Congress must defend freedom of dissent after Bidens outrageous debank scandal

It’s not a crime to dissent from the woke agenda, but that didn’t stop the Biden administration’s financial regulators from treating people who disagree with it like terrorists.For the past four years, the federal government has placed major banks under immense pressure to close accounts owned by conservative individuals and businesses with little notice or transparency.This practice — known as debanking — used to be reserved for crime organizations and money launderers.Under President Biden, though, debanking became one of the federal government’s most effective censorship tools.Without a bank account, Americans cannot receive direct deposits, pay many bills or securely transfer money.In an increasingly cashless world, debanking doesn’t just shut a person out of his bank account — it shuts him out of society.On Wednesday, the Senate Banking Committee is holding a hearing so Congress can begin to understand how widespread this abusive practice has become.The threat of debanking has affected everyone from a concerned parent who spoke out against school closures to First Lady Melania Trump.If Congress wants Americans to trust our financial institutions, we need to take a blowtorch to this injustice.The idea of debanking begins with the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970, a law that requires banks to monitor users’ accounts to identify and report suspicious activities.In recent years, the number of such suspicious activity reports has exploded.Banks filed more than 4.6 million of them in 2023 — more than double the number of reports filed in 2014.

Why? President Obama’s Operation Choke Point is partly to blame.Under this policy, the federal government could sanction any bank that failed to report “high-risk” accounts, including payday lenders and firearms dealers.After identifying a “high-risk” account, banks must then either close it or follow a burdensome compliance process where any misstep could result in more sanctions.Most banks understood th...