Category: bank surveillance

Federal Agencies Routinely Spy on Phone Calls, Texts, Emails of American Citizens, Experts Say

Despite the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment, which prohibits warrantless government searches, U.S. agencies are proving to be ever more intrusive in their routine surveillance of Americans’ speech and activities. Often working in collaboration with private companies and banks, agencies like the FBI have been misusing laws against foreign terrorism to vacuum up and sift through the…


New Bill Seeks to Curtail Banks’ Role as Agents of Federal Surveillance

Republican legislators took steps this week to revoke the power the government has granted itself to access Americans’ personal bank accounts without a search warrant. Through existing laws such as the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), “We basically deputized banks as law enforcement agencies, mandating them to collect information on their customers and report that information…


New Visa Card Features Personal Carbon Emissions Tracker

The monitoring of personal behavior by banks will take another step forward as Canadian credit union Vancity launches a new credit card technology to report users’ carbon emissions. On Oct. 19, Vancity announced that it will be “the first financial institution in Canada to offer its individual and business members a way to estimate the…