"Controversy Surrounds Treasury's Surveillance of Private Bank Transactions for Political Keywords"
The Biden administration has confirmed that terms like "MAGA," "Trump," and "Kamala" were included in the push for banks to surveil private financial transactions following the Jan. 6, 2021 protests at the U.S. Capitol. The Treasury Department's letter to Sen. Tim Scott revealed that the surveillance included politically charged search terms, sparking concerns about privacy violations and targeting of U.S. citizens for exercising their constitutional rights. The investigation also uncovered the use of merchant category codes and keywords to flag customer profiles, raising further questions about the extent of the surveillance.