Financial Surveillance in the Shadow of 9/11

Nicholas Anthony

September 11 marks one of the darkest days in US history. Terrorists murdered thousands of people on American soil, put countless people in fear for their safety, and left a scar in American history that can still be felt to this day. Yet what is less known is the financial surveillance that was expanded in the wake of the attack.

The Bank Secrecy Act already required banks and other financial institutions to report their customers to the government, but Congress decided that it wanted more. In the near blink of an eye, the USA PATRIOT Act was signed into law. At the time, the Cato Institute’s Robert A. Levy wrote that the law “zipped through in six weeks—gutting much of the Fourth Amendment in far less time than Congress typically expends on routine bills that raise no constitutional concerns.”

The damage to civil liberties caused by the PATRIOT Act is far-reaching. For just financial surveillance, the law mandated stricter customer identification (better known as know your customer, or KYC, requirements), expanded the list of financial institutions that must surveil customers, scrutinized foreign relations, created channels for more government officials to access this surveillance system, and made much of the system confidential from the broader public.

The justification was counterterrorism. Yet the government doesn’t have much to show for it. The vast majority of reports are filed because customers used “too much money.” In fact, today, it seems the government has forgotten about terrorism. Instead, it’s using financial surveillance to go after immigrants and protestors.

A few months ago, President Donald Trump ordered the Treasury Department to expand surveillance under the Bank Secrecy Act by requiring banks and other financial institutions to start reporting people who they suspect of being in the country illegally. 

Then, just this month, Josh Kovensky of Talking Points Memo reported how Homeland Security Investigations used section 314(a) of the PATRIOT Act to “map out [left-leaning protest groups’] financial dealings without needing to obtain a warrant, convene a grand jury, or issue a subpoena.” Jeff Breinholt, a former Department of Justice official, told Kovesnky that “with a single 314(a) issuance, [the government] can get a nationwide vantage point into where a customer does all of his or her banking.”

At some point, the only question left will be: “What rationale hasn’t been used to expand financial surveillance?” It started with tax evasion, moved to the war on drugs, shifted to the war on terror, and is now torn between going after immigrants and protestors. What’s next is anyone’s guess. 

To be clear, there is no denying the tragedy that happened on September 11, 2001. Thousands of lives were lost, and countless more were thrown into chaos. A permanent expansion of warrantless surveillance, however, adds insult to injury. The 25th anniversary of the attacks is a good time to ask whether the decision Congress made in 2001 makes sense in 2026.