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While the National Security Agency’s (NSA) unconstitutional spying on Americans’ communications has been getting most of the press lately, another federal agency has been quietly — and illegally — vacuuming up Americans’ financial data: the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).
Created by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, the CFPB has been operating for just under two years but has already managed to exceed its statutory authority, issuing demands for “huge quantities of data regarding individual consumers’ financial transactions on an ongoing, real-time basis,” according to a June 19 letter to CFPB director Richard Cordray from David Hirschmann of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness.
Additionally, the CFPB is “buying records from outside the banking industry,” the story continued. It has a contract with an Ireland-based credit-monitoring company for “data on 5 million to 10 million consumers” and another with a Florida-based credit-reporting agency for data on payday loans. The bureau “is also building a mortgage database that will integrate consumer credit information with loan and property records.”
In fact, all indications are that the bureau is intent on building a database of financial information that can be traced to particular individuals, Hirschmann observed:
Warren's expertise and passion were derived from three decades of bankruptcy research. In the mid-1990s, she was chief advisor to the National Bankruptcy Review Commission. She co-wrote a best-selling book, "The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke," with her daughter, and has been a frequent guest on television talk shows, where she is credited with making complex issues understandable.
“Congress has less control over this agency than the National Security Agency because authors of the bill that created the consumer bureau gave it funding not through Congress, but through the Federal Reserve,” Enzi explained.
Moreover, as Will noted in his column, the CFPB director is appointed by the president for a five-year — but potentially indefinite — term and cannot be removed for policy reasons.
In other words, outside of a court order, there is next to nothing that can stop the CFPB from doing whatever it pleases to whomever it pleases.
Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
reply to post by frazzle
The 10th amendment is where this is going to end up being settled, IMO. By court or by more 'overt' means which will likely start between state authority and federal authority, not average people. There is a bit more than decent levels of backdooring going on by Federal agencies direct funding state agencies to bypass state laws or regs against what is being funded.
Real ID is a good example.of that here in Missouri recently where DHS was grant supplying the machines to be installed in direct controvention of Missouri Statehouse position and passed state law on it. A member here did a thread on that, in fact.
So I think it's a question of time before the 10th really is the focal point and it'll be a decider for the future of the nation. If the outright legal conflicts set to clash soon are worked through, it either reaffirms the State's rights or it'll move the U.S. to a central Federal system more than ever before. 2014 should be wild for that.