RUSH: Some interesting things are being gleaned from the financial regulatory reform bill. The Washington Times has an editorial today, and I’m waiting for the liberals in this country, when they find out about this, to start screaming fascist like they did at Bush over the Patriot Act. Remember, they hated Bush because they were going to spy on them, they’re gonna monitor their phone calls out
‘It would create the innocuously named Office of Financial Research as a central repository for transaction-related records held by financial companies. According to proponents, ‘decision-makers’ like Mr. Geithner need up-to-the-minute information to act in order to prevent what they refer to as another Wall Street meltdown. The proposed agency would also provide statistical analysis and research, purportedly to monitor systemic risk to the financial system. The idea raises a number of red flags, not least of which is the plan’s fundamentally flawed premise that a central committee of unelected bureaucrats would be qualified to judge what’s right and what’s wrong for the economy. … Yet the details of the proposal show that this new agency’s mission is not meant to be limited to improving the quality of financial data. Mr. Dodd’s legislation would grant the agency director the coercive power of subpoena to obtain records and rulemaking authority to force private-sector firms to maintain their internal financial records in a format acceptable to the government. The legislation also grants sweeping authority to maintain a data center that would collect and maintain ‘all data necessary’ to carry out the director’s wishes.’
‘Subtitle G of the Dodd discussion draft bill requires that records be maintained and reported ‘for each branch, automated teller machine at which deposits are accepted, and other deposit taking service facility with respect to any financial institution, the financial institution shall maintain a record of the number and dollar amounts of deposit accounts of customers,” and the director can ask to see anybody’s account data at any time, yours, mine, Warren Buffett’s, Barack Obama’s. ‘Banks will be required to submit these records to the new super regulatory agency called the Consumer Financial Protection Agency (page 1041). The CFPA will be allowed to use this information for any purpose ‘as permitted by law’ under CFPA rules — rules set by CFPA themselves.’ The CFPA is the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, and they get to set their own rules by virtue of the legislation.
‘So, the law requires banks to snoop on its customers’ most personal information and submit it to another government agency so it can be used any way the Consumer Financial Protection Agency sees fit. So, if the CFPA Czar see’s fit, information about your deposit account activity could be shared with the IRS, immigration officials, state officials, or any other entity that the Administration and their various Czar’s think beneficial. But CFPA will impact your life even before they give away your personal data. Remember that part of the excuse for including this authority is to make policy recommendations. So, be careful not to run your credit limit too high above the amount of money you are depositing in the bank or the CFPA will know you can’t pay your bills and make the appropriate ‘policy recommendations.”
Now, this, this is from the Big Government website. ‘This is exactly why conservatives have fought so hard against things like national ID cards — if the government is authorized to collect and utilize data, there is no way to prevent the government as a whole or certain individuals within the government from using the information against the citizens.’ And nobody’s screaming about this like they screamed about the Patriot Act. A question is, will they, when all of this is discovered by all of these huge civil libertarians from the ACLU to whoever the hell else is out there on the left. Because the Patriot Act, that was poof, folks, that Bush and Cheney were fascist dictators. There were books written. There were diatribes on cable television. The left wanted Bush impeached over the Patriot Act. So I’m sitting here still waiting for the right-to-privacy left to speak out about this.