Originally published via Armageddon Prose Substack:
The corporate state isn’t done milking January 6 for all the it’s worth.
“Not by a damn sight,” as fictional gangster Marsellus Wallace might say.
As my Irish-Catholic Midwestern grandmammy used to say as she watered her petunias, “when life gives you lemonades, you make a techno-police state aimed at your domestic political opponents.”
Via The Hill:
“Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) is requesting a transcribed interview with a former Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) official for allegedly flagging consumer transactions that had the phrases “TRUMP” or “MAGA” in them…
Jordan said the committee had obtained documents showing that FinCEN outlined ‘typologies’ of persons of interest in materials distributed to financial institutions. He said these materials included ‘suggested search terms and Merchant Category Codes (MCCs) for identifying transactions on behalf of federal law enforcement’* after Jan. 6, 2021.”
*Why financial institutions should be enlisted to do federal police work on behalf of the government is a question that might have been asked decades ago, but that ship has sailed. It’s now chalked up to standard operating procedure.
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The Orwellian censorship regime is nearly beyond parody, as the feds were reportedly interested not just in flagging financial activity of “domestic terrorists,” but also of surveilling and flagging the literature they imbibe.
From Rep. Jordan’s letter:
“The Committee and Select Subcommittee have obtained documents indicating that following January 6, 2021, FinCEN distributed materials to financial institutions that, among other things, outline the ‘typologies’ of various persons of interest and provide financial institutions with suggested search terms and Merchant Category Codes (MCCs) for identifying transactions on behalf of federal law enforcement.
These materials included a document recommending the use of generic terms like ‘TRUMP’ and ‘MAGA’ to ‘search Zelle payment messages’ as well as a ‘prior FinCEN analysis’ of ‘Lone Actor/Homegrown Violent Extremism Indicators.’ According to this analysis, FinCEN warned financial institutions of ‘extremism’ indicators that include ‘transportation charges, such as bus tickets, rental cars, or plane tickets, for travel to areas with no apparent purpose,’ or “’the purchase of books (including religious texts) and subscriptions to other media containing extremist views.’ In other words, FinCEN urged large financial institutions to comb through the private transactions of their customers for suspicious charges on the basis of protected political and religious expression.”
“These allegations, if true, represent a flagrant violation of Americans’ privacy and the improper targeting of U.S. citizens for exercising their constitutional rights without due process,” wrote Rep. Tim Scott, ranking member of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.
Again, that ship sailed years ago. Let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth and reject elected Republicans who have suddenly rediscovered a passion for the Bill of Rights, but let us never forget either that it was the Bush-era War of Terror that opened up the floodgates for this genre of governmental abuse.
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The Brandon entity’s handlers recently confirmed that the allegations of fed impropriety are, in fact, true.
Via Fox News:
“The Biden administration has confirmed that terms like ‘MAGA,’ ‘Trump’ and ’Kamala’ were included in the push by federal investigators for banks to surveil private financial transactions following the Jan. 6, 2021 protests at the U.S. Capitol, a letter obtained by Fox News Digital reveals.
The letter, sent Friday from the Treasury Department to Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., the top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, notes that ‘Exchange events’ convened by its Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, ‘began shortly after January 6 under the prior Administration,’ and ‘included terms such as ‘antifa,’ ‘MAGA,’ ‘Trump,’ ‘Biden,’ ‘Kamala,’ ‘Schumer,’ and ‘Pelosi.’’
This marks the first time the Biden administration has gone on the record to confirm some of the keywords included in the Jan. 6-related push by investigators.”
By all natural right, the government criminals who engaged in this behavior should be duly prosecuted and their cases judiciously and fairly disposed of.
Alas, in all matters of state malfeasance, who is going to watch the watchmen?
The remedy is the people, of course — patriots, the ultimate check on state power — as the Founders intended in a functional representative system of governance. But doing so will land said patriot on the kind of government list he was protesting in the first place.
I believe this is what they call a Catch-22.
Ben Bartee, author of Broken English Teacher: Notes From Exile, is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs.
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