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    GOA To Senate Banking Committee On Secretary Yellen

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    The Gun Owners of America wrote to the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs to request that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen be held accountable for violations of gun owners' privacy rights. A congressional committee found that the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) inappropriately targeted gun owners as potential threats by searching financial data for transactions with gun-related companies. The letter asks Secretary Yellen four questions regarding FinCEN's overreach and whether the Treasury Department believes exercising Second Amendment rights warrants financial surveillance of law-abiding Americans.

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    GOA To Senate Banking Committee On Secretary Yellen

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    The Gun Owners of America wrote to the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs to request that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen be held accountable for violations of gun owners' privacy rights. A congressional committee found that the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) inappropriately targeted gun owners as potential threats by searching financial data for transactions with gun-related companies. The letter asks Secretary Yellen four questions regarding FinCEN's overreach and whether the Treasury Department believes exercising Second Amendment rights warrants financial surveillance of law-abiding Americans.

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    GOA to Senate Banking Committee on Secretary Yellen

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    The Gun Owners of America wrote to the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs to request that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen be held accountable for violations of gun owners' privacy rights. A congressional committee found that the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) inappropriately targeted gun owners as potential threats by searching financial data for transactions with gun-related companies. The letter asks Secretary Yellen four questions regarding FinCEN's overreach and whether the Treasury Department believes exercising Second Amendment rights warrants financial surveillance of law-abiding Americans.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    39K views3 pages

    GOA To Senate Banking Committee On Secretary Yellen

    Uploaded by

    Zerohedge Janitor
    The Gun Owners of America wrote to the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs to request that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen be held accountable for violations of gun owners' privacy rights. A congressional committee found that the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) inappropriately targeted gun owners as potential threats by searching financial data for transactions with gun-related companies. The letter asks Secretary Yellen four questions regarding FinCEN's overreach and whether the Treasury Department believes exercising Second Amendment rights warrants financial surveillance of law-abiding Americans.

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    of 3

    February 7, 2024

    The Honorable Sherrod Brown The Honorable Tim Scott


    Chairman Ranking Member
    Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban
    Affairs Affairs
    Unites States Senate United States Senate
    Washington, D.C. 20510 Washington, D.C. 20510

    Dear Chairman Brown, Ranking Member Scott, and Honorable Members of the Senate Committee
    on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs,

    I write to you today on behalf of Gun Owners of America’s 2 million members and activists and our
    Second Amendment industry partners to request that you hold Treasury Secretary Yellen
    accountable to the Second Amendment and her oath to the Constitution.

    Recently, the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government


    (Weaponization Committee) found that the Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes
    Enforcement Network (FinCEN) violated the privacy rights of gun owners and indiscriminately
    targeted gun owners as “potential active shooters” and “International Terrorists / Domestic Terrorists
    / Homegrown Violent Extremists (‘Lone Wolves’).”i

    Indeed, the Department of the Treasury’s FinCEN taught banks to search Merchant Category
    Codes, Zelle payment notes, and other financial data for transactions with the Second Amendment
    industry in order to create a list of gun owners “to flag… on behalf of Federal law enforcement.”ii
    The list of targeted companiesiii includes many official partnersiv of Gun Owners of America and
    other companies which strongly support our Second Amendment rights, including:

    Aero Precision, LLC Brownells, Inc. Glock, Inc.

    AR15.com LLC Browning Arms Company Optics Planet, Inc.

    Anderson Manufacturing New Frontier Armory LLC Sig Sauer, Inc.

    Dillon Precision Products, Smokey Mountain Knife Sturm, Ruger & Company,
    Inc. Works, Inc. Inc.

    Gun ownership is extremely private information about an individual’s choice to exercise a God-
    given and constitutionally protected right. For this reason, Congress has placed numerous
    restrictions on the federal government to protect gun owners.

    For example, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) is prohibited from
    creating “any system of registration of firearms, firearms owners, or firearms transactions or
    dispositions”v and may only legally access records of gun owners during annual compliance
    inspections or with a warrant.vi Similarly, Congress prohibits the Federal Bureau of Investigation

    1
    (FBI) from misusing the National Instant Criminal Background Check System for “establish[ing]
    any system for the registration of firearms, firearm owners, or firearm transactions or dispositions”vii
    and records on law-abiding gun purchases must be destroyed within 24 hours of a background
    check’s approval.viii Given Congress’ clear intent, the Department of Treasury ought to hold firearm
    transaction data and gun owners’ privacy sacrosanct.

    Nevertheless, the Weaponization Committee has caught the Department of the Treasury teaching
    financial institutions how to search financial data to find gun owners by flagging potential firearm
    transactions.ix The Weaponization Committee has also caught the FBI misusing firearm transaction
    data by asking Bank of America for records if the customer had made “ANY historical purchase” of a
    firearm.x And finally, Gun Owners of America has found ATF to be in violation of the Firearm
    Owners’ Protection Act prohibition on a gun registry.xi Indeed, ATF has amassed nearly a billion gun
    and gun owner records in an illegal, digital, and searchable database of firearm transactions.xii

    Congress cannot allow the federal government to continue establishing and expanding databases on
    guns and gun owners. Whether it is the misuse of gun store records and financial data by the
    Department of Justice or firearm transaction data by the Department of the Treasury, data collection
    on guns and their lawful owners must be stopped. Gun Owners of America fully agrees with the
    Weaponization Committee that “[d]espite these transactions having no apparent criminal nexus—
    and, in fact, relate to Americans exercising their Second Amendment rights—FinCEN seems to have
    adopted a characterization of these Americans as potential threat actors.”xiii This is truly “pervasive
    financial surveillance” of gun ownership and “raises serious doubts about FinCEN’s respect for
    fundamental civil liberties.”xiv

    To that end, gun owners would like Secretary Yellen to answer the following questions regarding
    the Department of the Treasury’s recent invasion of gun owners’ financial privacy:

    • Does Secretary Yellen believe that all those who shop at gun stores like Cabela’s are
    “potential active shooters”—as the document distributed by FinCEN suggests?
    • Does Secretary Yellen believe that buying something from Bass Pro Shop means the
    customer might be a “Domestic Terrorist” or a “Homegrown Violent Extremist”—as the
    document distributed by FinCEN suggests?
    • Does Secretary Yellen believe the Treasury Department should be mass accumulating—or
    suggesting the mass accumulation of—American citizens’ potential firearm transactions?
    • What protections, if any, does the Department of Treasury have in place to ensure the
    privacy of law-abiding Americans who choose to exercise their Second Amendment rights?

    Gun Owners of America urges all Honorable Members of the Senate Committee on Banking,
    Housing, and Urban Affairs to hold Secretary Yellen and the Treasury Department accountable.

    In Liberty,

    Aidan Johnston
    Director of Federal Affairs

    2
    i
    Jordan. “Letter to Former FinCEN Bureaucrat Noah Bishoff”. House of Representatives, Committee on the
    Judiciary. January 17th, 2024.
    ii
    Scott. “Letter to Secretary Yellen and Director Gacki”. Senate, Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban
    Affairs. January 19th, 2024.
    iii
    See:

    iv
    “Industry Partners”. Gun Owners of America.
    v
    18 U.S.C. 926.
    vi
    18 U.S.C. 923.
    vii
    34 U.S.C. 40901(i).
    viii
    Public Law 112–55, Division B, Title V, Section 511. 125 Stat. 632. November 18th, 2011.
    ix
    “Federal Government Flagged Transactions Using Terms like ‘MAGA’ and ‘TRUMP’ for Financial
    Institutions”. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary. January 17th, 2024.
    x
    Jordan. “Letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray”. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary.
    January 17th, 2024.
    xi
    Johnston. “ATF’s Illegal Gun Owner Registry”. Gun Owners of America. May 24th, 2022.
    xii
    “Letter from Daniel L. Board Jr., Assistant Director of Government Affairs for ATF to Rep. Michael Cloud
    and 51 Other Members of Congress Concerning ATF’s Gun Registry”. 2021.
    xiii
    Jordan. “Letter to Former FinCEN Bureaucrat Noah Bishoff”. House of Representatives, Committee on the
    Judiciary. January 17th, 2024. 2.
    xiv
    Ibid.
    3

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