Tag: banks

Chase Bank Cancels Nonprofit’s Bank Account: Religious Freedom Is Under Attack in Corporate America’

A former United States ambassador for religious freedom says Chase Bank abruptly closed an account associated with his nonpartisan, faith-based nonprofit organization with little explanation.

The National Committee for Religious Freedom (NCRF), a 501(c)4 political action nonprofit, opened an account with Chase in April. 

According to Sam Brownback, the group’s chairman and the former U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom under the Trump administration, the bank decided to “end their relationship” with NCRF and close the account after only three weeks.

“We were surprised at being canceled by Chase,” Brownback wrote in an op-ed published in the Washington Examiner. When our executive director called to see if this was an error, he was informed that ‘a note in the file read that Chase employees were not permitted to provide any further clarifying information to the customer.’”

NCRF Executive Director Justin Murff reached out for more information but was told the decision was made at the “corporate” level and was “final and nonrevocable”.

“Why the cancellation? Why the secrecy and lack of transparency? Why was Chase hiding its reasons and intentions for closing the account of a client that seeks to serve the public good and defend religious freedom for every person in America,” Brownback questioned. 

The bank later stated the group had not provided requested documentation in a 60-day timeframe, but Brownback notes the account was only open for 20 days before it was closed. 

“To this day, the NCRF does not have a clear reason as to why our account was closed after only three weeks,” he said. “We certainly hadn’t made any transactions in that short amount of time that would have triggered any regulatory red flags.”

Murff was later told by a Chase employee identified as “Chi-Chi” that it might be possible to continue the business relationship if NCRF could provide more information about the nonprofit’s activities. 
 
Specifically, they wanted a donor list, a list of political candidates NCRF intended to support, and a full explanation of the criteria by which they would endorse and support those candidates. 

“It was entirely inappropriate to ask for this type of information. Does Chase ask every customer what politicians they support and why before deciding whether or not to accept them as a customer?” Brownback asked in his op-ed.

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PayPal is still threatening to fine users $2,500 for promoting “intolerance that is discriminatory”

While PayPal has walked back its threat to fine users $2,500 for “misinformation,” the payments company is still reserving the right to fine users the same amount for other alleged transgressions.

In its current “Acceptable Use Policy,” which has been active for a year, PayPal states that: “Violation of this Acceptable Use Policy constitutes a violation of the PayPal User Agreement and may subject you to damages, including liquidated damages of $2,500.00 U.S. dollars per violation which may be debited directly from your PayPal account(s).”

And PayPal’s list of “prohibited activities,” which can trigger this $2,500 fine, include any activities that relate to transactions involving “intolerance that is discriminatory,” “the promotion of hate,” and “items that are considered obscene.”

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Judge dismisses case over FBI raid of 1,400 private safe-deposit boxes and seizure of millions in jewelry and cash

A judge ruled on September 29 that federal agents who raided 1,400 safe-deposit boxes in March 2021 at a private vault company did not violate search and seizure laws, court documents shared with Insider show. 

A lawsuit filed in August alleged the FBI and the US attorney’s office in Los Angeles obtained warrants against US Private Vaults in Beverly Hills, California, by concealing critical details from the judge who approved them. 

In his ruling, District Court Judge R. Gary Klausner found no impropriety in the way the government got or executed the warrants for the raid. He dismissed the class-action suit filed on behalf of the people whose boxes had been seized.

The vault company was shut down following the raid and pleaded guilty to conspiracy to launder drug money.

Laura Eimiller, a spokesperson for the FBI, told Insider: “Today’s District Court ruling makes it clear that agents investigating criminal activity at US Private Vaults did not mislead the court and affirms the FBI’s position that the investigation was conducted without malice and in a manner consistent with the law, FBI policies and the US Constitution.”

The lawsuit was filed after FBI agents raided the Beverly Hills branch of US Private Vaults, seizing more than $86 million in cash, as well as jewelry and gold from 1,400 safe-deposit boxes. It said owners’ items still had not been returned and that agents misled a judge to get the warrant.

None of the people who owned the boxes has been charged after almost five years of investigating; various agencies concluded “the problem was the business itself,” court documents said.

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Hacker Sentenced to Probation, No Prison Time, for Data Breach Affecting 100 Million People

A former tech worker from Seattle who was convicted of multiple charges related to the massive hack of Capital One bank and other firms back in 2019 has been sentenced to five years of probation after pleading mental illness.

Paige A. Thompson, 37, used a tool to scan Amazon Web Services (AWS) accounts to identify those which were misconfigured. She then used these misconfigured accounts to hack into networks of over 30 entities and download data, obtaining the personal information of over 100 million people. The data breach forced Capital One to reach a tentative $190 million settlement with affected customers. Capital One was fined $80 million by the Treasury Department for failing to protect data.

Thompson also planted cryptocurrency mining software on the hacked servers, collecting the income generated from such mining. Arrested in July 2019, she was found guilty by a federal jury in June 2022 following a seven-day trial.

On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Robert S. Lasnik sentenced Thompson to time served plus five years of probation, including location and computer monitoring.

During the sentencing, Lasnik noted that time in prison would be “particularly difficult” for Thompson due to her being transgender and having mental health issues.

U.S. Attorney Nick Brown said that he was “disappointed” with the court’s decision and insisted that this is not what “justice looks like.”

“Ms. Thompson’s hacking and theft of information of 100 million people did more than $250 million in damage to companies and individuals. Her cybercrimes created anxiety for millions of people who are justifiably concerned about their private information. This conduct deserves a more significant sanction,” Brown said.

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How Senator Biden Helped Create The Student Debt Crisis President Biden Is Pretending To Fix

There’s a lot that’s wrong with Biden’s student debt forgiveness plan — morally, economically, and legally. The plan is fundamentally unfair; many experts think it will be inflationary, and it’s almost surely illegal under Supreme Court case law. But that’s not the whole story: As a senator in 2005, Joe Biden pushed changes in bankruptcy law on behalf of the credit card industry that helped precipitate the student debt crisis.

There is indeed a student debt crisis. About 45 million Americans owe something like $1.6 trillion in student loans. Most of the debt is owed to the government. But a sizeable chunk (about 8 percent) is owed to private lenders.

In general, borrowers burdened by too much debt and unable to pay their loans can usually discharge them in a personal bankruptcy case. Some debts, particularly those owed to the government, are not dischargeable. But consumer loans and credit card debts generally are dischargeable. Before 2005, young people who were overwhelmed by student loans from private lenders were able to get relief by filing for bankruptcy. Even student loans from the government had been dischargeable before 1976, though that was later changed.

The upside of bankruptcy for the debtor is that the slate is wiped clean. But there’s a major downside to bankruptcy: Your credit rating is shattered. You’re a proven bad risk, and if lenders deal with you at all in the future, they’re likely to demand high-interest rates or substantial collateral or both. But that’s just as it should be: You shouldn’t be able to walk away from your debts and stiff your creditors with no consequences at all. Fear of being branded a bad risk is a healthy incentive either not to borrow too much or to pay up if you can.

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Bank executive pushes personal carbon wallets that allocate “emission rights” to citizens

A senior executive at the multinational banking and financial services company Rabobank has called for personalized carbon wallets that give individual citizens “emission rights” and allow wealthier citizens to buy emission rights from those who can’t afford to fly.

Barbara Baarsma, who is the CEO of Rabo Carbon Bank, a division of Rabobank that allows its customers to buy and sell CO2 credits, announced her proposal for personalized carbon wallets during an appearance on the Dutch radio station BNR Newsradio.

“What if we now have all the remaining rights we still have when it comes to the emission of CO2 equivalents, greenhouse gases?” Baarsma said. “If we just let everyone start the Netherlands distributing emission rights and that every household or every citizen and amount get emission rights until we have money.”

Baarsma continued by proposing that these emission rights could be managed via a personalized “carbon wallet” and noted that wealthier citizens who want to fly can buy emissions rights from citizens that don’t have the money to fly.

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BANK OF AMERICA MEMO, REVEALED: “WE HOPE” CONDITIONS FOR AMERICAN WORKERS WILL GET WORSE

A BANK OF AMERICA executive stated that “we hope” working Americans will lose leverage in the labor market in a recent private memo obtained by The Intercept. Making predictions for clients about the U.S. economy over the next several years, the memo also noted that changes in the percentage of Americans seeking jobs “should help push up the unemployment rate.”

The memo, a “Mid-year review” from June 17, was written by Ethan Harris, the head of global economics research for the corporation’s investment banking arm, Bank of America Securities. Its specific aspiration: “By the end of next year, we hope the ratio of job openings to unemployed is down to the more normal highs of the last business cycle.”

The memo comes amid a push by the Federal Reserve to “cool down” the economy, informed by much of the same rationale — that high wages are driving inflation. This year, the Fed has increased interest rates for the first time since 2018. Historically, this has often caused recessions, and that is exactly what appears to be happening now: The Commerce Department reported Thursday that the gross domestic product has fallen for the second quarter in a row, indicating that a recession may have already begun.

Parts of the mid-year review, in particular its emphasis on a looming recession, received press coverage at the time of the memo’s release to clients. This is the first publication of the document in full.

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What Is the FBI Trying To Hide About Its Raid on Innocent Americans’ Safe Deposit Boxes?

First, the FBI raided a private business to seize safe deposit boxes and assets belonging to hundreds of people who were not suspected of having committed any crimes.

Now, prosecutors are trying to keep the public in the dark about why the brazen forfeiture effort was undertaken in the first place—and are offering little justification for why such secrecy is necessary.

Four depositions that could be crucial to understanding the motivations and intentions behind the FBI’s March 2021 raid of U.S. Private Vaults, a Beverly Hills–based safe deposit box storage business, are being kept confidential at the request of federal prosecutors. Attorneys representing some victims of the raid say the depositions could contain important information about how and why the FBI decided to seize and catalog the private belongings of U.S. Private Vault’s customers. They have asked the federal judge handling the case to allow the transcripts of those depositions—including one interview with Lynn Zellhart, the FBI’s lead agent in the case—to be filed in their entirety.

Unless Judge R. Gary Klausner allows the depositions to be made public, attorneys for the plaintiffs will have to continue heavily redacting their filings in the case. That might be sufficient to address the acute legal issues in the lawsuit, but it obviously harms the general public’s right to be informed about the bigger issues at stake.

(Reason, which has been covering this case since the beginning, plans to file a brief requesting that the depositions be unsealed.)

“If the government is successful, it means that the public will have only an incomplete window on what happened here,” Robert Johnson, an attorney at the Institute for Justice who is representing some of U.S. Private Vault’s customers, tells Reason. “That flips the public’s right of access on its head.”

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