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What is financial surveillance, and why does it matter?<\/h2>\n
To understand how financial surveillance is carried out in the United States, one must first understand the U.S. Constitution. \u201cThe Fourth Amendment basically says, if you want to get information about a person in the United States, you as law enforcement have to have a warrant that has to be signed by a judge based on you having probable cause of suspecting them of a crime,\u201d Belcher explained.<\/p>\n
However, under what is known as the \u201cthird-party doctrine,\u201d the U.S. government holds that any information voluntarily handed over to a \u201cthird party\u201d \u2014 such as a bank \u2014 can be collected without a warrant or probable cause. Given the amount of customer information banks are required to collect under the Bank Secrecy Act, the government winds up with a significant amount of information on the financial lives of everyday citizens.<\/p>\n
Related: <\/em><\/strong>Who watches the watchers? CryptoHarlem founder Matt Mitchell explains why surveillance is the enemy<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cWhen you think about today\u2019s world, we live our entire lives through third parties. At any given moment in time, we are sending massive amounts of data to all sorts of third parties,\u201d said Belcher. <\/p>\n \u201cThe government can get basically any information about us, and it\u2019s rendered the Fourth Amendment useless.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n However, not everyone cares that such vast amounts of information are collected about them \u2014 but should they? \u201cAs an advocate for privacy and civil liberties, I encounter this common refrain of, \u2018Okay, but why should I care?\u2019\u201d Belcher explained. \u201cI have nothing to hide, and I don\u2019t care if the government sees my financial transactions.\u201d<\/p>\n According to the civil liberties attorney, this is a limited perspective:<\/p>\n \u201cYou may think you have nothing to hide right now, but at any point in time, the law could be different. At any point in time, an administration can change. And I think that it is important, and people are starting to understand why it\u2019s important, to be able to make transactions that the government can\u2019t see.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n CBDCs are controversial, with some arguing countries must digitize their currencies to remain competitive \u2014 while others condemn governments having greater control over everyday people\u2019s finances. Belcher believes that a significant reason governments worldwide are developing CBDCs is to make financial surveillance easier, and that these programs are part of broader initiatives to phase out cash and other untraceable transactions.<\/p>\n \u201cA cashless society is really a surveillance society. And what we\u2019re seeing worldwide is this push to make transactions surveilable. And that includes things like pushing central bank digital currencies.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n According to Belcher, the potential ramifications of adopting CBDCs go well beyond expanded surveillance: \u201cThey\u2019re also about control.\u201d She explained that governments could theoretically not only create but revoke money, alongside controlling how and where individuals spend their funds.<\/p>\n \u201cFor me, that is terrifying, right?\u201d Belcher said. \u201cFor the government to not only have visibility potentially into all of your financial transactions and to really shut down other potential avenues for those types of transactions, but for the government to also be able to revoke money is really terrifying.\u201d<\/p>\nCBDCs: A cause for concern?<\/h2>\n