Only thing discouraging me from buying guns is the ‘gun budget’ that gets eaten up by the necessity of home repairs and major appliances that need to be replaced.<\/p>\n
House Committee Investigates Government\u2019s Spying on Those Who Exercise Second Amendment Rights.<\/a><\/p>\n The U.S. House of Representatives Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government asked pointed questions to several Biden administration officials to get answers to why the federal government is working against the American people instead of for them.<\/p>\n The Hearing on the Weaponization of the Federal Government delved into questions of why the federal government spied, and lied, about the lawful purchases by Americans by the U.S. Treasury Department\u2019s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). The U.S. Treasury admitted that it collected information on Americans\u2019 purchases of firearms and ammunition, shopping at several sporting retailers, including Cabelas, and even tracked people using search terms that include \u201cBible.\u201d<\/p>\n The\u00a0admission<\/a><\/strong> came by letter to U.S. Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) just one day after Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen refused to answer questions from Congress if the surveillance occurred. The letter would appear to implicate the federal government with violating Americans\u2019 Fourth Amendment rights protecting against illegal search and seizure, as the activity was conducted without a warrant.<\/p>\n Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) laid out in\u00a0his opening statement<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0the grave concerns Congress has with this intrusive and potentially illegal search and seizure of Americans\u2019 private financial data.<\/p>\n \u201cBig government was colluding with big tech to censor Americans. That\u2019s the first thing we learned,\u201d\u00a0Chairman Jordan explained<\/a><\/strong>. \u201cBut now, it\u2019s big government colluding with big banks and big business to spy on everything Americans buy, every place they go, everything they do. Big government wants your financial data because it\u2019s full of sensitive information about you.\u201d<\/p>\n He continued<\/strong><\/a>, \u201cAnd\u2026 and if you\u2019re a gun owner, look out. You\u2019re going to the top of the list. For simply exercising your Second Amendment right, you\u2019re on the FBI\u2019s target list. Never forget, the federal government got this information without any process. No warrant and frankly, no notification.\u201d<\/p>\n The further the committee was able to dig into information provided by FBI whistleblowers, the more concerning the allegations became.<\/p>\n \u201cSince then, we\u2019ve learned that the financial surveillance was broader and there was actually a specific objective,\u201d\u00a0Chairman Jordan said<\/strong><\/a>. \u201cThe federal government is building profiles on the American people. And the profile isn\u2019t based on criminal conduct. It\u2019s based on political beliefs and if you\u2019ve got the wrong political beliefs, well, you\u2019re a potentially violent domestic extremist.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s Appalling\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Rep. Greg Stuebe (R-Fla.)\u00a0was outraged<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0that Americans are being targeted for government spying because they lawfully exercise their Second Amendment rights.<\/p>\n \u201cIn 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,\u201d\u00a0Rep. Steube said<\/strong><\/a>. \u201cAs a gun owner and a strong proponent of our Second Amendment rights, it\u2019s appalling that a federal agency would ask private companies to spy on their customers conducting perfectly legal business transactions. It\u2019s not like there\u2019s a suspicion of criminality going on. These are just typical purchases of firearms.\u201d<\/p>\n Rep. Steube\u00a0added<\/a>,<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cPresident Obama once infamously remarked that many conservative Americans cling to guns or religion and given FinCEN\u2019s actions, it seems that President Biden\u2019s administration shares the same hostility for millions of Americans like me who proudly cling to our First and Second amendment rights.\u201d<\/p>\n Jeremy Tedesco, Senior Counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom\u00a0testified<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0that banks are using vague rules and excuses to \u201cde-bank\u201d those who hold political views that are out-of-step with those in the banking bureaucracies. That also involves the federal government and big banks colluding to ostracize those with undesirable political views.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, I mean, this is a huge part of the problem is our clients, you know, to a, to a person anytime they go to the bank, once they get debanked, it\u2019s always under some vague policy. The only thing the bank will say is high risk, or business type, or risk tolerance.\u201d\u00a0Tedesco explained<\/strong><\/a>. \u201cEvery time they go back and ask for an answer a specific reason, the bank just stonewalls them, and so they can\u2019t get access to information.\u201d<\/p>\n Why We Need \u2018Protecting Privacy in Purchases Act\u2019<\/p>\n Congresswoman Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.)\u00a0put to rest<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0accusations that the federal government and big banks colluding is a hoax. She pointed to the creation of the Merchant Category Code (MCC) specific for firearm-retailers to track purchases.<\/p>\n \u201cIn 2022, gun-ban activist Amalgamated Bank and far-left politicians pushed for the creation of an unconstitutional Merchant Category Code to be assigned to firearms retailers to identify, \u2018suspect purchases\u2019 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,\u201d\u00a0Rep. Stefanik explained<\/strong><\/a>. \u201cSince then, some states have banned the code, while states like California have mandated it to surveil Americans purchases. This is why I introduced the\u00a0Protecting Privacy and Purchases Act<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0with Congressman Barr and Hudson to put a stop to this code and protect law abiding Americans from this infringing unconstitutional overreach.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis 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 Second Amendment activity, because it\u2019s important to know that the MCC doesn\u2019t tell you what people buy, it just tells you where they buy it, right, will it be reported to the government as potentially suspicious for no real basis, or at least not a basis that is likely to be reasonable. And that\u2019s going to create a database that is available, that could be searched later,\u201d\u00a0testified Brian Knight<\/strong><\/a>, Senior Research Fellow and Director of Innovation and Governance, Mercatus Center. \u201cOne of the dangerous things about this financial databases that are these financial records is that they\u2019re retrospective. And if perhaps, just as bad, is that there\u2019s precious little reason to believe it would be effective at stated goal for host reasons I can get into if you want.\u201d<\/p>\n Knight\u00a0testified<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0that advocates of requiring the MCC claim it could stop crimes from being committed in as little as 12 days from the purchase of a firearm to the commission of a crime. That\u2019s not realistic, given the overwhelming numbers of purchases at firearm retailers authorities would have to search. Another concern is that this eventually leads to a national firearm registry, which is forbidden by law.<\/p>\n \u201cI believe some of its supporters view it as a backdoor to discourage firearms purchases,\u201d\u00a0Knight added<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Only thing discouraging me from buying guns is the ‘gun budget’ that gets eaten up by the necessity of home repairs and major appliances that need to be replaced. House Committee Investigates Government\u2019s Spying on Those Who Exercise Second Amendment Rights. The U.S. House of Representatives Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,79,24,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-100745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bureaucraps","category-government","category-rights","category-rkba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=100745"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100745\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":100749,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100745\/revisions\/100749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=100745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=100745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=100745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}