Federal Consumer Bureau Accused of Trying To Drag Bankruptcy Group Into Data-Mining

Trustee program is intended to be independent and impartial

Serious allegations are being raised in the legal community that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has recruited the U.S. Trustee Program to collect bankruptcy data on its behalf to aid a controversial data-mining program.

Documents obtained by the Washington Examiner describe efforts by the CFPB to collect a decade's worth of private financial data on the consumer behavior of five million American citizens without their knowledge or consent. The CFPB data-mining campaign has alarmed privacy watchdogs.

The USTP was created by Congress in 1978 to be a rigorously neutral agency within the U.S. Department of Justice. Its attorneys are supposed to be "impartial" and to serve as a "watchdog over the bankruptcy process," according to the agency's website.

If USTP is aiding CFPB's data-mining program in any manner, bankruptcy authorities argue it would constitute an "unprecedented" violation of the organization's reason for being and destroy its independence.