[Music]
last night
we reported exclusively that bank of
america
secretly went through its customers
private financial data
after the capitol hill riot and sent a
list of names to the feds
bank of america is without the knowledge
or the consent of its customers
sharing private information with federal
law enforcement agencies
bank of america effectively is acting as
an intelligence agency
but they're not telling you about it in
the days after the january 6
riot at the capitol bank of america went
through its own customers financial and
transaction records a lot of them
now these were the private records of
americans who had committed no crime
people who as far as we know had
absolutely nothing to do
with what happened at the capitol on
january 6th
we know that bank of america scanned
through its customers financial records
specifically
bank of america squealed to the feds on
customers who met
at least the following four criteria
number one
customers confirmed as transacting
either through bank account debit card
or credit card purchases
in washington d.c between january 5th
and january 6th
number two customers making purchases
for hotels
or airbnbs in dc virginia
and maryland after january 6 number
three
customers shopping at a weapons related
merchant
between january 7th and their upcoming
suspected stay
in the dc area around inauguration day
and number four customers making any
airline
related purchases from january the sixth
we know the bank of america used these
criteria to identify
211 customers of alleged interest to
federal
law enforcement one of those customers
was interviewed by the feds and
cleared of any wrongdoing bank of
america told us they don't comment on
law enforcement inquiries
and insisted they always comply with the
law
uh francie hanks is a former prosecutor
we're always glad to see her
and she joins us to assess the legality
of what
bank of america has been doing to its
customers
francie what's your take on this well
you know mark
it's really odd and interesting that the
statement the bank issued today
didn't say anything about search
warrants
subpoenas or court orders which i would
expect
in the hubbub when this came to light
they would immediately fall back
on having been given legal process
in order to comply with these requests
the constitution of this country the
fourth amendment
does not allow these kind of searches
when it's not particularized
that is a particular term that we use in
the law particularized searches
that is a federal agent has to go to a
federal judge or
appear before the grand jury and get an
order or a
warrant or a subpoena and hand it to
someone like the bank
and say person a francie hanks
is suspected of committing a riot or
insurrection or incitement
on this day at this time in washington
dc
and we expect that the evidence you hold
in your bank
would show that she was there which will
help us prove that she committed a crime
that is required by the constitution it
does
not look like that was done here at all
the supreme court has held many times
that federal agents cannot rummage
through
data in order to try to find evidence of
a crime
financial information is highly private
in this country
and is given heightened protections
isn't there a slight contradiction there
then between your constitutional rights
and the post 911 security state
where for instance fairly routine
transactions
uh the bank uh for example it began with
the ten thousand dollar if you put in a
check for
eleven and a half thousand uh they had
to notify
uh the feds and then people started
putting in
it became a requirement that if they
were just below 10
000 uh that in itself was suspicious so
you had to report 9750
deposits to the it hasn't banking
as tucker put it in effect become
nationalized and an arm of the state
under under the post 9 11 regime well
mark's activity reports for financial
information that suggests
you are using the bank in an illegal way
that somehow your transaction itself
is illegal that doesn't that isn't used
to prove that you were in a particular
place committing a completely
unrelated crime i mean it's as if a
murder is committed in downtown atlanta
tonight down the street
from where i live and they suddenly ask
all the banks in the area
to tell them all the customers who were
transacting that's not the way the
constitution
works that's not the way liberty loving
country works that's not the way federal
law enforcement
is allowed to utilize private companies
and i'll be very interested to see what
else the bank has to say
about whether or not they were given
legal process if anyone is prosecuted
using this information
i suspect they will have a very easy
time kicking that data out of court
for violating the fourth amendment well
let's hope so fancy because
as you point out these are all actually
entirely routine activities
using a debit card in the washington dc
area
uh the idea that that somehow is is uh
there's there's enough probable
cause on that uh to to to list
everybody who used the debit card in the
d this is ridiculous
stuff thank you very much for that
francie
uh