Consumer Financial 'Protection' Bureau Hoovers, Stores and Shares Your Information

Reason

There's a reason why "we're from the government and we're here to help you" has become a cynical joke, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is a big part of the punch line. Supposedly established "to make markets for consumer financial products and services work for Americans," the CFPB apparently interprets its mission the way every other government agency interprets its mission: as a carte blanche to build massive databases and wield the stored information as a key to power. The CFPB uses its authority to force American businesses to surrender data on their customers, which is then compiled and shared with the bureau's very special friends.

From Investors Business Daily:

Big Brother is watching you — in even more ways than previously known. It turns out the National Security Agency and Internal Revenue Service aren't the only federal agencies gathering sensitive information about you.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, created by the Dodd-Frank financial reform, is collecting reams of data on your bill-paying and spending habits.

In fact, the Obama administration is compiling a massive database of personal information, including monthly credit card, mortgage, car and other payments.

The data will be warehoused by private contractors and shared with other federal agencies and Congress, as well as researchers in the field.

You can trust the CFPB to be careful with all of that sensitive information, right? Except … Except, "CFPB's own inspector general recently cited 'weaknesses' in its security program. His findings were corroborated by a Government Accountability Office report that expressed concerns about CFPB's data security."

Whoops.

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