Posts Tagged operation choke point

Operation Choke Point Under Scrutiny

From Electronic Frontier Foundation:

EFF recently received dozens of pages of documents in response to a FOIA request we submitted about Operation Choke Point, a Department of Justice project to pressure banks and financial institutions into cutting off service to certain businesses. Unfortunately, the response from the Department of Justice leaves many questions unanswered.

EFF has been tracking instances of financial censorship for years to identify how online speech is indirectly silenced or intimidated by shuttering bank accounts, donation platforms, and other financial institutions.  The Wall Street Journal wrote about the Justice Department’s controversial and secretive campaign against financial institutions in 2013, and one Justice Department official quoted in the article stated:

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Senator Rubio Introduces Law To Protect Gun Businesses

From Sen. Rubio:

“Operation Choke Point is an attempt by the Obama Administration to weaken 2nd Amendment rights in America, which enable people to protect themselves and their families,” said Rubio. “We must stop this administration’s effort to target private industries and the 2nd Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens.”

From NRA-ILA:

Sen. Rubio’s bill followed Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer’s (R-Mo.) re-introduction on February 5 of the Financial Institution Customer Protection Act. This legislation would institute numerous reforms to bring more transparency and accountability to federal oversight of banks, all aimed at preventing the sort of unchecked abuse of discretion at the heart of OPC.

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FDIC Backtracking on Targeting of “Risky” Gun Businesses

From The Daily Signal:

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has acknowledged its role in Operation Choke Point and is taking dramatic steps to reverse its policies in targeting legal and legitimate industries that are disfavored by the Obama administration.

From The Washington Times:

In an effort to put an end to Operation Choke Point — a financial task force that was created by the Obama administration to “choke out” businesses it finds objectionable like gun shops — the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. issued a letter Wednesday saying all banks should examine their customer relationships on a case-by-case basis and not by industry operational risk.

“The FDIC is issuing this statement to encourage institutions to take a risk-based approach in assessing individual customer relationships rather than declining to provide banking services to entire categories of customers,” the FDIC said in a letter to its financial institutions released Wednesday.

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