need to divide these two issues. There is no doubt we
had an insurrection. There is no doubt we had a riot. There is
no doubt that Officer Fanone, you were injured along with 140
other officers. The film that was shown earlier clearly
demonstrates that, and your own testimony.
We thank you for your work that day. I think I agree with
Mr. Connolly, you may not think it important to protect us, but
we certainly thought, and we thank you for having done so.
The reality is that it was an extraordinary serious event
in America's history. It was the single largest assault on
police ever in the history of this Nation.
Now, based on that, where do we go? Put that over here.
Then, Mr. Chair, if you would, put all that aside and stop
trying to protect Mr. Trump or anybody else that was involved
in that riot and that insurrection. Let's get down to the issue
of protecting our civil liberties.
There are multiple examples that could be used and evidence
that could be used to get to that point. Some of it presented
by the witnesses today, unfortunately wrapped up in the January
6th and the insurrection and the subsequent question of the
inaugural.
I do note as I drove here this morning that a new fence has
been put around the Capitol building. Now, this speaks to all
our safety. Why is it that in America today, we have a need for
a new seven-foot-high fence around the Capitol on the day that
the President arrives to give his State of the Union?
So, I think I will just leave it there with the seconds
left.
Mr. Chair, if you would put aside your desire to go after
and protect the President and get down to the issues that are
really critically important for all of us, I would appreciate
it. I think this country would also.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back. The gentlelady
from Wyoming is recognized for five minutes.
Ms. Hageman. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
We have been focusing on how technological platforms and
advancement further fuels the weaponization of the Federal
Government in collaboration with big corporations against the
American people. At least that was the intent of this hearing,
and it is the intent of the folks on this side of the aisle.
Today it is how developments in financial technology have
aided the surveillance of the American people. During our last
hearing, we focused on how AI is expanding the monitoring and
suppression of speech.
Today I want to focus on new reporting which connects the
financial surveillance and AI together. Last month, journalist
James O'Keefe posted a report alleging that the IRS and DOJ
were utilizing AI technology to assist with the surveillance of
American bank accounts.
These allegations are that AI can access bank accounts and
look inside those accounts, versus just seeing activities in
the account. This surveillance by the IRS is being done without
a warrant, and it is being done in coordination with the DOJ.
Just two months before this revelation, FinCEN informed us
in staff briefings that banks were beginning to deploy AI
technology in their business models. Meanwhile, we are watching
Google's Gemini's failures from its politically biased model,
which Google co-founder Sergey Brin called left-leaning, which
I believe is pretty much the understatement of the year.
In the report released by this Subcommittee last night, we
document how the FBI and FinCEN reported information to assist
financial surveillance, which certain Americans--on certain
Americans, based on strictly conservative ideas.
Mr. Knight, you noted that we are limited to speaking on
what has been reported related to the financial surveillance
regime, because so little is known by the public and Congress.
The timeline that I just described provides little detail, but
it does show that this area is developing very quickly and
raises further concerns about Federal agencies undertaking
dragnet surveillance using financial records.
Based on what we know so far about the coordination between
the financial sector and the Federal Government, does the
addition of AI into this equation cause even greater concern
regarding the scope and scale of financial surveillance that we
can expect to occur in the future?
Mr. Knight. So, I believe it does for several reasons.
(1) To the extent that it makes something less expensive,
you'll get more of it.
(2) To the extent that AI is not well tuned, either
intentionally or unintentionally, you're going to get the risk
that you're not only going to have more false positives, but
also that it's going to start selecting for information that
may not be appropriate.
(3) There's concern--and I don't want to overblow the
concern, but it does exist--that AI tends to be opaque. This
regime is already opaque enough. So, if the Great and Powerful
Oz is spitting out records they consider suspicious and you
don't know why, and we can't assess how appropriate it is,
that's obviously very problematic.
So, I think that we do need to be cautious. I would say one
distinction between this and maybe some other areas are here
we're talking about feeding information to the government. So,
there are constitutional implications here that don't
necessarily exist in other areas. Doesn't mean we shouldn't be
cautious in other areas, but we should be especially cautious
here.
Ms. Hageman. I appreciate your response, and I think that
you're actually spot on. Also, concern with the evolution of AI
in relation to this is liberty infringing regime that we're
dealing with right now, the Biden Administration, is the fact
that it removes human accountability. What we have learned so
far is that the information we have so far came from a paper
trail from a government employee. Yet, with AI, that paper
trail is going to disappear. Mr. Michel, what could another
lawyer of secrecy achieve by displacing human action with AI do
to further erode our liberties and basic guarantees of privacy?
Mr. Michel. Well, at first, I would just caution that banks
and financial institutions have been using technology at an
increasing rate for a very long time. The problem--still the
bigger problem is the principle. If we guarantee due process
and we guarantee that law enforcement needs a warrant to get
that information, then I think that's a better place.
Aside from that, yes, the better and the broader the
technology allows people to reach or the finer detail that it
allows people to get, then obviously the more of it you're
going to get. I think Brian is right that it's going to make it
less--more efficient and less costly. So, you'll get more of
it. Again, the principle of the Fourth Amendment, the due
process, that's what's key here.
Ms. Hageman. Thank you. I appreciate that. With that, I
yield back.
Chair Jordan. Gentlelady yields back. The gentlelady from
California is recognized--or Texas, excuse me. I'm sorry.
Texas.
Ms. Garcia. Please, there's a huge difference. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to all the witnesses who
are here this morning. On the morning of January 6th, I joined
my colleagues of the House to certify the historic election of
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
That day quickly became a dark day in our Nation's history.
Within hours, the Capitol was overrun by domestic terrorists
sent there by President Trump. I don't mean terrorists in some
academic, legal, or political science definition.
I was terrified, my staff with me was terrified, and many
of my colleagues around me, both Democrat and Republican,
because this is not a partisan issue, were also terrified. Now,
some of my colleagues have already forgotten the violence and
terror that we all experienced together. We've heard some of
the comments.
They think they should be called hostages. They think they
should be treated as patriots. Well, they were terrorists plain
and simple in my book.
I learned for the first time that there were gas masks
underneath our seats on the House floor designed to keep us
from chemical or biological attacks when I was told to put one
on. Imagine we were told to put on gas masks. My colleagues and
I on the floor were hiding between seats, barricading doors,
and some of us calling their families as the mob grew louder
and more terrifying.
They were pounding at the door trying to get in, ``Where's
Nancy? Hang Mike Pence. Where's Nancy? Where's Nancy?'' They
set up gallows to prevent them from coming in.
The intentions of these terrorists were clear. Overturn the
election and kill the Democratic elected leaders they believed
stood in their way. Anyone who claims this was not a terrorist
attack, a violent insurrection is simply not facing reality.
As one witness has said, ``they're just plain and simple
lying.'' Even in California, they would call that lying.
Despite every truth, here we are today, more myths and more
misleading information given to the American people.
Well, Officer Fanone, thank you for being there and also
for having the courage to come to testify today and for
reminding us all about the truth of that day. Some colleagues
wrap themselves in Blue Lives Matter flags for social media and
throw them in the trash for the officers who watched over our
democracy. I will never forget what I saw and felt that day.
Without your sacrifice and some of those who died that day or
were injured that day defending the Constitution and all
enemies foreign and domestic.
So, Officer Fanone, while law enforcement kept us safe
inside the Capitol, outside the building, you were facing
staggering odds. Reports indicate that the west side of the
crowd outnumbered officers 58 to 1. One officer, they requested
backup at least 17 times in 78 minutes. Did you and your
colleagues get the sense that you were defending democracy that
day?
Mr. Fanone. That's not anything that--those thoughts never
crossed my mind. Again, like I said, I responded to the Capitol
heeding distress calls coming from fellow officers. When I was
fighting, I was more concerned with my own survival and that of
my colleagues than the totality of what that day would later
come to represent.
Ms. Garcia. Right. As you reflect now, do you see the
connection. Do you see what really was happening that day? It
was not just the violence of the mob, but it was the attack on
everything that we stand for as a country.
Mr. Fanone. Yes, ma'am. That's my assessment.
Ms. Garcia. Thank you. Many members of the public have
spoken about and recorded memories of their experiences. We
know that many Members of Congress has struggled with trauma
from that day.
We know that you have. Is it possible--and I know it may
bring a lot of emotion. Is it possible for you to share with us
what you have dealt with personally as the aftereffects of that
day?
Mr. Fanone. Sure. Initially, I think there were just the
experience of the day itself, the level of violence. For me, in
my personal experience, I think what was so difficult to deal
with was the first time in my law enforcement career and I work
narcotics. So, it's to say that I've experienced a few things.
I had never been completely--I had lost all control of my
own survival in those moments. It was only because of a few
individuals in the crowd and the efforts of law enforcement
that I was able to survive that. So that level of vulnerability
for me, as an officer, was more than I could deal with.
In the aftermath, there was criticism from--internal
criticism on behalf of other officers in the department that
made the experience much more difficult. Then eventually, the
mischaracterizations, the lies about what happened that day,
lies about me specifically, and who I was or what role I played
at the Capitol on January 6th, inspiring threats against myself
and members of my family. In a way, I think it's impossible,
for me at least, to fully resolve that trauma because even in
attending this hearing today, I received threats. So, how do
you resolve that when it's ongoing?
Ms. Garcia. I'm sorry that it happened and thank you for
your courage. Thank you for coming and sharing with us today. I
yield back.
Chair Jordan. Gentlelady yield back. The Chair recognizes
himself. Mr. Michel, if the government is going to go get
information from banks and understand what happened in this
particular situation and other situations, the government goes
to the bank says, I want the name of the customer who's making
purchases in a certain daytime, and I want the name of the
customer who may have bought a firearm at any time. If they're
going to do that, do you think they need to get a warrant
first?
Mr. Michel. Do I think they should?
Chair Jordan. Yes.
Mr. Michel. Yes.
Chair Jordan. Mr. Tedesco, do you think they need to get a
warrant to do that?
Mr. Tedesco. Yes.
Chair Jordan. Mr. Knight?
Mr. Knight. Yes.
Chair Jordan. Mr. Peterson?
Dr. Peterson. Yes.
Chair Jordan. Mr. Fanone, do you think they need to get a
warrant?
Mr. Fanone. Could you repeat the question?
Chair Jordan. If the government goes to a bank and says I
want the name of the customer who made purchases on these
specific dates and may have bought a firearm at any time.
Should there be a warrant requirement before the bank has to be
compelled by the government to give that information? Should
there be a warrant requirement first?
Mr. Fanone. I mean, in my experience, I always sought
voluntary compliance. It's less paperwork. That being said, if
I was unable to--
Chair Jordan. Wait. Voluntary compliance?
Mr. Fanone. Correct.
Chair Jordan. How is it voluntary? This is the third party.
The bank is giving it.
Mr. Fanone. No, if I go to the bank and request certain
information regarding an investigation that I'm participating
in--
Chair Jordan. I'm just saying in a fundamental sense, do
you think there should be a warrant requirement before some
financial institution hands over the name of the customer based
on certain purchases they may have made? So, in a general
sense?
Mr. Fanone. Yes.
Chair Jordan. You think there should be?
Mr. Fanone. Yes.
Chair Jordan. That's great because your colleagues don't
think so. Now, let me go to this. Do you think, Mr. Michel,
that if you can't do a warrant, do you think there should be at
least a notification?
So, should at least the banks say, hey, Mr. Smith, the FBI
just asked me for all your purchases on a certain day and they
want to know if you've ever bought a gun? Do you think that the
bank should at least tell their customer, their customer who
they're supposed to serve? Do you think they should at least be
compelled to tell them that?
Mr. Michel. Yes.
Chair Jordan. Mr. Tedesco?
Mr. Tedesco. Yes.
Chair Jordan. Mr. Knight?
Mr. Knight. Yes, with reasonable exceptions for an ongoing
criminal case.
Chair Jordan. Fair enough. Mr. Peterson?
Dr. Peterson. They should get a warrant.
Chair Jordan. They should get a warrant. Back to the first
thing. Mr. Fanone?
Mr. Fanone. Again, with exceptions for criminal
investigations.
Chair Jordan. We got agreement on the panel, the first time
we've had that this morning. Dr. Peterson, I want you to talk
about the debanking issue we saw so much of and how that was--
particularly, I guess, with the truckers and how that--because
I see it coming. I see it coming here, and it frightens me. I
want you to talk about what took place in Canada and if it at
any way impacted you.
Dr. Peterson. Well, there was essentially a working-class
protest against the COVID--extent of length of the COVID
lockdowns. One consequence of that was the Canadians who
participated even by donating to the protest and even by
donating small amounts to the protest had their bank accounts
seized in consequence of a collusion between the banks and the
government that was extrajudi-cial that was recently deemed
unconstitutional despite the fact that we don't have strong
First Amendment claims. So, this happened.
The government is currently maneuvering in Canada to make
the possibility of such collusion a certainty across multiple
actual and potential domains of so-called harm, particularly in
relationship to government defined hate. Yes, this is
absolutely coming. It's facilitated by the kinds of
advancements in technology that we talked about today.
Chair Jordan. Yes, we know it's coming because we've seen
this, what do they call it, the Liaison Information Report from
the FBI to the banks saying, possibly include firearm
legislation to ease immigration, set new limits on public land,
and discontent with renewed measures to mitigate the spread of
COVID-19. So, the very issue, the very issue that these
truckers were debanked in Canada is the very thing the
government is saying to banks, we need to look at this as well,
that single issue. That is, again, what frightens me so much.
Frankly, when you're getting this information, if you're going
to get it, why you should be compelled to get the warrant
before you go get it. Mr. Knight, jump right in.
Mr. Knight. I want to clarify one part of my answer to the
second question about notification.
Chair Jordan. Yes.
Mr. Knight. The Right to Financial Privacy Act I think does
a good job of this where notification can be delayed. the
government has to go to court and get permission to delay. I
think if we're going--
Chair Jordan. You shift the burden.
Mr. Knight. Yes. I mean, and the burden--
Chair Jordan. The burden is where it should be on the
government to get it from a court.
Mr. Knight. Absolutely. I do believe that there should be a
warrant requirement. So, the notification would only be delayed
in that event.
Chair Jordan. In this world we're now in, the Full
Committee, as I said--I think I may have mentioned earlier on
the FISA Reauthorization, we have said the same thing. If
you're going to go search, American citizens based on their
phone number, their email address, in this haystack of
information that's out there, if you're going to do that, go
get a warrant. We're having the same fight there.
It seems to me that getting a warrant, Fourth Amendment,
constitutional right is how it has to be handled. My time is
expired. I yield to the Ranking Member.
Ms. Plaskett. Thank you very much. I thought it was very
telling that Mr. Knight said that, yes, going after bank
records would be inappropriate except in a criminal
investigation. Oh, criminal investigation, that's what the FBI
was doing, was involved in a criminal investigation.
Chair Jordan. With a warrant, he's for it.
Ms. Plaskett. No, with a warrant. It's not necessary to
have a warrant. Go back to criminal procedure. You don't always
need a warrant when you have voluntary authorization.
Everyone who opens a bank account is told when they open
their bank account that their information may be disclosed to
law enforcement. Now, if we want to change that rule in the
consumer protection laws, then we need to do that. Until then,
they have a reasonable expectation that law enforcement may
disclose that information.
Because once you are banking with a banking institution,
that information in that record belongs to the banking
institution. It doesn't solely belong to you anymore when you
are using a bank in the banking institution, and they have
given disclosure. Now, if we want to make it an affirmative
disclosure where an individual has to specifically check off
the box that allows them to be aware of it when they're opening
a bank, then that's something else.
You do not need a warrant. You can have voluntary
disclosure because under our law presenting, the banks have
possession and ownership of that information. Now, the other
thing that I think you have talked about is, are we worried
about that this is only going to happen to the conservatives?
No, I'm also concerned if that were--if the FBI were to
overreach. I am concerned with that, and I do understand that
this is something that law enforcement does and that we need to
be careful about what they do. I just find it very interesting
that you all are--my colleagues and one of our witnesses, Mr.
Fanone, is not a colleague of ours and is giving his opinion as
a law enforcement officer. Sir, was there something else that
you wanted to add?
Mr. Fanone. Within the context of this particular
investigation, one of the reasons why I believe that the FBI
would've sought voluntary compliance as opposed to applying for
a warrant is the sheer magnitude of the event. You had
literally thousands of people who participated in the attack on
the Capitol on January 6th. In an abundance of caution and
really the responsibility of the FBI and those other
investigating agencies is to ensure that violence does not
occur again at our inauguration, which was only about two weeks
after that. So, I think it wholly appropriate--as you just
said, it's completely within our capabilities as law
enforcement agencies to seek voluntary compliance from these
institutions to investigate criminal acts or potential criminal
acts.
Ms. Plaskett. Thank you. So, there was an imminent threat
on the American people, on the homeland, that being individuals
who said they were going to come back and finish the job that
they had started on January 6th to try and stop the placement
of Joe Biden as President of the United States. Now, there's a
lot of things we can have hearings on.
Mr. Chair, you have not sat down with me at any point in
time like we do in other committees and talked about what are
the things that we can agree on that we want to--you came to
office one time, and we had a discussion. I gave you a list of
things that I would like to have a hearing about. You
completely ignored me in that.
Your team doesn't even give us testimony until the very
last minute that they have to. You do not even let us know the
subjects of hearings. Sometimes I find out about what we're
going to hear--a hearing is going to be on, on Twitter.
You are not operating as a fair dealer in this. So, don't
try that here in front of everybody. I am concerned about
things.
I'm concerned about what will happen if Donald Trump does
get reelected because on November 9, 2023, in a Univision
interview, he said,
If I happen to be President and I see somebody who's doing well
and beating me very badly, I say go down and indict them. They
would be out of business. They'd be out of the election.
On November 11, 2023, at a Veterans Day rally--I can't believe
he was at a Veterans Day after what he says about our men and
women in uniform--he said,
We pledge to you that we will root out the Communist, Marxist,
Fascist, and radical left thugs that live like vermin within
the confines of our country and that lie and steal and cheat on
elections.
He seems to be a threat to the First, the Fourth, a whole bunch
of amendments. You're not going to try and have a hearing on
him in this weaponization of the Federal Government, which we
know that Donald Trump is going to use for his own dictatorial,
narcissist, failing, failing in business, failing in
Presidency, and failing in life itself.
Chair Jordan. Gentlelady yields back. The gentleman from
North Dakota is recognized.
Mr. Armstrong. So, there's a carjacking outside of 7-Eleven
in downtown Washington, DC. The cop calls Bank of American and
says I need every person in your bank who has ever bought a gun
anytime, anywhere. It's an ongoing criminal investigation.
``Everything Everywhere All at Once,'' won the Oscar last
year for the best movie. It's not the standard for a Fourth
Amendment warrant. I think this is about as important a hearing
as we could have, because if they're doing it to Members of
Congress, Members of Congress' staff, reporters who are
engaging in all of this, imagine what's going on at another
time.
By the way, the Supreme Court agrees with me, and we'll get
into that in a little bit. When the Bank of America provided
the FBI a list of people who made financial transactions with a
Bank of America card in Washington, DC, between January 5-7,
2021, the practice of sweeping up thousands of Americans
without probable cause and specify in a search for a specific
suspect is inconsistent with the specificity requirement of the
Fourth Amendment and the entire criminal justice system.
Considering how many Americans use Bank of American credit or
debit cards, this list must've included thousands of people.
This list almost certainly included Members of Congress,
their staff, or performing constitutionally mandated functions
as well as reporters who were engaged in First Amendment
protected activity. Countless other individuals were swept into
this surveillance without probable cause. The list included
people who had a history of purchasing a firearm at any time
which is a constitutionally protected activity.
So, we likely have violations of First, Second, and Fourth
Amendment. The fact that America's data is handed over to the
Feds on a fishing expedition by the banking industry because
their customers were present in a particular region or
purchased a constitutionally protected item is unacceptable. I
reject any argument that this financial information is subject
to third party doctrine and therefore an exception to the
Fourth Amendment, and I've been arguing this for years.
The third-party exception in the modern economy threatens
to make the Fourth Amendment irrelevant. The Fourth Amendment,
it has survived telephoto lenses, drones, listening devices,
and tracking devices. The Fourth Amendment has proved to be
incredibly resilient.
This is the place. This is the place where Congress has to
act. The Supreme Court seems to agree with that concern based
on Carpenter v. U.S. Mr. Michel, the majority opinion in
Carpenter stated that the cell site location information is,
quote, ``detailed, encyclopedic, and effortlessly compiled.''
Is the financial transaction data that was released here any
less detailed, encyclopedic, and effortlessly compiled in
relation to a Fourth Amendment legal analysis?
Mr. Michel. I don't believe.
Mr. Armstrong. Can you imagine any judge in the country who
would make a probable cause finding to authorize a search
warrant for all this detailed financial information on this
many people with this set of facts? Mr. Tedesco?
Mr. Tedesco. No.
Mr. Armstrong. There are also similarities with this in
U.S. v. Chatrie. A Federal Court found that geofence warrants
violate the Fourth Amendment. Geofence warrants are a practice
where law enforcement seeks location data on any device within
the specific time and geographic region where crime took place.
The Court found that it is insufficient for law enforcement
to obtain the data base solely on information that a suspect
possessed a cell phone while in the general area where a crime
was committed. Beyond the Court's concern with probable cause,
it highlighted that no judicial review whatsoever was attained,
and law enforcement has unchecked discretion to seize more
intrusive data. Mr. Michel, are those the same concerning
factors presented with the financial data that was turned over
to the Federal Government in this case?
Mr. Michel. Yes.
Mr. Armstrong. Mr. Tedesco?
Mr. Tedesco. Yes.
Mr. Armstrong. Mr. Knight?
Mr. Knight. It sounds very similar.
Mr. Armstrong. My colleagues across the aisle have raised
many concerns about broad violations of privacy, financial, or
technological institutions in trapping private user data and
reviewing it to government parties. In fact, during an energy
and commerce hearing debate on comprehensive data privacy,
there were several amendments to prohibit the collection of
geolocation data on facilities, such as Planned Parenthood,
that transferred that data to law enforcement or to government
authorities. We know that the CDC was collecting data to see if
people were going to church during quarantine--church during
quarantine.
This conversation, how we deal with this, is the
fundamental question we have to answer as we move forward. We
can talk about January 6th and the event, and we can talk about
all that, but there were thousands of innocent people that went
to Bass Pro Shops in Virginia in the two-days before and after
January 6th.
Doesn't matter how bad you think the event was or where it
was or whatever. You cannot get a warrant on somebody for
exercising their constitutional rights. If you can't get a
warrant for somebody to do it, then we have to create a
situation where banks and large corporations or anybody else or
third-party data brokers, by the way, are allowed to sell that
information.
Law enforcement is allowed to obtain it without getting a
warrant. This is a fundamental question. It's a perfect place
to have it in this hearing. It is exactly what happened in this
case. With that, I yield back.
Chair Jordan. Gentleman yields back. The gentleman from New
York is recognized.
Mr. Goldman. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just to follow on with
my colleague from North Dakota, the notion that subpoenas are
not sufficient to get information and that every ounce of
evidence must be obtained by a search warrant, of course, has
been repeatedly rejected by the Supreme Court over and over and
over. This hearing, the reason why as Mr. Armstrong says we are
talking about January 6th is because, as I understand it, this
hearing was initially spurred on by an FBI whistleblower who is
not here testifying today.
The one who ostensibly had the information about alleged
wrongdoing is not here to stand in front of us to testify under
oath to be questioned by the Members of both sides. Mr. Knight,
I want to ask you a hypothetical. Let's say that there's a riot
and an attack on our democracy on a particular day. We'll just
call it January 6th for the purpose of this hypothetical.
Let's say that the FBI has information that an individual
was near the site of the riot that day. Let's say that the FBI
had evidence that an individual purchased a firearm in the past
six months. Let's say that the FBI had evidence that same
person planned to return two weeks later to interfere with
another democratic process involving the President of the
United States. Is it actually your testimony here today to say
that it is a violation of the Fourth Amendment for the FBI to
seek bank records for that individual?
Mr. Knight. May I ask a clarifying question?
Mr. Goldman. Sure.
Mr. Knight. So, at least based on the public information I
have available, they do not know on an individualized basis
that people were planning to return to cause violence. I think
that's a distinction that's worth knowing.
Mr. Goldman. That's fine. I agree with you. That's not in
the hypothetical. They just knew they were going to return.
Mr. Knight. I believe you said something along the lines of
evidence that they were coming back to--
Mr. Goldman. To interfere. You're right. Let's just say
that. Do you think the Fourth Amendment prohibits the FBI from
getting bank records for that individual if they don't know
that they're going to commit violence?
Mr. Knight. I think that's an easy warrant to get.
Mr. Goldman. A warrant?
Mr. Knight. Yes, I think that would be an easy warrant to
get from a judge.
Mr. Goldman. So, you're not saying that you need to get a
warrant for bank records?
Mr. Knight. I am saying you should have to get a warrant
for bank records. The status quo--
Mr. Goldman. So, you disagree with the Supreme Court which
has upheld the constitutionality of the Bank Secrecy Act?
Mr. Knight. So, if you'd like to talk about the Supreme
Court precedent in the Bank Secrecy Act, I think that
Carpenter, which is a far more recent case, points to some very
strong questions about the constitutionality of the Bank
Secrecy Act. I've written something about it. I'm happy to--
Mr. Goldman. I understand. By the way, I agree. Carpenter
also demonstrates that the Supreme Court is evolving and is
evolving on the Fourth Amendment. There's question--and I would
tell you as a former prosecutor, if I had that predication, I
would fire off a subpoena to that bank every single day ten out
of ten times.
Mr. Knight. Well, respectfully, sir, it doesn't seem like--
Mr. Goldman. Now, I'm sorry. I have to move on. I have to
move on because I think it's absolutely absurd that we are
sitting here trying to make an argument that somehow the Fourth
Amendment is being violated when there is specific reasonable
suspicion about every individual whose bank records were
obtained because they bought a gun. They were at the
insurrection, and they were going to come back.
The fact of the matter is we are once again here on a
completely sham rationale. There was no First Amendment or
Fourth Amendment violation around January 6th. This is simply
another effort to whitewash what happened on January 6th.
One of the Members of the Committee calls those who were
convicted of crimes hostages while there are actual American
hostages sitting in Gaza right now under captivity of a
terrorist organization. We're supposed to equate the people
sitting in jail who rioted and attacked this Capitol. We're
supposed to equate them with these hostages.
Mr. Chair, you continually say that it used to be that both
parties agreed with the First Amendment. It didn't used to be.
It is. It remains the case.
We all agree with the First Amendment. The problem is that
the First Amendment is not absolute. It does not protect any
single thing anyone says. There are limits, and that's
important. What this Committee has been trying to do for the
last year and a half is to chill the Federal Government from
monitoring what is going on, on social media and otherwise out
there so that misinformation and disinformation can run
rampant, and on Elon Musk's social platform and every other
social platform so that they, the Republicans, can benefit from
it in November's election.
Chair Jordan. The time--
Mr. Goldman. That is why this Committee exists and we have
gotten no evidence to support any of these allegations.
Chair Jordan. The time of the gentleman has expired.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from South Carolina.
Mr. Fry. I yield to the Chair such time as he may--
Chair Jordan. I appreciate that. I think the gentleman from
New York just said that we're trying to chill the Federal
Government. I don't know if it's ever been said that way.
It's always the government trying to chill American's
rights and chill America. I've never seen anything--I've never
seen anything like--but guess what. Do you know who was opposed
to how the FBI and the Bank of America did this thing when they
asked for this information?
Who was opposed to it? Three FBI agents. The guys on the
case, George Hill, Bonavolonta, and Steve Jensen all tested to
the Committee that it was--well, and guess who else said it was
wrong? Chris Wray said this, ``we recall this information to
avoid even the appearance of any kind of overreach.''
So, even the FBI who systematically violated Americans,
this FBI who said if you're a pro-life Catholic or you're an
extremist, if you're a parent going to a school board meeting,
you're a terrorist. Even the FBI said, ``this is ridiculous,''
and they pulled back. Three agents testified.
Somehow the Federal Government is the one who chills
American speech when they pressure Big Tech to censor, when
they ask banks to give them--that's chilling speech. We've seen
it first--Dr. Peterson has seen it in his own country, and now
it's coming here. That's what we're concerned about. I yield
back to the gentleman and thank him for yielding.
Mr. Fry. Thank you, Chair. I would echo that. I'm glad that
Thomas Massie started off with a recitation of the Fourth
Amendment because that's really why we're here. While the other
side wants to relitigate J6, the title of the hearing is about
financial surveillance of American citizens.
This is deeply troubling that if you are a Catholic that
cares about your child's education and you shop at Gander
Mountain that you are a prime suspect under some sort of weird
rubric in the government surveillance operation. I think the
Supreme Court in looking at this when they were looking at the
BSA in a concurring opinion said Justice Powell and Justice
Black said, ``financial transactions can reveal much about a
person's activities, associations, and beliefs.'' At some
point, government intrusion on these areas would implicate
legitimate expectations of privacy.
Moreover, the potential for abuse is particularly acute
whereas here the legislative scheme permits access to this
information without invocation of the judicial process. So, Mr.
Tedesco, how do we get there? At what point--or how do we get
to a point where big banks can just freely hand over this
information to the Federal Government?
Mr. Tedesco. Well, I think the biggest concern from our
perspective is the systemic censorship risk within the banking
industry that is really a product of the oversight and
pervasive regulatory authority that bank supervisors have over
banks. If you think about the top five banks have 50 percent of
the bank deposit market in the United States, you see that
there's a concentration of power in the banking industry that
just a few banks that are heavily regulated. Because of the
secrecy around bank supervision, the reasons why people are
debanked and why these kinds of things are occurring is
shrouded. So, it's a huge problem. The censorship risk is real
in the financial industry sector.
Mr. Fry. Who would you consider to be the biggest victims
of this surveillance operation?
Mr. Tedesco. I think it's the American citizens, and I
think it's a bipartisan issue. Even some of the Democrats in
this chamber and the Senate sent letters to the big banks just
a few weeks ago talking about derisking. They call debanking
derisking. We're talking about the same thing of Arab
Americans, Muslim Americans, including because of their
religious donations and donations to charity. So, it's a
bipartisan issue, and I think we all should be concerned about
it and try to work together for solutions.
Mr. Fry. No, I 100 percent agree with you. What do you
think right now under the BSA, under the current structure,
what is the remedy for Americans?
Mr. Tedesco. Well, there isn't much--
Mr. Fry. There is none, right? There is no mechanism for
judicial review, right? So, Americans cannot protest a bank who
is ostensibly an arm of the government at this point. They
cannot protest the disclosure of their financial transactions
to the Federal Government. There's no mechanism for that, is
there?
Mr. Tedesco. That's right.
Mr. Fry. So, obviously, they don't have any knowledge that
their data was collected to begin with, do they?
Mr. Tedesco. Yes, I think one of the scariest things I've
heard at this hearing was what Mr. Michel said, ``Once the bank
has the data, the government has the data.''
Mr. Fry. Right. Can you hire a private security firm to
search for somebody's house without a warrant?
Mr. Tedesco. I don't think so, no.
Mr. Fry. No, you have to have a warrant. So, what is the
difference here?
Mr. Tedesco. It's a big risk, and it needs to be fixed.
Mr. Fry. So, you would articulate--let me ask the panel
this. Do you think that under the current BSA or other laws it
would be wise? Given where we are from a technology standpoint,
do you think it would be wise to revisit the BSA or the other
laws to provide that protection for America's privacy? Sir?
Dr. Peterson. Well, there were some concerns expressed
earlier about what might happen in the aftermath, let's say
Donald Trump's election with regard to political belief and
anything that facilitates the collusion between government and
giant corporation and enables that kind of information
gathering will absolutely be used in that way. That's why I
made comments earlier regarding this as a bipartisan issue.
Once this capability exists and it's being magnified now, it
will be used in all directions. So, the people at risk will be
politically active vocal Americans. The silent ones will remain
relatively safe. Anyone who speaks--
Mr. Fry. Thank you. Briefly, do you all think that we
should examine--
Mr. Knight. We should absolutely examine it.
Mr. Tedesco. Agree.
Mr. Michel. Yes, definitely.
Mr. Fanone. Yes.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman's time is expired. The
gentlelady from Florida is recognized.
Ms. Plaskett. Mr. Chair, I had a point of order. In your
last statement, you said that Steven Jensen of the FBI opposed
the collection of this information for banks. That's a
misrepresentation of his testimony.
Chair Jordan. It's not an appropriate point of order. The
gentlelady from Florida is recognized for five minutes.
Ms. Plaskett. Jensen said that the information was not--can
you release the transcripts so that we can hear exactly what
Mr. Jensen said?
Chair Jordan. Not an appropriate point of order, and the
gentlelady knows that. She continues to try to ask a question
that is a point of--
Ms. Plaskett. Same way you interject, sir.
Chair Jordan. I don't think I've raised one point of order
today.
Ms. Plaskett. You interject all the time.
Chair Jordan. The gentlelady from Florida is recognized.
Ms. Plaskett. All the time.
Ms. Cammack. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm actually just--I
continue to be stunned by the big government advocates that we
come across and the ones that serve in this very chamber.
They're not even hiding it anymore.
They're saying the quiet part out loud. They want
dependency. They want control. A total disregard for the
Constitution and the oath that many of my colleagues--actually,
all my colleagues have taken and violated.
It's so disturbing to me. Many people know probably as
evidenced by what is on the face of my iPad that I detest big
government and I detest big tech. The two combined have proven
to be a lethal combination when it comes to liberty and freedom
because quite frankly, we know the MO of big tech and big
financial institutions combined with big government is to erode
and evade America's constitutional rights.
We're here today because of a blatant Fourth Amendment
violation where big banks colluded with big government to turn
over data that didn't belong to them to target Americans,
innocent Americans. Because in this country, it is still a fact
that you are innocent until proven guilty, despite what
everyone is trying to do and flip that around. Dr. Peterson,
it's good to see you again.
I couldn't help but notice your reaction when my colleague
was talking about the First Amendment not being absolute. So, I
do want to give you the opportunity to weigh in and respond to
that. I couldn't help but notice your reaction.
Before I do, I'm really glad that you have been talking
about the social credit system that the CCP--the Chinese
Communist Party utilizes. I am literally around the corner in a
classified briefing right now talking about the use of big tech
and how it is targeting American citizens. In fact, the is very
morning, I have been inundated in my office with phone calls
from TikTok users who have been denied access to the app
because they live in my Congressional District.
Until they call my office and demand that I do not take
adverse action against the app, they cannot use it. Talk about
big tech directing behavior. I think that we are on a very
dangerous path, and I want to give you my time to really lay
out in the most succinct way possible the dangerous nexus of
big tech, big government, and financial institutions that seek
to weaponize that information against Americans. I know you are
more than capable of doing that in 2\1/2\ seconds.
Dr. Peterson. Well, I don't think people understand the
degree to which they are profiled online and to which their
virtual representation is now an iconic representation of them,
nor do they understand that they have no rights whatsoever to
that representation. So, for example, let's say we turn our
information about our purchasing habits over to the bank
account. Thirty years ago, that wasn't such a big problem.
With AI systems, it's a probability that's so big, you
can't imagine it. I'm certain that my staff could find the data
online to absolutely predict your voting patterns with 95
percent accuracy. You have no idea what sort of digital
footprint that you're leaving behind you. There are almost no
protections for that. You also asked about the First Amendment.
Ms. Cammack. Yes.
Dr. Peterson. We have very weak free speech protections in
Canada. I can tell you that is not going well. So, the
combination--in my country, the combination of that and the
evasive technology that we're producing at a rate that beggars
the imagination produces a threat to the integrity of sovereign
citizenship, the likes of which has not yet been experienced.
That's what this Committee should be concentrating on. It's
very interesting to watch because it devolves continually into
discussion of a particular event, serious though that event
was. It's, like, no matter how serious that event was, it pales
in comparison to the potential severity of the issue that we're
attempting to point to with regard to our testimony.
These artificially intelligent systems can do things you
can't imagine. Not only can they, they are and they will. That
will be abetted by the collusion between large corporations and
government. It's certainly the case that the people who stand
on the left, especially with regard to their--what would you
say--skepticism of large corporations which is often perfectly
warranted should be utterly terrified about this.
Ms. Cammack. Man, you did that less time than I thought.
Dr. Peterson. Well, I had to get it right once today.
Ms. Cammack. No, I appreciate that. I think you have seen
it front and center. Certainly, we all watched in horror as the
truckers' bank accounts were seized, was were shut down who
protested, and the mandates.
People think that's such a faraway concept. We have seen
that here with people who have been given ultimatums of the jab
or job. We've seen ways that they have been targeted and
positioned in ways that are just un-American, unconstitutional.
So, thank you to our witnesses for being here today. I
appreciate you guys and the fight against weaponization. We're
seeing it more and more every day. Mr. Chair, with that, I
yield.
Chair Jordan. Gentlelady yields back. This concludes
today's hearing. We thank our witnesses for appearing before
the Subcommittee today. I apologize. I do have to run out to
another thing.
We really appreciate the discussion that all of you brought
and the analysis that you brought today. Without objection, all
Members will have five legislative days to submit additional
written questions for the witnesses or additional materials for
the record. Without objection, the hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:49 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
All materials submitted for the record by Members of the
Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal
Government can be found at: https://docs.house.gov/Committee/
Calendar/By Event.aspx?EventID=116921.
[all]