Bank of America ‘Is Without The Knowledge Or The Consent’ Of Customers ‘Sharing Private’ Info With Feds, Tucker Carlson Reports

From Daily Wire.com (Feb. 5, 2021):

Fox News host Tucker Carlson reported exclusively on Thursday night that Bank of America is allegedly turning over private information about its customers to federal law enforcement officials — without the knowledge or consent of its customers — in an apparent effort to identify those who participated in the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol Building.

Carlson led off the segment by talking about how the Biden administration and law enforcement has stated that they want to go after domestic “extremists,” but have not laid out a clear definition of what qualifies as an “extremist.”

“What exactly are they doing?” Carlson asked. “How are they hunting these extremists they keep telling us about, but will not describe?”

“We now know part of the answer to that question,” Carlson said. “This show has obtained exclusively evidence that Bank of America, the second largest bank in the country with more than 60 million customers, is actively but secretly engaged in the hunt for extremists in cooperation with the government.”

“Bank of America is, without the knowledge or the consent of its customers, sharing private information with federal law enforcement agencies,” Carlson continued. “Bank of American 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 … 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 6.”

“But at the request of federal investigators, Bank of America searched its databases looking for people who fit a specific profile,” Carlson continued. “Here’s what that profile was, and we are quoting, ‘customers confirmed as transacting either through bank account, debit card, or credit card purchases in Washington, D.C., between January 5 and January 6. Number two, purchases made for hotels, Airbnb, RSVPs, in Washington, Virginia, or Maryland after January 6. Number three, any purchase of weapons or at a weapons-related merchant between January 7 and their upcoming suspected stay in the D.C. area around Inauguration Day. And four, airline-related purchases since January 6.”

“So what do you notice about that profile? Well, the first thing you notice is that it’s remarkably broad,” Carlson said. “Any purchases of anything in the city of Washington, D.C., any overnight state anywhere in the three state area, that spans hundreds of miles, any purchase, not simply of legal firearms, but instead anything bought from a ‘weapons related merchant,’ t-shirts included, and then any airline related purchases, not just flights to Washington, flights to anywhere — to Omaha, to Thailand.”

“Bank of America identified a total of 211 customers who met these ‘thresholds of interest,’” he continued. “And it was at that point, the show has learned, Bank of America turned over the results of its internal scan to federal authorities, apparently without notifying the customers who were being spied upon. Federal investigators then interviewed at least one of these unsuspecting people, and that person, we’ve learned, hadn’t done anything wrong, and in the end, was cleared. Imagine if you were that person. The FBI hauls you in for questioning in a terror investigation, not because you’ve done anything suspicious — you haven’t — you bought plane tickets and visited your country’s capital, you thought you could do that, you thought it was your country. Now they’re sweating you because your bank, which you trust with your most private information, information of everything you buy, has ratted you out to the feds without telling you, without your knowledge.”

“Because Bank of America did that, you’re being treated like a member of al-Qaeda,” he continued. “What country is this? It doesn’t matter how much you despise Donald Trump, or how much you believe that hatred of Trump justifies suspending this country’s ancient civil liberties. Going through that experience would scare the hell out of you. Absolutely. A terror suspect, you would think? Does anyone else know about this? Is there a record of this interview? Will I lose my job because of it? That actually happened to someone. It’s hard to believe it, but it did. We asked Bank of America about this. They confirmed it actually happened by not denying it.”

Carlson then read off a statement from Bank of America:

We don’t comment on our communications with law enforcement. All banks have responsibilities under federal law to cooperate with law enforcement inquiries in full compliance with the law.

“Now the last part, from the lawyers perspective, is the essence — in full compliance with the law. It’s the law; we had no choice. But that’s not true. Bank of America did have a choice. The bank could have resisted turning over information on its innocent customers to federal investigators. But Bank of America did not do that. Nor is it clear, if we’re going to be precise about it, that what Bank of America did is even legal. It turns out it’s not simple. It’s a gray area,” Carlson continued. “We spoke to a number of lawyers about this today, [some of them] told us that what Bank of America did might in fact not be legal, and could in fact be challenged in court.” [source]

Not good business practices.