Americans who shopped at sporting goods stores and bought religious books “like a Bible” were flagged through their banks as potential domestic terrorists, Rep. Jim Jordan revealed Jan. 17.
The federal government also flagged as potential criminals any transactions that involved the terms “MAGA” or “Trump,” the House Judiciary Committee chairman said. These Americans were tagged as possible “violent extremists” with zero due process or even notification of this criminalization of their constitutional rights to property, free speech, consent to their government’s activities, and religious exercise. The federal government even asked for surveillance of Americans’ messages on private payment apps like Zelle, a competitor to Venmo.
We now know the federal government flagged terms like “MAGA” and “TRUMP,” to financial institutions if Americans completed transactions using those terms.
What was also flagged? If you bought a religious text, like a BIBLE, or shopped at Bass Pro Shop. pic.twitter.com/jjRaVNItWz
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) January 17, 2024
So if you’ve shopped at a sporting goods store, including Cabela’s, Bass Pro Shops, Dick’s Sporting Goods, or myriad gun retailers, you could be flagged to law enforcement as “Lone Actor/Homegrown Violent Extremism.” All these retailers and dozens more appeared on a list Jordan found that a federal financial crime agency distributed to instruct bank employees in how to criminalize their fellow Americans’ religious and political ideas.
“In other words,” Jordan writes in a letter released yesterday, the federal government “urged large financial institutions to comb through the private transactions of
