Imagine Congress enacting a law providing that every trade you or your broker makes in the stock market must be reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission for storage in a government database. This forced surrender is analytically no different from reporting your shopping to the government, or a requirement that your doctor send your DNA to the FBI, except that the financial stakes are much, much higher.
These records can be accessed with no warrant by as many as 3,000 people at the SEC and self-regulatory organizations (SRO)—as estimated at a recent Senate Banking Committee Hearing. Worse, your sensitive personal information will sit in a single database ripe for hacking by sophisticated cybercriminals known to operate from China and Russia. Your presumption of innocence and loss of financial privacy are additional casualties.
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